Learning to choose liberty, not captivity

Well, this is my very first post on here. I feel like I need to share my story. So here goes.

I have struggled on and off with PMO for at least 16 years now, but only within the past year have I started to really open up about my addiction. I feel that I have made good progress in beginning to understand myself and what makes me the way that I am, but there is still so much to learn and so much to accomplish.

It all started innocently enough in elementary school with one of those "magazine collage" projects, you know when the teacher asks the class to bring in magazines from home that everyone may use, and then the project is to flip through them and cut out pictures to go along with a specific theme (e.g., hobbies, favorite foods, sports, etc.) Well, one of the magazines that I grabbed turned out to have pornographic photos inside. It wasn't a Playboy or anything like that - the cover had a cool car that I wanted to cut out - it was just some random, stupid magazine that unfortunately would forever change my 9-year-old brain. I still remember it like it was yesterday - I was flipping through, looking for pictures and BAM, I stumbled upon a few pages that had pictures of naked people in a forest, probably nature enthusiasts or something to that effect. I was totally shocked, yet instantly curious. I knew it was wrong but didn't know what to do. I remember staring at these pictures, flipping a few pages further, then coming back to them again, careful to not let the other kids at my table see what I was doing. I vaguely remember bringing this to my teacher's attention, and she promptly threw it away in the trash and told me to go get a different magazine. But the damage had already been done. The seed of curiosity had been planted. And I was already watering it by the time I got home from school that day.

I kept this incident secret for a very long time. I knew those pictures were bad and I felt guilty for having seen them. I think I believed I would get in trouble if I told my parents about it. A few years passed and I got to junior high school. With the arrival of high speed internet and free time after school, it was only a matter of time that my curiosity led me to start seeking out similar images again. My parents had filters on the computers, but we all know that filters can't block out everything. I figured out how to see images of soft-core porn through eBay, and really from there I don't think it took me very long to get around the filter and eventually visit hard-core porn sites in my early teens.

Now let me clarify: my parents did not fail me. My parents have been nothing less than loving and supportive. My dad struggled with PMO even after I was born and he's told me a lot about his own personal story. He gets it. I remember having the sex talk with him at an early age. We talked about good images and bad images, private parts, etc. I knew I shouldn't be doing what I was. But that was the fun of it! I literally got a rush out of PMO. It was like Russian Roulette with no bullets, or so I thought. I saw no harm, and if I could do it behind everyone's back, what was the big deal? I liked seeing how far I could go without getting caught, and was already hooked on the images and videos I was watching. Little did I know that with every image, every video, every second wasted on porn I was feeling more and more superior to women. I saw (and still struggle with seeing them) as nothing more than objects. I became a master at hiding my addiction and feelings. And any time that I did get caught or questioned, I would always lie my way out, blaming it on "pop-ups." This worked until my parents looked at the browser and search histories. I was caught red-handed, and I knew it. We had a big talk about my actions and I felt sorry for the first time about my addiction.

Around this time, I got an Xbox, complete with Xbox Live to play games online with my friends. If you ever want to blow a bigger crater in your brain on top of porn, do it with violent video games and unfiltered, constant vulgarity coming through a headset. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, Battlefield - I loved to play anything with guns and gore. And the online experience was unreal - getting to team up with friends, trash talk strangers, make progress and level up. I played almost everyday in my teens. My argument was that "Well, I could be doing worse things (i.e., looking at porn, drugs, messing around with girls). My parents agreed and were ok with me playing, as long as I kept up on my homework and studies. What they didn't know is how much filth, anger, vulgarity, profanity, violence, and sex talk was coming through my headphones every time I played. Sure, you don't always have to listen in the lobbies while waiting to play against strangers and we sometimes did group chat instead, but we always enjoyed trash talking. And all of us started participating in and adapting the "standard Xbox Live" vocabulary, including the aforementioned categories, especially the sex talk and joking about sex terms that we had no business doing. Yet I continued playing and desensitizing myself to violence and degrading language. These were my friends that I saw at school everyday. This was how we hung out after school and bonded. And we were really good at these video games. There was definitely a sense of pride about being better than other people. But again, I could be doing worse things. I didn't do drugs, I didn't smoke, I didn't drink. I got straight A's in school. But I do attribute Xbox Live as fueling my ongoing porn addiction. The constant banter, sex talk, and desensitization to violence definitely played a part in me still secretly seeking out porn on and off during these middle to late teenage years.

I had another hobby too: drumming. I started drumming around age 8 or 9 and have found it to be my passion now. My parents were brave enough to buy me a drum set, enrolled me in lessons, and I turned out to have a natural ability to "find the beat." Growing up, I took weekly drum set lessons and progressed at a fast rate. I played in everything I could: the school band, jazz band, orchestra, pep band. I played in recitals and would have jam sessions with my friends too. Drumming was (and is) a positive way of expressing myself.

When I got to high school, my life was basically 4 things: school, drums, Xbox Live, and church. I still played Xbox when I had time, but was heavily involved in school activities and music. I always put school first, though. I was a straight A student - graduated with a 4.0 GPA, although I didn't do as well on the ACT as I wanted. I learned to work and study hard, and found that I had a powerful mind, even though I filled it with so much filth. I still don't know how that worked out. I also met new friends outside of my "Xbox Live crew" who I would hang out with. We had a lot of the same classes and they were just good guys who had a positive influence on me. I still struggled with PMO, but not as much. My senior year of high school, I remember going 9 months without PMO, which was the most progress I had ever made. During my junior and senior years especially, I knew that I wanted to seriously pursue music. I was still taking drum set lessons but started to learn how to play other percussion instruments as well. I applied to several universities in my state and was accepted to one of them, studying music. I went to school for a year, then decided to serve a 2-year service mission for my church.

I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, which is home to a lot of "Mormons" - a nickname for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am a member of this Church and wanted to share the joy it brings me with others. Young men as early as age 18 and women as early as 19 in this Church can go on 2-year service missions around the world (maybe you've seen/heard of Mormon missionaries before). The process to become a missionary is rigorous. You need to be in good physical and spiritual shape. Pornography damages our spirit and a lot of missionaries struggle with PMO before "cleaning up their act" and embarking on a mission. The purpose of these missions is to invite others to come unto Jesus Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel. Throughout the two years, we spend all of our time seeking to share this message with all who want to hear it. We talk to strangers on the street, knock on doors, meet with members of the church in the area we are assigned to serve in, complete service projects, and just try to help people in any way possible. We meet with the people who want to know more and we teach them about Jesus Christ and His church, inviting them to enrich their lives and follow the restored gospel, improving their relationship with God and Jesus Christ in the process. We live a very demanding schedule (16+ hour days) and do not participate in any worldly entertainment (TV, sports, video games, movies, music) and are only allowed to write our families and friends weekly. We can also call our families on Mother's Day and Christmas. There are missionaries throughout the entire world, not just in the U.S. because the LDS Church is a world-wide organization. PMO nearly kept me from being worthy to go on a mission, but I was able to stop long enough to get my mission assignment and leave. I filled out my paperwork (which is sent to the Church headquarters in Salt Lake City, where the Prophet and 12 Apostles receive revelation as to where all of the future missionaries should serve) and was assigned to live in Ukraine and learn the Russian language. All new missionaries first go to what is called the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. English-speaking missionaries usually stay for only a few days, then fly to their mission locations. But foreign-speaking missionaries stay here for 9-12 weeks, learning to speak and teach in their assigned language from teachers who learned the same language as missionaries themselves. So I was first in Provo, Utah, learning how to say basic phrases and gospel terms in Russian for 12 weeks before arriving in Ukraine.

Going on this 2-year mission was by far the hardest thing I'd ever done (and will probably ever do) in my life. First off, here I am trying to overcome my PMO and God sends me to a place where pornography is freely available and visible on the streets! It was terribly difficult (among balancing my other weaknesses that my mission taught me about myself) to dodge it everyday. Then there was the whole language barrier thing.. Russian is an incredibly complex language with many rules and difficult words to pronounce, especially if you can't roll your r's, which I couldn't. (Before arriving in Ukraine, though, I had a slight stutter and even speaking English was difficult for me and still is.) I had an EXTREMELY hard time speaking and communicating with people throughout my entire mission. The most frustrating thing for me was that I could understand people very well after living there some time, but could never truly express my feelings to them. And a lot of times I feel that this inability to properly communicate was a turnoff to them. I relied heavily on my companions (missionaries always do everything in pairs and have a companion, or partner) to do a lot of the talking, while I was good at listening. (I have since realized that I am definitely an introvert, so this makes sense.) Ukrainian and Russian people, though I learned to love them, are super impatient. So if you aren't able to speak up, they just blow you off. There were incidents where we were physically threatened and harassed for being American as well, and so had to always be cautious of who we talked to and the areas that we visited. Concerning porn, despite its constant availability and me accidentally seeing it several times, I went my whole mission without purposely seeking it out, which was huge for me.
Overall, my time spent as a missionary was amazing. I grew in so many ways and was the closest to God and Jesus Christ I've ever been in my whole life.

While in Ukraine, I saw many miracles, but a lot of depressing things as well. I met many people who struggled with addiction, especially smoking, alcohol and narcotics. We would explain to these people that a big part of God's plan for us is to learn to use our agency for good. In fact, agency is one of the biggest gifts that God has given to us, next to our body. There is a great scripture from the Book of Mormon that I learned to love while on my mission: "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself" (2 Nephi 2:27). This scripture fits well with a verse from the New Testament: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." (1 Corinthians 10:13). There is always a choice to give into our addictions or look to God in faith for help to overcome them. The way to overcome them is through Christ's Atonement. He has already suffered for our sins so that we don't have to. Through faith in Christ, we can find the power to be healed and the strength needed to push forward.

I came home after my mission thinking that I had defeated PMO, but within 2 months or so was right back into my old ways. I had a smartphone and it was way too easy to gain access again. I kept hiding my actions, would lie about it, felt worthless, would repent, tell myself I'd stop but never could. I wasn't acting out everyday and sometimes I'd go several weeks with no relapse, but at my very worst I would only last 1-2 days. And it was easy for me to hide it because I had a lot of things going well for me. I continued to excel academically and musically and so no one would suspect that I struggled with this. For so long after my mission, I thought I could overcome this on my own, but it never worked. It wasn't until this past year that I finally realized that I am totally powerless and need God's help with this. I started to attend Addiction Recovery Meetings and as I mentioned earlier, am learning a lot about myself in the process.

Porn addiction is a lifetime thing. I can't just "quit" - I'll always be an addict. I can be an addict in recovery, but it doesn't just go away. It's no different than alcoholics - they can be sober for 5 years but slip right back in with a single drink. I can only take life one day at a time, strive to have better control of my thoughts, study, keep attending meetings, pray, and surround myself with positive influences (music is big for me in this sense). Even marriage can't magically "fix" this and make it go away. I truly hope to have it under control when that time comes in my life, but I plan on telling my wife about it before marriage. She deserves to know and I'm going to need her by my side to help me fight. It honestly pains me that I'm going to have to tell her all of this. My future family deserves a version of myself that is better than where I currently am. As of today, I still don't have this under control. But I'm working on it. I have found hope for the first time in my life because I've started to let God help me with this instead of trying to hide and overcome it on my own. I am now seeing the many negative effects of PMO in my life, hate who I've become, and want to change for the better. God has blessed me with a lot of amazing opportunities in life so far. I know that He is real and loves everyone with an incomprehensible love. I need to remind myself of this more often.

I have almost been home from my mission in Ukraine for 4 years. I am currently in graduate school pursuing my Master's Degree in Music, living on my own, and am only now seeing what God was trying to teach me: I am no different than the people I met and taught in Ukraine. Everyone has to carry their cross in life, be it alcohol, gambling, drugs. Mine is PMO. I, along with everyone in this world, am free to choose liberty or captivity on a daily basis because God has granted us agency to do so. I know all too well the setbacks and heartache that come with choosing captivity and I want to be done with this. But whatever our choice, He has provided a way for us to repent and make it back to Him again. And that is through Jesus Christ, the great Mediator of all men. His Atonement is real. He stands at the door of our soul ready to come into our life, but we have to let Him in.

I look forward to reading other people's stories/insights here and continuing to learn more each day.