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June 2005 Table of Contents
Special Feature
Lessons Learned
It was a beautiful Tuesday morning over a year ago when my secretary came into my office and confronted me about my internet pornography problem. That beautiful day turned stormy as I confronted my sinful behavior and confessed to my wife and began a process of recovery. Since then there have been days of clouds and says of sunshine, but the horizons are clear and bright as I continue on a path of freedom.
In an earlier article I shared my testimony about this experience and what an amazing blessing recovery has been in the months since. In this article I want to share some of the things I've learned and some of my personal insights about this experience.
But let me preface these thoughts by saying that I am by no means a professional therapist or counselor. No one should read this and take it as an authoritative resource for addiction recovery and freedom. These are just my personal thoughts and insights about what I have learned and experienced in my journey to freedom from internet porn.
First of all, I have discovered that I am not alone with this problem. I knew that others experienced similar temptations before I began recovery, but since I have been studying this issue I have learned that this problem is rampant in American society, and even in the church and among church leaders.
In 2001 The Christianity Today magazine conducted a survey in which they discovered that 33% of the clergy and 36% of the laymen who responded had visited a sexually explicit web site in the last year. In the survey 18% of the clergy respondents said they visited pornographic web sites regularly. Also in 2001 Leadership Journal reported that one-third of responding pastors admitted to looking at porn on the web.
This past year Chuck Swindoll wrote a letter to pastors calling internet pornography the number one secret problem in the church. In that letter he cited studies that suggest that fully half the people attending the evangelical church on a given Sunday are currently or have been viewing explicit images on their computer.
This past Spring I attended a retreat with over 300 other men. In the very first session the speaker, a noted seminary professor said "In a group of men this size it's very likely that a third to a half of you have a significant problem with internet pornography." I had heard that statement in similar settings before and felt a surge of conviction about my problem. It was an incredible blessing to feel affirmation that day rather than conviction, and to know that while that would have applied to me in the past, it did not then and does not today.
The fear that I was alone and that no one else would understand my problem was a powerful shackle that kept me in bondage to pornography. Since then I have learned that I was not alone and in fact you can find people who understand and will help.
The day my secretary confronted me I realized that I needed help and could no longer try to overcome my problem on my own. That became an important lesson later. I have since realized that I could never have won this battle alone. I had tried the "Lone Ranger" approach to overcoming porn before and had failed time and time again. I knew that the only way I would be able to win once and for all was to admit my problem to others and to ask for help.
I began this painful process with the group of men that I am closest to. In this process I stumbled on another powerful lesson. As I began to study recover material I learned that an accountability GROUP is necessary for a recovering addict. I had heard of men working with individual accountability partners before, and had even been in similar relationships myself in the past. But fear and pride had always kept me from being totally honest about my real problems.
As I began to confess and ask forgiveness from this group of peers and friends, I naturally began assembling an accountability group that would become invaluable in my recovery. Each man was naturally gifted to work with me in one particular area of my life, and was willing and glad to do so.
It was excruciating to call these men, most of whom I had known for years, and confess that I had been living a double life in their midst. But this act of confession helped to start to liberate me from shame and fear, and established for me a network of accountability covering just about every area of my life and ministry.
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