Freedom from
cyber sex
In 1988, when I married my third wife, I was still hooked on lust. Eventually the Internet came along and I got hooked on chatting with women online. Innocently at first (yeah, right), I kept getting worse.
I would invest huge amounts of time cultivating online relationships. I thought of myself as an honest, nice guy to these women, but in reality I was using them for my own selfish pleasure. My wife traveled for work, so I had plenty of time to goof off online. I worked by myself in my own business and I eventually spent all eight work hours with my cyber girlfriends in chat rooms.
I was totally consumed by lust. I couldn’t stop. I had built up a duplex inside my head. One side was the husband, father, church treasurer, worship band musician. In the other side I was hopelessly addicted to cyber-sex. There was a wall down the middle and I was pretty good at keeping it from leaking, but my disease took its toll on me.
My life began each night when the lights went out. My lust-driven mind would digest all the toxins I had picked up on the Internet that day. My lust disease kept getting worse. I had progressed from Internet girlfriends to real girlfriends. I had an affair with one of my customers, and my insanity kicked into overdrive. “I don’t feel guilty,” I told myself. I wanted more, and I wanted freedom from marriage so I could indulge myself without the guilt of adultery hanging over my head.
One morning I asked my wife for a divorce. On her insistence, we did a lot of talking and praying that day, and I woke up the next day feeling God’s presence. He had been right behind me all along. I was the one who had turned away.
“I began working the Twelve Steps and the miracle happened.”
Three weeks after my first meeting, I read my Step One sexual history to my home group. I finally acknowledged how lust had progressively taken over my life in the 25 years following my first exposure to pornography. I had become blind to the truth of my addiction, but reading my Step One share helped me see the sad reality.
From that first spiritual experience, my life started to turn around. I started going to Sexaholics Anonymous meetings and got an Sexaholics Anonymous sponsor. I began working the Twelve Steps and sponsoring others, and the miracle happened. God has kept me sexually sober ever since. And God has been working miracles in our marriage ever since. Next year my wife and I will celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary. Through this program, we have begun to learn what we need to build a healthy relationship.