Original subtitles

[Music]

i hope

to be able to help other people and

and if by sharing

this if anybody

is listening to what i am saying

i hope i can let them know that they're

not alone

they don't have to go through this alone

and they can get out of it the last

thing in the world

you want to do is disappoint someone who

looks at you that way

i wanted to be her hero and yet here i

was engaged in this behavior that was

betraying her

that was disrespectful in my mind to

women

and the last thing i wanted to do was

let her know about that because i

thought you know what

if she finds out the truth about this

addiction she can't she could never love

me

the nature of what you're involved in is

such that you don't want anybody to know

about it's very

shameful as you you feel dirty and

you're like

i don't want anybody to know about this

but one of the

one of the most powerful things to break

in its control over you is actually just

open up and talk about it

more kids are looking at pornography

than not

and i'm even speaking elementary school

kids and you know junior high in high

school and

college and you know on but they're into

it more than i see

drug addiction or alcoholism i mean it

is

sweeping our country like a storm

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it is an addiction and it's getting

worse it's a self-medication

the people that are coming into the

clinic and seeing me over the last 10

years has dramatically increased

it's affordable much of it's absolutely

free

it's accessible don't have to sneak into

the adult bookstore and hope none of

your neighbors see you anymore

you just hit a button and stuff that

no one in the history of the world has

ever seen is instantly there

so all the stands between me and my drug

is a button it's anonymous

and that's the big one especially in

religious and value-oriented communities

i wouldn't dare be seen staggering with

a hangover or with needle marks in my

arm

but now i can indulge in a drug that's

just as powerful and no one knows i'm

doing it

it's anonymous so i can keep up my

outward appearance of propriety

but also enjoy this self-medication in

secret

and of course the last day is it's

aggressive

the drug pushers come looking for us

pornography pursues you

it comes up on your computer it they

look to expose you

you don't even have to go seeking it so

accessible anonymous affordable and

aggressive

you apply those forays to any other drug

that you know of on earth and you tell

me what would happen to addiction rates

skyrocket and that's what we're seeing

today i was

nine years old when i when i stumbled

across pornography

brian you have to come check this out

okay just a second

look right here

look when a person is first exposed to

pornography

they are usually shocked

but curiously aroused it's like

oh interesting and it's that interest

that kind of hooks them in i mean we're

made to be attracted to

to nudity and to sexuality it's built

into our dna it's built into us

biochemically we get this rush of

neural chemicals that just flood our

bodies

boys i'm home it was

instantly enticing and it was instantly

it struck something inside hi boys

and there was a part of me that knew

that hey this is this is bad this this

can't be

right um yet at the same time it was

quite it was pleasurable

from that point on it seems as if i

would you know like any typical

adolescent that grows up in

america i would i would stumble across

it again it'd be a magazine

a video at first it seemed harmless

like it does with most people but what i

discovered quickly is that

it started to get out of control

dinner's ready

are you all right yeah i'm fine

okay hurry up

i didn't dare talk about any of those

things with my parents

that was that was out of the question

because the response would have been

very negative and very severe

so i kept it very much to myself i was a

very secretive

you know private addiction and just

something that i

you know went about in my own little

secret world

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a year before i got married i had a

pretty good handle on the addiction side

i decided

i don't want to be a part of that

anymore uh

it's disruptive it's it's not congruent

with who i am and what i value and so

i did a a pretty good job staying away

from it

um we call it white knuckling you sort

of convince yourself that boy when i get

married

the habit will go away and things will

work out and i'll be all right

i i think i'd actually convince myself

that maybe i'm kind of over this maybe

this habit has been broken

finally

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for me marriage was was incredible you

know i

married my best friend um we were

together all the time

uh of course the the physical intimacy

part was wonderful

and we just had a group we had a great

relationship and i i was

totally thrilled with marriage and i

thought this is this is going to be

fantastic for the rest of our lives the

first

several months was wonderful i was a

happy new bride and

and excited to show off

my husband to my friends and family and

i thought i was going to live happily

ever after

and as i said things went well for for

quite a while

but then as the stress and pressures of

you know being young marrieds and and

having work and school and

children coming and all the financial

pressures and

keeping up good grades and when all of

that hit at once

you know i had a nervous system and a

brain that was trained

that when you feel that kind of pressure

you turn to one

drug of choice it's called pornography

shockingly it came back and and it was

quite bewildering

i thought how how can this be well i

don't understand

i found myself you know married but

when my wife would go off to work or

she's off at school

i and i had a little time at home and i

was alone hey i may i might go

buy a magazine or go rent a video

and and watch it and then get rid of it

really fast of course and

say okay i'm done i'm watching my hands

of this you know it's sort of this

i don't really want to do this but i

can't seem to help myself

most of them it'll continue right into

marriage regardless of

how well their sex life is or isn't and

that's a shocker to many of them and

then they will say why is it

that i do this when i have such a

beautiful and wonderful wife

and i can't stop it because they're

addicted to the habit in the mind

that they've established before they got

married well a lot of people ask

who don't struggle with pornography or

haven't do it why is this so powerful

i mean why do people who get involved

with pornography do such dumb things

or worse you know horrible things and

as i studied with dr paige bailey over

the years we developed what we call the

funnel

of sexual process and it looks like an

hourglass it's wide at the top it goes

narrow

there's a little narrow chamber and then

it goes wide again at the bottom

and if you look at sexual process

for example if we talk about sexual

process in a healthy marriage

relationship

if a husband and wife express the intent

that they want to be physically intimate

with each other

and they come together to do that as

soon as they have that intent their

brain

immediately begins to narrow its focus

to go

down into that funnel and certain neural

chemicals release

things like dopamine which is the

primary addiction chemical by the way

it's it's the chemical that allows us to

feel pleasure

and satisfaction norepinephrine an

adrenaline derivative

oxytocin the great bonding chemical you

know the bonds

a mother to a newborn born child bonds

couples together

if you take that funnel out of that

marriage relationship and you move it

over to pornography process

the chemical release is identical to

what took place in the marriage

and so pornography mimics or

counterfeits

the process that one experiences with

sexual intimacy

when someone's viewing pornography the

brain believes that it's having an

actual physical sexual encounter

it can't tell the difference so the same

chemicals are flooding the system

the same narrowing is taking place and

so the whole world is being shut out

and all i'm focusing on are those images

and that experience

nothing else exists for me we know that

dopamine

literally detaches the frontal lobes and

the pleasure center of the brain the

limbic system is in the driver's seat

so i'm not there's no logic there's no

reason there's no

thought of goals or consequences or my

wife or

god none of that exists it's all being

closed off

and so when that crescendo event happens

with pornography doing which it always

does

and the individual emerges from that

narrow place the chemicals dissipate

the frontal lobes are reconnecting

now all of a sudden all of the

perspective returns

and it's oh my gosh what have i done

what was i thinking of course the

response to the question what was i

thinking is

you weren't you couldn't in that narrow

place you're not

thinking and then the regret the shame

the guilt the remorse

all of that kicks in and the depression

and the self-flogging and what that does

is it eventually

causes the person in that pain to go

right back into the top of the funnel

and to start the process all over again

then it then it began

to get very scary and i knew i was

starting to fall and things were getting

out of control

the thing with addiction is you're so

desperate to not be

found out because the consequences are

unthinkable

that it can become quite elaborate i

mean a great deal of an addiction can be

spent just going through the rituals

to stay in secret so that you're not

found out

it's really difficult to find outward

signs

the reason is because it's so private

so secretive it's staying late at work

it's getting up at night it's you know

it's it's spending excess of time on the

computer

it's it's a drop in self-esteem and

confidence

people can become irritable they lose

ambition

it just goes right to a person's core

and and just rips it apart there was no

dramatic

change things happened little by little

uh

moment by moment um we had only been

married

oh six or seven months

when i thought we were doing everything

the same as we always had

and my husband became angry all of a

sudden

hey you scared me

what's that uh this is nothing it's just

a

project i gotta do for work well can i

see it look it's it's nothing it's just

a report

how was your day tom can we talk

look sarah i'm really tired i just want

to go to something the matter tom like

what

i thought you trusted me

from then on i

started thinking what did i do i i

didn't even realize what was

what was being done to me the effect

that porn was having on me but i think

other people around me would if they

were to evaluate me and

what i was like back then as i related

to them they'd say

yeah you were distant you were here but

you weren't really here

there was something missing like i felt

like he wasn't really connected

emotionally to me

and so i i kind of focused just more on

myself and figured you know he'll work

out whatever's going on

and i didn't really realize that there

could be something so serious

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i was really upset and hurt

and i think probably one of the hardest

things about finding out you have a

husband that has a sexual addiction

is the dishonesty i was surprised

at the beginning i

when i approached him about it and he

knew

that he couldn't hide it from me anymore

he he became angry

and turned it around to make

me think it was my fault hey dear the

matter

where'd you get that i found it in your

dresser tom

look sarah it's not that big of a deal

you know if our sex life was a little

more interesting i wouldn't have to look

at that

what i told you it's not that big of a

deal

people look at this stuff all the time

looks all right i want this stuff out of

our house

look i don't want to talk about it

anymore right

i tried so hard i mean i just put forth

a mammoth effort

and then i would fail anyway

and it just makes an individual feel so

worthless and discouraged you know

what's wrong with me i must be the

weakest

person on earth because everyone keeps

telling me you're just not trying hard

enough

if you really wanted to overcome this

you would

and i knew i really wanted to overcome

this i did desperately

and yet i would keep falling back into

it as

his sexual addictions became stronger

from his pornography addictions

um

i was basically forced forced to have

sex with him

not once not twice sometimes three times

a day

and he would use tactics to get me

to give in

he would belittle me tell me what a bad

person i was

if my children only knew what kind of a

person i was

he would punch holes in the wall

right next to my head and he'd say

wouldn't you rather i punched the wall

than to punch you

what happens is you really develop two

things

one is what we call the control and

release phase

and so when you're in the control phase

and think of it as two circles

so the the control phase is a circle and

if i'm winding around in the control

phase i'm trying to do everything right

trying to be the perfect father the

perfect husband the perfect religious

person i'm trying to do great in my job

trying to behave perfectly and trying to

be approved by everyone

i mean i want to be the perfect man and

i'm trying

i'm trying desperately to do that i'm

trying to control my life

not only do you try to control your own

life and be perfect but you try to make

everyone around you be perfect

and you basically become a tyrant where

your expectations are unreasonable

the level that you expect yourself and

everyone else to attain to

is off the charts and it makes it makes

yourself and everyone else miserable

and one and then when you finally can't

keep it up anymore and you escape into

the release phase and act out your

addiction

your whole personality changes you

isolate

you go into secrecy you become moody and

depressed and angry

and then the people around you think

what is the matter with this guy

it's dr jekyll and mr hyde it seems like

two

entirely separate people you know even

my wife would say

i don't think i know you you're this and

then you're that who are you

and when you're in the addiction you

literally feel that way you don't know

who you are

my daughters and i went to a friend's

house one evening

to to watch a video and to

and to do each other's nails and we

hadn't been there

10 minutes when my husband came knocking

at the door

and he said are you going to stay here

and play or are you going to come home

and be a wife

to me

and i left everybody having fun

and i went home like a whipped puppy

with his tail between his legs

for a spouse they have to begin to

protect themselves

begin to build up some sort of you know

protective

coding for their for their own hearts

and their own souls

i want you and all of your magazines and

videos

out of this house by tomorrow or i am

calling the police

we we went to therapy and counseling

over 17 years of our 25-year marriage

and nothing was getting better it seemed

to just keep

getting worse and worse and worse that's

when it hit me

i i said to myself who am i protecting

my children or my husband and that was

when

we packed up and we were out of there

within a week

for me because

of the sorry the nature of the

the acting out and the years

and the whole dynamics of everything

um i just knew i could not

um go back to him

and that's that's sort of when i threw

my hands up and said

okay i will do whatever it takes i don't

care anymore

what do i have to do and it was always

this

and for me it was it was is god

whispering

ever so quietly

to me tell someone talk about it

and i finally in that moment um

got up enough courage to call a friend

and i just got on the phone and i said

can you come over because i i have got

to talk to somebody i want to talk to

you

because this is a very close friend a

very dear friend and i sat there and we

sat

in in the delivery of my home and i for

the first

time ever ever confessed and

and spoke the words with with my mouth

that

i struggle with pornography and i'm

essentially

addicted to pornography my minister was

the person i

felt the least threatened by i thought

probably he could understand at least a

little bit

and so the closest i could come to

telling him was

i was at church and i had picked up a

book on addiction

and one of the chapters in that book was

about pornography

and so i had yellow highlighted all the

places in that chapter about pornography

and i took the book i handed it to him

and i said

take a look at the marked section and

then

i want to talk to you so he took the

book

and he went away and i didn't hear from

him for about two weeks

and he called and he said okay i've

looked at the places in your book

why don't you come and see me so i

remember the night i went to

went over to his office and i walked

through the door and he had the book

sitting on his desk and he had this

really serious look on his face

and i thought i knew it i'm dead

he's lost all respect for me he's angry

he is going to get

he's going to read me the riot act so he

looked at me

and he said how did you find out

and i looked him i said how did i find

out what

he said well you gave me this book with

all these sections marked

about pornography use how did you find

out that i had a pornography problem

years ago

and of course my mouth hit the floor

and i looked at him and i said i didn't

give that to you for your pornography

problem i gave it to you from mine

and we had one of these nervous laughs

together you know

and the amazing thing is i came out of

that meeting and two things occurred to

me that had never

occurred before first of all i didn't

think less of him

or respect him less after finding out

about his

challenge in years past my love and

respect for him actually grew by leaps

and bounds

and i thought if i feel that way about

him

knowing now about his past maybe

he could feel that same way about me

knowing what he does

so tell me what is it i can help you

with

hello

i just uh

you see my my wife and i we uh

that's okay take your time

i'm addicted to pornography in that

instance

as i disclosed this deep dark secret for

the first time ever

um there was an enormous weight lifted

you know it was like instant like

freedom almost in

in in the pressure was off people often

ask

can i just get over this by myself

and one of the things i said for years

was god and i will get

through this just fine now the reason i

said that god and i

could get through it is because if god

and i were working on it that meant i

didn't have to tell anyone else

and so i didn't have to go through the

shame and the disclosure and that's the

reason why most people

caught up in this keep it a secret it's

not because they really

believe that they can get through it

alone it's just that the alternative

of telling others is so frightening that

they

they just try to go it alone well it

doesn't work

because one of the drivers for this

addiction is shame this is a shame based

addiction

so if you're if you're so shameful that

you can't share with others about your

struggle

then you can't possibly hope to overcome

this because the shame is going to

continually fuel it

the more shameful i feel the more hollow

i feel inside

and the more need i feel to go and

escape with my drug

right so you've seeking help

is part of the step of getting rid of

the shame

which is the only way to start to get

through this addiction

ultimately you need help you will not

you will not

break free from an addiction to

pornography by yourself

and whether you go with a counselor or

you go with a spiritual leader

you're going to have to have some

assistance some help some people to

to guide you through the process of

getting breaking free from it

hello it's me

i went to a therapist today

yeah i i was wondering if uh

i was i was wondering if you'd

be willing to help me get through this

yes

thank you it was

very refreshing when he came forward

and decided that he was going to be

completely honest

because even though some of the things

were really hard for me

to face and you know

and most people would run from um

it gave it gave me hope and i had

hope not just for a relationship but i

had hope for her

i had hope for

him as a person i love you son

just tell me what you've done

life's full of problems together

we can solve them

talk it out with me

[Music]

that wasn't that was certainly not an

ending place for the addiction that was

really a starting place

i mean that was a start of a journey for

the two of us

you know to work through this

just because you tell someone doesn't

mean that this is going to go away

i mean you have to realize that you have

spent years and thousands of repetitions

building a circuitry in your brain that

behaves in this way you've built an

addiction circuitry

and what takes years and thousands of

repetitions to develop doesn't go away

overnight

part of the journey for me has been to

confess to my wife

and to ask for forgiveness and to and to

rebuild trust because a deep trust has

been broken

so whereas i'm extremely exhilarating

i'm happy to be free from this thing

my wife is sort of back over here going

well i'm still

hurting here even though it's their

problem and you have nothing to do with

it and it is not your fault

um that you are affected by it

greatly in your family and your children

and you need to get

the help you need so that you can

move forward and and find the joy and

the hope and

um that you need but if you find

yourself

getting farther and farther away

and realizing that the addiction is

controlling him

he's not controlling the the addiction

then there's a time to stop and start

taking care of yourself

as tough as a sexual addiction is

man i'll tell you what you can get

through it you know in the old adage

once an addict always an addict

what a load of garbage that is because

your brain is made to change and evolve

and develop

and you may have been a sexual addict at

one time

but given time that can change

you will not get free alone

if indeed you you recognize that you are

in a dark place and your things are out

of control

and you want to be free it won't go away

it won't wear off

you will have to have help it will

demand something of you it ain't going

to be easy

it will not be easy i promise it won't

be easy

but it's either you can either choose

life or you can choose

survival we can't always control the

outcome

with others so i want to give anybody

hope whether

you know they end up staying married or

not

but you can control what you do and so

get the help that you need

and there is there's so much help out

there for spouses

and and you'll make some of the best

friends you ever had

which might be hard to think even think

about when you're just wallowing in this

pain because it is hard but

there's great benefits that will come

it has made me stronger

i know my worth now

but as i look back and see

what we've been through what we've

had to go through to get to where we are

today

we're still going through the healing

process we're still

working on things six years later

[Music]

but we are so much

so much in a better place now and i am

very grateful for

those words of wisdom that that somebody

cared about me

to tell it's not too late

to mirror a healthier way to live to

your children

you're never going to know how people

are going to respond unless you give

them a chance

and so i would say take the risk because

it's worth it

you've tried to do this by yourself how

many times thousands

well i can overcome this anytime i want

well how many times we hear smokers say

that

oh yeah i can quit anytime i want

well if you could have you would have

and so the answer is none of us

really we're not designed to to get

along in this life by ourselves

all of us face challenges all of us face

weaknesses

uh all of us face barriers we need to

rely on each other

you know people need people and we don't

do ourselves a service when we isolate

and keep ourselves from others

so there's only hope this is all about

hope

and if someone is struggling with

pornography addiction i say awesome

you are going to have the experience of

your life coming out of this

you're going to be so incredibly happy

and you're going to feel

like you've really accomplished

something amazing

tell me what you've done life's full of

problems

together we can solve them

talk it out with me

work it out you'll see

i love you son

36 what could have been was in an awful

mess

[Music]

broken dreams of broken home broken

promises

so from the valley of his dark despair

rosa's first attempted prayer he said

o lord i know you hate me

then in disbelief you heard the father

say

i love you son just tell me

what you've done life's full of problems

together we can solve them

talk it out with me

work it out you'll see

i love you son

you