19 minute read
My redeemed vision
from Embodied Spring 2023
by embodiedmag
One man’s story of being saved from a porn addiction
by Steve Pokorny
Advertisement
At 5 years of age, my life changed.
I’d been born into a comfortable two-parent home, but in 1985, at age 5, that comfort was gone. My father, a Vietnam veteran with a get-rich-quick mentality, wagered our house on the stock market without my mother’s permission—and lost.
Acting upon the faulty notion that our family needed financial support more than his physical presence, my father believed it would be better to kill himself than to lose the house. He went into the garage, closed the door and turned on the car in an attempt to end his life. When my mother found him 30 minutes later and dragged him out of the garage, he was alive, but his short-term memory would be gone forever due to carbon monoxide poisoning.
The good news was our family was taken care of financially because my father was a veteran. But my father’s condition prevented me from really knowing him. After the accident, he was placed in a nursing home and I would visit him every few months but his deficiencies prevented any kind of normal relationship. I felt abandoned, grew up insecure and questioned the point of my life.
When I was 17, my father, at age 51, began to lose a lot of weight. Doctors discovered he had developed brain and lung cancer and did not have much time left. I was angry and nervous, but I knew I had to say something to him before it was too late.
During one of my few visits to hospice, I sat down and was honest with him. I looked him in the eyes and said strongly and clearly, “Dad, you abandoned me. You walked out on Mom. You left Brian. You were not there when we needed you most.”
For a brief moment, he looked back into my eyes and said,“I know.” That was his way of saying, “I’m sorry.” That moment was the start of a very long path of forgiving him. Three weeks later, I lost my father for the second time.
Steve Pokorny
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Growing up, I never discussed sex with my parents.
In elementary school, I remember writing Mad Libs with one of my friends, filling in all the blanks with sexually explicit words. My mom caught us and sat me down for a little chat. “Do you know what sex is?” she asked. “Sure,” I answered. That was pretty much the extent of our conversation.
Since I lacked true sexual education, I had to learn on my own. It really is true that “what isn’t taught will be caught,” and I certainly was predisposed to be infected by the porn epidemic. My earliest exposure to pornographic material was in fifth grade—age 10—when my friend and I discovered several copies of my brother’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues. I knew I was attracted to these images but did not know why.
In sixth grade, as I was crossing from one block to another in my suburban neighborhood, I saw a brown paper bag filled with paper in the middle of the street—it was as if Satan had “accidentally” dropped a piece of forbidden fruit just for me. I picked up the bag and realized it was not just any type of paper but ripped up images of naked body parts. Later, after reassembling the pieces, I discovered that it was hard-core pornography. I knew what I had discovered was contraband, so I took it home and hid it in the basement. I was ashamed of what I had seen but was extremely excited and ended up blabbing about my find to a classmate. When I showed the images to him, he could not help himself. He offered me $20 for the bag on the spot. For an 11-year-old, I had hit the jackpot, so I traded up.
- Most Rev. Paul S. Loverde
During this time, I would occasionally stay over at the house of another friend who had cable television. His mom had remarried and he, like I, was Catholic, yet neither of us had a healthy understanding of the relationships between man and woman. We would often stay up into the wee hours of the morning trying to watch scrambled Playboy on cable, hoping to catch glimpses of something.
During the summer before eighth grade, when I was 12, I hit “the big time” and my life would be forever altered. One day, a friend invited me to his house and we watched TV. Not just any television program: It was hard-core porn. We had a seemingly endless supply of pornography, thanks in part to his parents’ nearly countless videos stashed in their room. As we watched, I experienced mixed emotions. On the one hand, there was definitely something very attractive about what the men and women were doing on the screen. On the other hand, I had intense feelings of guilt. The more I watched, the uglier I felt.
One day we got caught watching a video at my house by my mom’s boyfriend. I knew my mom was going to find out, so when she came home I immediately went up to her in tears and confessed my crime. There was no condemnation on the part of my mom. Instead, she wrapped me in her arms and showed me the love only a mother could give. She gave me the intimacy I was looking for from porn in the first place.
Soon thereafter she sat down and talked with me about what was on the video. She told me she watched it briefly, and that there was nothing beautiful or lovely in what she saw. She could not understand why I would want to watch it. To this day, I can still recall the scene my friend and I were watching when we were busted. It turns my stomach now, realizing porn really is all about power and domination, yet as a youth, I did not understand this. My mother was trying to teach me why this was wrong, but she did not have the language to explain it.
By the time I was 14 I was no longer simply watching images but acting out when alone. Because I was raised Catholic, I came to understand that the guilt and shame I was feeling was because of my sinful choices, so I went to confession. I still remember the first time I confessed looking at porn—I told the priest I had fornicated, having no idea what I was actually saying.
As I hit the later years of high school, my compulsion worsened. I would watch for hours, unable to pull myself away and I was left with horrible anxiety. My guilty conscience would make it difficult to sleep, and at times I would take NyQuil to knock myself out to overcome the noise inside me. When I would awaken, shame would be pounding at the door of my heart.
At school, I was very outgoing, involved in drama club and show choir and often known as the class clown—I was voted by the senior class “most likely to trip while going to get his diploma.” Yet in my mind and private actions, the darkness inside of me was growing. On a typical evening, on my drive home at night after hanging out with friends, I would contemplate what would be showing on Cinemax. Although I may have been able to fool others into believing I was extremely confident and comfortable around people, I could not deceive myself, for I knew viewing lustful images was crippling my ability to form bonds of communion with those around me. I was a young man with two faces. I had become deathly afraid of anyone getting to know the real me, because I thought they would not like what they would see.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I went to Syracuse University in New York to major in acting, and the internet was newly available in every dorm room. On the one hand I was involved with the Newman Center and was growing in my Catholic faith, but there was nothing but a roommate stopping me from getting a steady supply of my drug. I legitimized it because, hey, every guy in my hall was into it—one guy who was teaching me guitar had a vast amount of his hard drive caked with porn images. And it was readily available elsewhere—the local movie theater on campus showed eroticized flicks all the time.
The situation grew worse. In my first two years in college, I experienced an emotional shutdown. I lived a flatline existence, feeling neither lows nor highs except during occasional fleeting moments while indulging in porn. Pornography had neutered my spirit and my capacity to truly form bonds of intimacy with others. What was left was a dull ache in my heart, a hurt I thought could not be mended.
Even through my emptiness, God was still trying to speak to me. Sometime during that year, because I still continued to pray—as well as confess nearly weekly my lustful habit—I received what I thought was a genuine call to the priesthood. The following year I moved back to Cleveland and transferred to Borromeo Seminary where I began undergraduate studies in philosophy.
It was during this time that I truly met Jesus in the Eucharist, knowing He was alive and real, physically present for me in every Catholic Church. Somehow I had never really got this until then. Building off of what I learned at the Newman Center, I also continued to develop my relationship with Mary, our Mother, primarily through regular recitation of the Rosary. These two very Catholic elements would eventually help draw me forth from the darkness.
Throughout seminary, I struggled with my attachment to porn, and I came to realize that I was not the only one who was having problems. Because our formation did not really touch on this subject, and because my spiritual director simply gave me the typical advice most people are given who are trying to overcome pornography, there was no real victory, merely toleration.
By the time my undergraduate years were over, I felt completely defeated and told myself this was my cross and I would have to carry it for the rest of my life. I would never be free—or so I thought.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I was also confused about where God was calling me. I seriously questioned whether I was being called to priesthood, for I was radically struggling with celibacy. The Catholic Church teaches clearly: Those with non-integrated sexual desires are not to be ordained to the priesthood. They are to be fully in possession of themselves to freely give themselves away to the whole Bride of Christ as a celibate in Holy Orders. For my three years at minor college seminary, I told God, “I’m going to be a priest.” Instead, I should have been asking: “Lord, do You want me to be a priest?” So in order to really discern well, I chose to continue on to the Major Seminary at St. Mary’s Seminary in Cleveland.
During that year, I became more serious about questioning my vocation. Through this, I was granted some relief from my compulsion—although it would come out to play every so often.
- St. John Paul II
I began to pray a Holy Hour most days in front of the Tabernacle where Jesus in the Eucharist resided, rising at 6 a.m. to pray. Although I struggled with my theological studies, I remained committed. I was involved in the community and was striving to grow in masculine intimacy with my brothers. I was faithful to my apostolate of serving at a local parish. I also began working out on a regular basis, which helped to direct my energy from pent up frustrations and stress.
Even though I was striving for balance, I still was not satisfied. I was yearning for someone—some woman—to be with me. While celibacy is a genuine gift and my respect for priests was growing immensely, a pain in my heart and a question in my head would not go away: What if there is someone out there for me? What if, in all those lonely days through junior high, high school, and college, of longing for female companionship, God had one woman prepared for me?
Through a very special experience in prayer one morning, I knew, deep within the recesses of my heart, that although celibacy is a gift, God had not granted it to me. I needed to jump. I did not know where I was going, but I realized that if He had led me into seminary, He was going to light my path.
Discovering God's Plan for Humanity
Fast forward to the summer of 2002, when my friend Ellen gave me an audiotape. I thought it was just another apologetics tape. She told me, “Just listen to it.” When I finally pressed play while getting ready for work some weeks later, I was dumbfounded. It was a presentation by Catholic theologian and author Christopher West, who was explaining God’s plan for the human person and the gift of sexuality. My jaw hit the floor. By the end of the tape, I realized this vision of life—this understanding of what it means to be male and female—was everything for which I had been searching.
As I began to learn more, I had a mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I experienced great hope, realizing I was not abandoned in my struggle for sexual purity. On the other, I felt a deep pain because I was so far from where I needed to be and had no plan in place to break free from the chains binding me. It sounded almost surreal: “Could this message be true? Could I really be set free from my lusts?”
—TOB 19:1
Coming to Know the Father
In 2003, I was accepted for the masters program in theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. Little did I know, God had much more in store for me than a degree in theology and catechetics. Among the attractions of Franciscan is its charismatic approach. At my first worship meeting, it became apparent that God was beginning his work in me. One of the Scripture verses proclaimed several times that night was Isaiah 43:19: “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Through a crack in my stony heart, living waters were beginning to bubble up.
Over the course of many weeks and many daily Masses, God was trying to break through my darkness. During prayer after Mass one day, I felt an intense moment of gratitude for what Jesus was doing with my life. And then it hit me. It was not only Jesus who was moving me to gratitude. It was my Father—not just any father, but God the Father. This was the Father I had longed for. This union with God—my origin and my destiny—was what I had been yearning for in all of those empty pornographic images. At that moment, I knew I had a father, a father who wanted me more than anything.
Freedom
Just when I thought my cup was overflowing with too much love, it happened. Boom, boom, boom, BOOM—my chains hit the floor! I experienced my first tangible, potent sense of freedom. For the first time in my life, I had a genuine experience of freedom from compulsion to pornography. Just as St. Augustine was liberated from his bonds of slavery to sin when he read the words of St. Paul, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh,” I no longer desired to look at sexually explicit images. I had been set free. He had brought me to such beauty—namely, Himself—that the desire to use women gave way to a desire to serve and love them humbly as my sisters in Christ.
How did this transformation happen? How did it come to be that I would be telling this story of freedom from my compulsion, let alone admitting publicly something that had crippled me emotionally? For years, I lived with fear. “Do not ever let anyone find out about this compulsion or you will be ruined.” But I did not have to fear anymore. The destructive vision of myself that had dominated much of my youth gave way to the “new thing” He was doing in my life. The clouds of darkness in my life dissipated and I heard in my heart the voice I had longed to hear, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” The Father? Pleased with me? After everything I had done? After all the times I had turned my back on Him, He still wanted me back? Yes, the Father was very pleased with me. At that moment I knew I had a Father and I was his son. After all the years of drinking the slop from the pigs, this prodigal was being called home. He knew where I had been, but that was not important to him. He wanted all of me, not the masks I presented to others in public.
Not Out of the Darkness Yet
I wish I could say that from the moment of knowing the Father’s love was real I had no problems with pornography.
For about four months, it was true; I had total access to the internet in my room but I had absolutely no desire to look at porn. But like Peter, who took his eyes off of Christ and tripped on the waves, I took my eyes off Christ and sank hard into the septic tank. Although my falls became less frequent, there were times when I felt the impulse to lust and could just not say no.
Over time I came to realize what happened. Although my heart had tasted real love and I was seeking out pornography less and less, my brain was still enslaved to the images. My neural pathways were still programmed to respond in a lustful way to these images and they had incredible power over me. Although my heart was open to the light, I was still blind, in need of having my brain rewired and my vision redeemed. That began a whole new journey of seeking psychological healing.
It was my spiritual director who told me of a traumatologist who used a unique form of Intensive Trauma Therapy (ITT). This therapist explained what happens to the brain in a traumatic event (or rather, my years of traumatic events), and that I needed to have my brain rewired so I could form new neural pathways. This would not be done by anything as drastic as shock therapy, but rather the whole process involved drawing and writing. She further explained that ITT is designed to bring light to darkness, truth to lies and wholeness to disintegration.
I was skeptical that something so simple could bring me healing, but I was in such emotional pain that I was willing to do whatever was required to break free. Over the course of a week, I worked the program for eight hours a day and gradually felt shame lifting and peace taking its place. As the ensuing weeks passed, I realized that what I had experienced was not temporary. I had received substantial healing, and my shame had been absorbed by genuine love. I finally felt as though I was in possession of myself, able to freely live my life as a gift.
Little did I know, it would not be from running from the body, but learning how to properly see the body, that would put the final nail in the coffin of my attraction to pornography.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Receiving this redeemed vision grounded in theology of the body led me to one of my heart’s greatest desires: my wife, Valerie. We were blessed to be married in June of 2009 and, as a testament to the truth that God’s great love is so much greater than any of the false “loves” pornography can tempt me with, He revealed to me what true sexual pleasure is supposed to be within the marital embrace.
That was not the best part. About 15 months later, from my wife came forth a little person who changed me forever. Although conceived nine months prior, on Sept. 15, 2010, I held in my arms one of the deepest meanings of my masculinity; my daughter, Isabella Rose, was living proof of the father God had destined me to become. The fruitlessness of pornography was transformed into a fruitfulness that has changed the planet, for every birth recreates the world anew. I am eternally grateful to my heavenly Father for the privilege to participate in this great and noble calling—He has since blessed us with two other daughters, Francesca Grace, and Joy, who is in the arms of her Heavenly Father.
In response to my restored masculinity and redeemed freedom and in thanksgiving for all God has done for me, I began Freedom Coaching (freedom-coaching.net), a oneon-one mentoring system designed to break the bondage of those ensnared by pornography. It is my hope that if men can reclaim the meaning of their masculinity and pledge their sacred honor to the dignity of all women and children in their lives, we will see the culture of love and life blossom in the world.
- To learn more about Steve Pokorney's one-on-one coaching, visit Freedom Coaching at freedom-coaching.net. Also, check out his Redeemed Vision podcast in the app stores or on YouTube.
