The Addiction, part ii

a true story

by David Chipp-Smith

This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect his privacy.

Please note that this article may contain some very sensitive material and may offend some readers.

Read part one HERE if you missed last month...

John was getting sick and tired of going through the cycle. He hated himself and the feelings of disappointment he saw in his wife Sandra's eyes when she found out that he succumbed to his temptations. He was getting extremely upset at himself the moment he had finished masturbating. He knew something had to change. The only problem has been that he has made this decision before and had asked a number of men to be accountability partners. He made a phone call to me to be his latest accountability partner. So, we set up a meeting at a Tim Horton's located between our houses. At our first meeting, we decided on a daily check-in where either John called me, or I called him to check in on his daily progress. John had a major problem with lust in all areas. In addition, we also set up weekly face-to-face meetings where we would sit down and discuss how the week was. We also set some guidelines. For example, he had to be completely honest in his conversations and had to be extremely serious about over-coming this addiction. As long as he was serious, I would be devoted to helping him out.

The calls were made on a daily basis. John was giving me a daily tally on his struggles and I was giving him some re-enforcement and reminding him of his goals. Our face to face meetings were very productive. John had some minor set backs, like looking lustfully at another woman and thinking dirty thoughts, but all in all he started to notice what he was doing and was stopping the behaviour almost as soon as it began. He was making some real progress in a short amount of time. In our first scheduled face-to-face meeting, John was pleased to report that he was noticing a real difference. He was catching himself more and more before he thought lustful thoughts. He was learning to 'bounce the eys'. 'Bouncing the eyes' is a technique in which once you see a woman and you begin to instantly look at 'her assests' (for lack of a better word) you immediately look somewhere else. This will interrupt the thought pattern that you are starting and you will begin to focus on other things. John was having great success at work, when he was on the road, and when he was watching television. He was feeling pretty good about himself for his self-control. A few days after our meeting, John called to inform me that he slipped, and slipped pretty bad. He was staying up at night to prepare his body for midnight shifts at work and he started cruising on-line web sites. He did not have a filter on his computer and immediately proceeded to cruise the dark side of the internet. John stated, 'after a little time looking at some of the pictures on-line, I knew deep inside that what I was doing was wrong. But Dave, it felt so good that I couldn't control myself until I was finished masturbating. I then had a shower and cried. I couldn't believe I gave into it again. But it felt so good that I couldn't stop!' As human beings, we are psychologically motivated by two different feelings. Pleasure and pain. We naturally gravitate to pleasure and immediately recoil from pain. The problem with John was that the pleasure was more intense, even for those few minutes than the pain that he felt for hours and days after. Pornography on the internet is a very powerful and dangerous thing. 1 in 3 church-going men are hooked on internet porn. It is relatively easy to view, easy to hide, and it is somewhat anonymous. After all, no one in the pews around you will ever know. Not even your wife. That lack of accountability is very dangerous. But we need to remember one thing: God is always watching.

So John was extremely disappointed with himself. After we prayed together, John re-committed himself to start again and to stay sexually pure. the calls kept coming with great reports. He was again making progress. He noticed again that his relationship with Sandra was getting better. He was concentrating his lust and wants in her direction and their sex life was improving since all of his thoughts and needs were focused on her. Then, he fell again. This time, he was feeling pretty stressed again after a long day at work. He was alone at home and the computer was on. 'I knew I needed to stay away, but I couldn't help myself again' he told me later. He again succumbed to the porn on the internet. At this point, I received a call from Sandra. 'Dave, what can I do?' she asked. We decided that drastic action needed to be taken. Sandra and I devised a plan to keep John away from the internet when he was alone. Sandra changed all the passwords to get on-line. Since they had dial-up, that was easy to do. But, the pain was that she would have to log-in every time instead of in automatically logging in when they went on-line. But this was something that needed to be done. So whenever Sandra called it a night and went to bed, no matter what John was doing, the internet connection was turned off. John could not have access to the internet when he was alone because the temptation was getting too much for him to bear. This took away another temptation and another avenue that John had used to feed his addiction.

An addiction, any kind of addiction, does not happen overnight. -- PAGE 2 --->