Part Two: Pathways to Healing

In my first article, I spoke about the role my parents' divorce played in the development of my addiction to pornography and masturbation.  In this second part, I want to share my journey toward healing.  The last twelve years have very much been the rollercoaster that is addiction recovery. My path has often been one of two steps forward and at least one backward.

In my senior year of high school, I had a fairly dramatic reversion to the Catholic faith, one very much driven by the sense that I was not alone, that despite my parents’ choices and despite my own misguided and harmful attempts to cope, God had not abandoned me.  With that came a renewed desire for freedom from pornography and masturbation.

I distinctly remember sitting in my bedroom in front of the computer in January, having just viewed pornography and masturbated.  I thought to myself, "Is this who you want to be when you graduate high school in a few months?  Aren't you made for more than this?"  

I had only opened up about my addiction for the first time a few months earlier, in a small group at a high school retreat.  As I cautiously began sharing this secret part of my life with others – friends, priests, and eventually even my parents – I never got the reaction I had long feared, something like "What kind of sick perverted monster are you?” 

Instead, the reactions generally fell into three categories:  

1.  It's not a big deal.  There’s nothing wrong with it.

2. I struggle with this as well, but I'm just as lost as you.

3. This is a problem, but just keep going to Confession and praying and fasting and eventually this will all magically go away.

The first two answers had little of interest to offer me, so as I entered college I invested wholeheartedly in the third approach.  To my surprise, I was actually incredibly successful by some measures. During my entire four years of undergraduate not once did I view pornography.

What I failed to see were the other factors at work, those that would ultimately necessitate a fourth option.  By and large I didn't understand the difference between sobriety and healing. Healing is not about going a certain number of days without acting out.  It's regaining the identity I lost as a beloved son of the Father and recovering the freedom for the love for which I was made.  

I was caught up in the external mile markers rather than the deeper transformation God desired.  Maintaining sobriety depended on the exertion of my will over and above the enduring brokenness, an approach I later learned is often referred to as “white-knuckling” in recovery circles.

Looking back, my success was more likely due to moving into a dorm where there was stability and accountability, no more shuffling between houses each weekend and instead a roommate around to see if I was up to no good. I established firm boundaries in my relationship with my mother and found distance from the emotional strain of her lies and manipulation.

I also found a new group of friends at college who shared my love of the faith and genuinely cared about me. They held no bias toward my family situation based on the impressions my mom had created, so when I opened up about what had transpired, they believed me. I had a community. For the first time in ten years, I had connection.

But I still did not understand how the trauma from my childhood and that resulting “vow” to avoid intimacy were the lifeline for my addiction, nor how unresolved emotional pain would always lurk beneath a superficial sobriety, looking for an opportunity to erupt.

The first signs that this was true were the sexual parasomnias that developed around six months into college. These have baffled my therapists and sleep specialists to this day, but they undermined my belief that willpower alone was sufficient for healing.  In those moments when my will gave way at least in part to sleep, the repressed pain bubbled to the surface.

The insufficiency of my approach became even clearer after graduation when I relapsed for the first time.  Away in a new city for graduate school, I found myself deprived of the sort of community I'd had before.  Flying home for holidays and having to allocate time spent with each parent instead of relying on a court decision brought the old wounds back to the forefront.

Porn and masturbation were supposed to be behind me.  They were things from the past, when I had been a foolish teenager.  Now I was a faithful Catholic studying theology on scholarship.  What would people think?  It's one thing to disclose a past addiction to those you love. It's another to return to admit that the past isn't even past. The disillusionment, shame, and fear of scandal led me to tell no one outside the confessional.

Only once I moved back to Missouri after grad school did I begin second disclosures with friends and family. I realized healing was going to take more than willpower and attempts to pray my addiction away.  I started meeting regularly with a spiritual director and later a certified sex addiction therapist.  I began reading about addiction and having conversations about it with others.

At the same time, many of my college friends were embarking upon marriage and family life. Comparing their experiences to my own, I saw the sense of shame and inadequacy my addiction had generated and how that reinforced my childhood vow. That was the start of understanding my addiction less through the lens of lust management and more as a disordered intimacy.  At the age of twenty-five, after months of prayerful discernment and therapy, I witnessed that vow that had gripped my heart for fifteen years begin to break quite powerfully.

Despite this progress and stretches where my addiction felt in check, looking back I can see a pattern as I began to venture seriously into the realm of dating for the first time:

• Addiction seemed in a stable place.  Decided to try dating.

• Met a woman and began a relationship.  

• Love for woman provided additional motivation for recovery.  All was well.

• Relationship ended in breakup.  Extra motivation lost.  Wounds from divorce reopened.  Avoidance of intimacy represented itself as right all along.

• Relapsed into addiction until bottoming out. 

• Recommitted to recovery.

• Repeat.

I still hadn't wholeheartedly made recovery part of my daily routine, allowing it to influence all aspects of my life. That changed following a particularly tough breakup in 2018.  I knew I was stuck in a cycle and needed more.  I signed up for an online recovery program called Fortify.  Not only did it include hours of video content and reflection work, but it offered additional features like weekly support groups and coaching.  

I found a group there for Catholic men and joined. Over three years later I still hop on Zoom every Sunday night. I signed up for a recovery coach whom I continue to message daily. She happened to be a certified therapist and has not only offered guidance with addiction but has been in many ways both a mother and friend. 

The changes were noticeable.  The next breakup led to a single setback rather than a full-blown relapse.  The following breakup was the most intense I’ve had, and this time I was able to process the feelings and face the wounds.  I grew so much in emotional awareness and the ability to acknowledge my struggles with authenticity and humility rather than bury them in shame.

However, I still needed to address much of my childhood trauma.  It was a root still capable of feeding my addiction.  I was made for love, not just sobriety, and these wounds were obstacles.  This became most apparent during the pandemic when I was forced to become my mother's caregiver for a time.  Ultimately a fellow member of my recovery group who knew my background as an ACOD shared Life-Giving Wounds with me in 2020.  

The past two years involved in the ministry have given me a chance to reenter those most painful moments of the past with compassion, forgiveness, and hope.  More than anything, healing has come through doing the deep inner work of exploring my wounds and allowing them contact with those of Christ, to be transformed through the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.  

Finding freedom and healing that LASTS

I have heard the stories of too many others in recovery to envision a one-size-fits-all approach to healing.  I believe that God can bring healing in any way He desires, but much like the wounds of divorce, addiction is not generally something one simply overcomes after completing a bulleted list of steps.  It's a lifestyle.  I'm also by no means a recovery expert.  All I can do is share my own path.  And yet if I had to give advice to someone struggling with this addiction on finding healing that LASTS, I would offer the following acronym.

• Learn About Pornography’s Effects:   Given our current culture, I often found myself questioning whether pornography and masturbation were really that big of a deal.  Taking the time to look into the statistics and stories of the harm they cause helped me see this addiction for the problem that it is.  Discover how pornography hijacks the neurochemistry in your brain in the activation cycle.  Research the effects of betrayal trauma on spouses of addicts.  Read the stories of those trafficked, manipulated, and exploited in the mainstream pornography industry.  In the end, this is about raising awareness and remorse rather than fear and shame.  Two resources in this area that I've found influential are Matt Fradd’s The Porn Myth and much of the content from Fight the New Drug, particularly their documentary Brain, Heart, World.

• Ask Tough Questions:  For a long time I said that I didn’t want to look at porn, but when it actually came to making that a reality, I lacked the resolve for necessary changes.  I ultimately needed to be honest enough to ask where I was and where I was headed.  I needed questions with answers where I admitted that a part of me liked watching porn and that despite its evil nature, it had served a role in my life.  I also had to discover what I call my anchors – my motivations for wanting to be free from pornography and masturbation.  The now defunct but still available podcast Love People, Use Things has an episode that poses some of these questions, and they can also be found in written form on the website of Catholic recovery ministry Integrity Restored.

• See Patterns:  This is a hard process, as it involves examining the not so pleasant details of our lives, both past and present.  In many cases this requires the guidance and assistance of a therapist or other experienced individual. On one hand this could mean recognizing the circumstances in which you find yourself acting out. That could be time of day, location, means, and the presence of various triggers. The acronym I prefer with triggers is BLASTED – Bored, Lonely, Angry, Sad, Tired, Empty (particularly hungry or thirsty), and Dysregulated.  

One important side note is that porn and masturbation are not only male issues.  They are human struggles that plague women as well.  Many recovery resources cater exclusively to men, so if you are looking for a female perspective – like the role a woman’s cycle plays in addiction – I strongly recommend Magdala Ministries.  

Patterns in addiction run much deeper than the present moment and involve going back in our stories to understand what paved one’s road into addiction in the first place, like my parents’ divorce or body image issues. By far the best resource I've found here is Jay Stringer’s book Unwanted.

• Take Action: This is another difficult process, as it requires responding to the patterns you identify and making challenging choices.  If your phone is a constant source of trouble, maybe that means installing an app like Covenant Eyes or downgrading from a smartphone.  Perhaps you need to take a vacation from social media.  I went over a year at one point with no computer at home.  Maybe it means committing to a program like Strive or Fortify or scheduling sessions with a certified sex addiction therapist. There you will explore strategies related to your activation sequence. Once you identify triggering emotions and events in hindsight, you'll start to recognize them in real-time and will in many cases see them coming early enough to be proactive. 

Honestly the most impactful adjustments are often what seem indirect ones.  Maybe that’s changing your sleep, diet, prayer, exercise, work, or spending habits to promote better self-care.  Maybe it’s going on a Life-Giving Wounds retreat or seeking counseling regarding childhood trauma.  Maybe it's studying the beauty of human sexuality in its intended framework in order  to replace the damaging view that porn and masturbation are bad because sex is bad.

• Seek Connection:   The opposite of addiction is not sobriety but connection  This begins with connection with God. Make time for mental prayer and the sacraments, including confession in consultation with a spiritual director. Human connection is also pivotal. On one level that can mean others who are journeying in recovery. Sexaholics Anonymous has groups in many cities as well as phone groups.  The Twelve Steps might not be for everyone, and there are other options.  To this day I belong to an online recovery group of Catholic men that meets weekly.  I also have a recovery coach whom I message daily, and that connection has proven extremely beneficial in the challenging seasons.  

More than anything, it’s important to find positive and healthy supportive connections with others in general.  Explore outlets for your creativity. For me that has been poetry and baking cakes.  I know it can be difficult in the present age, but try to find a group in your parish, a local club, or a sports league.  Make close friends with whom you can be vulnerable.  It was finally letting others within arm’s reach of my heart that helped me break that “vow” I made two decades ago.

Healing from addiction isn’t easy or instantaneous. It certainly isn’t always enjoyable. Finding healing that LASTS takes a daily commitment. The mission of Life-Giving Wounds is to help foster the means for Christ to transform the wounds from our parents’ separation or divorce. The wounds of addiction to pornography and masturbation can find a similar transformation. I am on that path, and my prayer is that if you find yourself in struggles much like my own, you might receive the love, hope, and strength to continue on this journey as well.

Intercessory Prayer

St. Mary of Egypt, patron of chastity, pray for those who are struggling with sexual and pornographic addictions, and for those who are involved in its production.

[Editor’s addendum: In addition to the resources given by John, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has compiled a list of resources for those who are struggling with, or know someone struggling with, pornographic addiction. Also, another new ministry helping in pornography recovery is Fight Club Catholic.]

About the Author

John McLain lives in his home state of Missouri, which he often thinks might be etymologically connected to misery.  His parents divorced when he was nine. He went on to complete his Masters in Theology at the Augustine Institute and now teaches math and other wonderful ideas at a Catholic high school. John attended his first Life-Giving Wounds retreat online in the fall of 2020.  When not making the world a better place one pun at a time, he is either hoping a new baking experiment will pan out or leading off a conversation with baseball nerdiness. 

Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals

1. Have you struggled with addictions (porn or something else)? What were some of the anchors that kept you attached? How has the healing process gone, or how is it going?

2. Have you known someone who struggled with addiction? How did that impact your relationship with them?

3. What words of encouragement or support would you offer, or what actions would you take, to help someone in your life who is struggling with pornographic addiction?

4. Will you join us in praying for those who are wounded by addiction to pornography?