How I Became Addicted to Porn Pt 2

Ahh, high school.  That little microcosm of intensity where every situation is life or death, every friendship is forever, and every couple seems to be an actual physical extension of the other.  Let me just clarify the start of my high school glory days were a little different.  In seventh grade, I left public school to join a private, Catholic,  all boys school run by an order of Spanish priests.  I was there for about a year and a half.  My acting out slowed a little during that time due to the fact that my life was very structured, I wanted to be a priest, and there wasn't much opportunity.  I started my public high school misadventure in the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year.  I didn't  know anybody, I was shy, I hadn't been around girls, especially ones that looked like that!, for a while.  It was a little awkward.

My one link to social living was the band.   I played trumpet, so off I trudged to the band room for class and eventually made some friends.  Things were pretty tame that freshman year.  I had to come out of myself a little.  I was struggling internally over having left the private school where I was going to be a priest and all that.  Eventually my guilt over leaving that school turned into a fine hatred of the religion, especially those darn Catholics.  Enter sophomore year...

I started dating a girl in the band who was a grade ahead of me.  Let's call her Pilchred.  Why?  Because it amuses me to do so.  So I started dating Pilchred and all my hormones flew to that part of my brain where everything focuses with laser-like accuracy.  I wanted to be VERY physical all the time.  She was a bit conservative, much to my dismay, and I had to push the envelope all the time and keep trying to take it one step further.  It was pretty much all we would do when we "hung out."  We never went on a whole lot of dates, even though we were "going out."  I finally convinced her to have sex after dating for over a year.  I was sixteen when I lost my virginity to her, and it was her first time as well.  It wasn't all that romantic.  It was on the floor of the living room of my parents' house.  I didn't care, though.  It was SEX after all.

After about a year and a  half of dating, I got tired of her and dumped her for a freshman that my dad soon forbade me to date anyway.  This was in my junior year.  I roamed around free for a while.  Porn and masturbation had been a daily part of my life all throughout high school.  I soon started dating another girl.  We shall call her Brunhilda, or "Brunny" for short.  I was quickly "in love" with this one.  I was Brunny's first boyfriend, so I had to introduce her to EVERYTHING, which I was more than happy to do.  Our sexual relationship progressed somewhat slowly at first.  I had to cultivate it and make sure she was "comfortable."  This was another very intense relationship that I became obsessed with.  We eventually had sex, and there was someone else who's virginity I had taken.  We dated into my senior year.

During my senior year, Brunny decided she was going to go to Israel for a semester to study.  I was devastated.  She was going to miss my senior prom.  I remember bawling my eyes out the day she left.  It was awful.  After a while, the separation got to me, and I realized I had free reign.  I broke it off with Brunny and started messing around with a couple of other girls.  It wasn't in a "relationship", it was just the age old "friends with benefits."  I liked benefits.  Considering my obsession with sex, I had to find something somewhere.  I would lie, manipulate, and do whatever I could in order to "get some." 

Things were a little awkward when Brunny came back from Israel and I decided that I still was in love and wanted to get back together.  Besides, she was hot.  I spent the rest of the time and the summer after I graduated trying to get back in her good graces.  Eventually,  I won out and we became the couple of the year again.  I was going off to the Marine Corps in September, and with that date approaching, I got more desperate to be with her every second that I could. 

To recap high school, I was in a couple of long-term, emotionally invested relationships in which I was obsessed with sex and tried everything I could in order to get more.  I was masturbating several times a day and checking out porn every chance I could get.  Sure,  I was in band and played lacrosse, but sex was my number one focus.  I was in and out of religion.  I was even in youth group for my senior year.  I went on a couple of religious retreats run by the Franciscan University of Steubenville.  But I was still obsessed with sex and in my relationship with Brunny.  This conflicted with my budding interest in religion.

I will stop here for now.  The next and last post in this series will detail my years in the Marine Corps, my marriage, and how my addiction took its toll on everything.  The next post will get things up to my current situation. 

I offer this post to you, Lord Jesus.

I ask you to bless the girls that I have been with and ask you to help them know you.

You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Please bless all who read this, especially all who are struggling with addiction to sex.

How I Became Addicted to Porn Pt 1

Lord Jesus Christ, I offer you this post to your glory.

Humble me and help me offer myself completely to you.

I ask you to bless those who read this that they may come to know you better.

I ask this through the intercession of Mary, your Mother.

Amen.

Before I can start truly journaling my current recovery, I have to get you up to speed with how I got myself in this whole mess in the first place.  I mean, I've been working on this for over twenty years.  (Wow, it's scary to write that and realize what it means!)  I was always a curious young lad and had to experience things for myself.  It wasn't enough to be told not to do something.  I had to go and figure out exactly why. When I was in sixth grade, I had a friend who was quite a good artist.  One day, he brought in some pictures he had copied out of his dad's Playboy.  Let me tell you, they were quite good.  I was absolutely enthralled.  Wow, naked women!  I even got to keep a couple of 'em.  I remember the strange feeling I got when I looked at them.  My whole body tingled and I felt excited both by what I was looking at, and the secrecy needed to look at them.  If I got caught, I'd be dead meat.  

I then went on a quest to find more pictures of naked women.  Keep in mind, this was the early nineties, so Internet porn wasn't there yet.  I went into the library and book stores and looked in the photography section, or the sex section.  It was quite a thrill to be in a public place looking for pictures of naked women.  At this point, I hadn't quite discovered masturbation yet, but my body was definitely reacting to it.  I also had another friend who happened to have cable TV.  Again, this was before satellites and DirecTV and all that.  He had a cable box.  It was possible however, to watch cable on other TVs in the house without a cable box being attached to it.  When you did this, the subscription channels weren't completely blocked out, so things like Spice, Adam & Eve, and the Playboy Channel came in fuzzily.  I would spend hours at his house trying to get a glimpse of something.

This took place during middle school and all that sexual awakening and stuff.  I was quite intense about it.  When I got in "the zone", I would go at it for hours on end if I had the opportunity.  My friend with the scrambled channels would get quite frustrated with me, because that's all I wanted to do.  When I actually discovered masturbation and the intense release that came with it, it became something that happened several times a day.  I know, sounds like a "normal" pre-teenage boy, doesn't it?  Perhaps.  During this time, I was also going to church regularly.  I started to feel the conflict between what the Church teaches about sex, masturbation, and pornography, and what I was actually doing, but I was unable to stop.  I was enthralled with the tease, the forbidden, the excitement.

We got a computer and AOL, and that was a HUGE thing.  I loved chatting.  Unfortunately, I ran the phone bill up so high with that dial-up modem, that we had to get rid of it.  I remember we disconnected right when I saw advertisements saying, "Coming soon, the World Wide Web!"  Seems like another century, doesn't it?  I kept on with the materials I had already.  Eventually my elementary school became an Internet host site, so there was a local number.  Oh, it's on now....

I was the only one in the family that actually knew how to work the darn computer.  My parents were clueless.  I was excited to be able to go to different web pages and see what was on them.  I also quickly discovered how to find LOTS of pictures of naked women.  I could also find more hardcore stuff.  At the time, I thought I was in heaven.  I created a folder within many other folders on the computer in which I could store pictures, and the collection quickly grew.  I figured out how to create another window and place it over my porn window if someone came downstairs.  Once I got on the Internet, things started to go way more quickly.  I was getting OBSESSED with sex.  I wanted to try it, I wanted to see naked girls live, I wanted to do everything I saw in the pictures.

In today's day and age, this sounds like a "normal" boy who is started puberty.  The hormones start to rage, masturbation kicks in, and curiosity about sex grows intensely.  I know this is what the majority of pre-teen boys do, but is it really normal and healthy?  Is it in God's plan for boys to do this?  From my experience, I say.....NO!  I'll get into this issue in a later post.  I just want to tell my story as it happened.  There's plenty of time to get into all these things.  In the next post, I will talk about my high school years and how sexually active I was by the end of them.  Thanks for reading!

Author's Note:  I realize that some of this may seem somewhat graphic to you.  My intent is not to describe graphic sexual situations to you, but rather be honest.  Porn addiction is ugly stuff, and sometimes I'll have to use ugly terms to describe it.  I will try my best not to be blatant or offensive, but sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade.  

Blog Introduction: Read This First

So you're probably wondering what this is all about.  "Here's another poor sap who can't control himself and is going online to spill his guts."  And you know, you'd be right.  I can't control myself.  I have no power, zero, zip, nada.  I have been a porn addict since I was first exposed to it in the sixth grade.  So why am I writing it about on the Internet?  I can assure you that it is not for my own edification or ego trip.  As I write this first entry, I am not sober.  My wife just threatened to leave me if I don't shape up.  It's only been a couple of days since I last acted out, although at this point, it's the last thing I want to do. 

The point of this blog is not to act as my own personal confessional.  I go to my priest for that.  Or at least I have started to again.  The purpose of this blog is to act as my own diary of recovery, and also to hopefully inspire someone else who is suffering from sex addiction to take action.  Writing my story helps me in my recovery, so I guess there is somewhat of a selfish motive, but I want to maybe help people by being honest and throwing my own experiences out there. 

I welcome your comments, especially your prayers.  I have no shame  in begging for prayers, because trust me, I need them.  The first  couple posts will give you a  bit of the back story and the history of my addiction and how it has progressed to the point of my wife threatening to leave me.  Once we are all caught up, I will then blog about my continuing recovery.  I'm also going write posts with my own thoughts and research on sex addiction and it's impact on our society. 

Lastly,  I want to tell you a little about me.  I am almost thirty years old, I have been married for eight years, and I have four wonderful children.  I am a practicing Catholic.  I'm not going to tell you I'm a good Catholic, but I believe in the Church and it's teachings, so my posts are going to reflect a Catholic position.  Luckily, they haven't kicked me out yet!  I am a musician.  I sing and play the trumpet.  It's my passion and I want to release it from the bondage of this addiction that has tied me down in every aspect  of my life.  I spent eight years in the United States Marine Corps in a musical unit, and spent the entire time traveling around the country and the world performing. 

So that's it.  Now you know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.  I hope you check back often.  Our nation has been ravaged by sexual addiction and it is an epidemic that is destroying our relationships and our souls.  I'm sure that you know someone who has struggled with this, or your own life has been impacted by a sex addict.  Pray for us, please.  I don't want this at all, and am trapped by my own selfishness and weakness.  God bless you.