How I Fell Back Into Porn after Six Years Sober

I felt so bad for Clint. He'd been doing so well! And fortunately now amazing things are happening again for him and his wife after a few months of hell. But instead of just moving on with his life now that he's gotten up and dusted himself off, I encouraged Clint to do an autopsy on his deterioration back into a full-blown porn habit. As I pointed out in this earlier post, an autopsy of a slip or relapse can be an incredibly useful tool in recovery.

Clint's given me permission to share this autopsy, in hopes that it will help someone else. It's a sad, cautionary tale. If you've convinced yourself that you're "in recovery" but you're secretly doing some of the things Clint was doing, it's time to check yourself.

"I stopped attending the 12-step meetings about 6 years ago. I did pretty good for five of those years, but started a downhill slide last year. I started by watching TV-MA shows online. Those included nudity and sexual scenes. Then I started listening to erotic audio books that bordered on pornography (they probably were, but because it wasn't visual, I justified them as okay). Towards the end of the year I was watching foreign films that were unrated, but definitely above an R-rating in content. The final straw was I started seeking pornographic material online and that was about the last two weeks of 2015. That was when I masturbated again for the first time in six years.

"Another factor that played a role was that my wife started to work full time at the hospital. Throughout the previous fifteen years she'd only worked a couple of days a week at a doctor's office. That brought me a lot of stress because I didn't feel like I was doing enough to provide for us. I make a good low six-figure income, but we have four sons and two daughters and they have a lot of extra things they want to do, so we can always use extra income.

"It quickly became apparent that having my wife at home less, particularly without me working less to help pick up the slack, led to some breakdown in the family structure. The house got messier, the kids weren't getting all the attention they were used to, and there was a lot that I needed to do after coming home from work, that she would usually have done already. Probably the hardest part was how much we all missed her on Saturdays.

"About 3 or 4 months ago I was feeling concerned about my descent and thought it would be great to have somewhere I could record my thoughts. I wanted it online so someone else could see it, but I wanted it to be anonymous as well. I couldn't figure out how to do that, but I guess I should have started journaling then got back to the meetings right then.

"Towards the end of the year, we were just too tired to go worship at the Temple any more as a couple, so we stopped going.

"In December I started working from home a lot and had a whole week off. Because she was gone, I had a lot of time on the computer to start searching for bad stuff online. I'm not sure what my emotions were, but I definitely remember thinking, 'Oh no, now I'm going past the point of no return.' After that time, it just became something easy to do. The warnings in my head were gone and I just continued down into the darkness."

It's clear in retrospect that Clint was like the slow boiled frog. A year ago he never would have fired up his internet browser, searched for porn, and masturbated to it. But lusting over scantily clad women or a steamy scene in a TV-MA show didn't seem like the end of his sobriety. Self-control researchers call this "permission giving"--those rationalizations we use to justify engaging in "little" steps back in the direction of a behavior we've made a commitment to avoid.

Thanks, Clint, for your willingness to share! I'm sure your recollections will be both informative and motivating to others.

Readers, when temptation kicks in for you, what little justifications does your mind start to latch onto? Please share them below and we can all learn from each other's sneaky minds!