“I was a teenager who became addicted to pornography while growing up in a Christian home. It began with the Farrah Fawcett poster, JC Penney catalogs, and Playboy magazines. Then in 1995, I got a computer with Internet access that provided easy access to an unlimited supply of images and videos and drove me to new levels of pornography and sex addiction. I attended Bible college in Birmingham to prepare for the ministry and prayed that God would end this addiction, but that didn’t help. Neither did marrying my college sweetheart. Pornography sexualized my concept of intimacy, and sex with my wife did not solve his problem. 

Real intimacy is letting yourself be fully known. Intimacy brings the possibility of being rejected and sex addiction is the inability to connect in intimate ways. I avoided rejection at all costs, even with my wife. Pornography provided the physical release of sex without requiring emotional connection and vulnerability. When you’re scared of vulnerability and rejection, why risk a relationship when you think you can get what you need online? Stress and self-doubt, two of my triggers, increased after I became a worship pastor in Birmingham. I disengaged from my family, eventually living a double life. There was no one I could talk to, so I tried to keep it secret and run out the clock.

Pornography affects your brain chemistry. Like all addictions, it escalates and keeps requiring more to achieve the same sense of satisfaction. Men are visually aroused without a need for a relationship, but a naked photo doesn’t do it for long. I needed more graphic images, extremes, and novelty to be aroused. Eventually, I crossed lines I said I would never cross, including sex outside of marriage. The narrative became my wife was not enough and was not meeting my needs. In 2009, I sent an email arranging for a hook-up, accidentally sending it from my church email account. I was discovered and fired, but through my wife’s grace and forgiveness, our marriage survived. It took getting caught and having everything fall apart to save my life. I began a life of recovery from addiction and learned that sex is not the answer to the spiritual or relational voids in life. In 2015, we started a nonprofit recovery ministry called Awaken to help people find freedom from sexual addiction.

God wants us to have healthy, intimate sex lives, but pornography is not the way to do it. 97 percent of boys and 83 percent of girls look at porn and 11 is the average age they start looking at it. Being a good kid and looking at porn aren’t mutually exclusive. Porn indoctrinates our kids early with a wrong message about sex and what they need. It is not based in reality. Parents have to engage early and often with their children if they are going to have any chance of a healthy view of sex.”

This is Greg’s story from “My Gut Knew Something was Wrong.” Part two in the series “Sexual Slavery in South Alabama.” It is in the Lagniappe this week or you can read it online at www.lagniappemobile.com.  Here is more information about Greg and Stacey’s Awaken ministry: https://awakenrecovery.com/