Chapter 5 – The Foundation of Freedom
Beginning in the next chapter of the book, I will begin detailing some of the most effective and impactful lessons I have learned on the road to freedom from my own addiction to pornography. These lessons, properly understood and implemented, can help anyone facing this challenge to succeed in gaining their own freedom. However, the full power and impact of these upcoming lessons cannot be fully realized without, at the same time, implementing a firm foundation to your recovery program. The foundation of my successful recovery and that of many fellow-addicts with long-term sobriety that I know is an active and on-going involvement in a good twelve-step recovery group.
When I began recovery, as I have previously mentioned, the group I was a part of was studying the SA White Book – a book firmly based on the twelve-step recovery model. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I was spiritually reborn through the twelve-step process. By learning about and walking through the twelve steps of recovery, I learned about accepting myself for who I was – a valued and loved child of a Higher Power, despite my own personal and moral failings. I began to learn to separate my poor choices and bad behavior from the unique and valued human being that I was in the eyes of my Creator, and to begin to gain freedom from the toxic and destructive power of shame. Far from causing me to deny the wrongs I had done, learning these lessons helped me accept responsibility for my behavior, begin to make amends for the damage that I helped to inflict on myself and others, and receive forgiveness from my Higher Power for those wrongs. I also learned how to receive forgiveness from other people (and my Higher Power) when it was offered to me.
For those who know nothing about twelve-step programs, a brief history lesson is in order. Bill Wilson, a veteran of World War I, had risen to a reasonably affluent lifestyle as a result of his business acumen on Wall Street, and subsequently lost it all due to alcoholism. His path, should I describe it here, would be easily recognizable to anyone who has lived the life of an addict – a rollercoaster ride on a continual downward slope to destruction. Bill was an agnostic – a person who believed that there was some ultimate power in the universe, but who was not convinced of any particular religion’s take on who or what that power might be. After being in and out of the hospital many times he had come to financial ruin yet again, but this time, something was different. He had finally realized that alcoholism had defeated him personally and that he was powerless in its grip.
It was while Bill Wilson was in this state that an old school friend and fellow alcoholic called him on the telephone, claiming that he had finally gotten free from the addiction to alcohol. Bill agreed to meet with this friend, who came to his home and shared his own story of recovery from alcoholism. His friend’s path to recovery had a distinctly religious aspect to it that Bill didn’t like. Bill just couldn’t accept the idea of institutionalized religion. Finally, his friend suggested, “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” (Alcoholics Anonymous, 2001, Chapter 1). Bill was amazed by his friend’s sobriety, having known him during their shared alcoholic binges from the past, and was convinced that he would soon die from alcoholism if he didn’t stop drinking himself, so he decided to give it a chance. Bill took the principles of recovery that his friend shared with him during that encounter and began the process of developing what would eventually become the twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous. Those twelve steps have since been generalized to become the twelve steps used by countless numbers of people seeking to be free from many and varied addictions.
There are as many twelve-step recovery programs as there are addictions under the sun –there are multiple recovery program flavors for sexual addiction alone. I am going to mention only three of these groups in this chapter – all of which I have had experience with in my own life. While in-person meetings are best, some of these groups also provide opportunities for web-based, phone based, and even email-based support and/or group meetings.
The first book I began reading when I joined a recovery group was the SA White Book, published by the Sexaholics Anonymous organization (https://www.sa.org). It was and continues to be one of the most impactful books I have read on the topic of sexual addiction. Sexaholics Anonymous is a secular organization, for those who are looking for a program that is not strictly religious in nature, and a meeting locator can be found on their website (similar locators can be found on the websites for any of these groups). I worked through the pages of this book with a group of men who were on the same journey to freedom that I was, and it is difficult to underestimate the positive effect it had on helping me get free from the bondage of sexual addiction.
The first group I joined was a Life Recovery group (Life Recovery International - http://www.freedomeveryday.org). We studied many books, including the SA White Book and the L.I.F.E Guide for Men (published by Life Recovery International – available in English and Spanish). Life Recovery International is a Christian organization, and their materials reflect this. Their materials use a seven-step recovery model that incorporates the principles of all twelve steps of the twelve-step model.
The last recovery group I will mention is Celebrate Recovery (www.celebraterecovery.com). As of this writing, I am currently a member of a local CR group. Celebrate Recovery is a twelve-step group that is not pornography/sexual addiction specific. The search-engine description for this group describes it as a “Christ centered [sic] recovery program for all types of habits, hurts, and hang-ups.” CR uses the twelve steps along with their own “eight principles” that focus on the Beatitudes taught by Jesus in the Bible.
One important point to make about any recovery group that deals with sexual addictions such as pornography (and this is true for all of the groups mentioned above) is that they are gender-specific. While some groups, like Celebrate Recovery, have a co-ed group gathering at the beginning of their meetings, they will break up into gender-specific groups for the open-share / step-study portion of the meeting. Any group that purports to deal with sexual addiction issues and encourages co-ed groups for the open-share or step-study portion of their meeting should be strictly avoided due to the nature of the addiction itself.
Sitting in a group of people of the same gender who are fellow addicts on the road to recovery and openly and honestly sharing your own struggles and triumphs is the single-most important aspect of attending one of these groups, in my opinion. One of the pillars supporting the addictive behavior is a deeply held core belief that we, as addicts, are not lovable or acceptable as we are – weaknesses and failures included. Being honest about who we are and what we have done in front of others and receiving the love and acceptance that a good recovery group provides is an essential experience in the recovery process. Make no mistake about it – we have all done things that are wrong, and those actions are not acceptable. However, in a good recovery group, you can learn to separate who you are from what you have done. You can learn to take responsibility for and reject the poor choices and bad behavior of your past while receiving the love and acceptance you need from the group for yourself. Remember, you are a valuable and unique child of your Higher Power – independent of your past harmful actions. We will delve more into this principle of recovery in a later chapter.
To close this chapter, I am re-printing a generic version of the twelve steps below. I would encourage you to read through them carefully, letting the message of each step plant itself in your psyche so that it can begin to take root and grow. It is by implementing the truths contained in these principles that you can ultimately gain freedom from the bondage of pornography addiction (and any other addiction, for that matter).
The following generic twelve steps were reprinted from http://www.12step.org/the-12-steps.
Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.