Whereas I was always the one to beg to go out with friends, beg to go do something, be with people, there were times where I just wanted to stay inside and isolate and be by myself while I viewed those images. So I started to fall away from my family, and I didn't want them to talk to me. I lost all of my joy. I shut myself down, and I shut my relationship down with God. I stopped talking to Him. I didn't realize it at the time, that this was really what was contributing to my distance and my emotional distance, physical distance. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It's connection. Sobriety is important, and you really have to get sober so you can do the work of understanding that relationship. But it's not enough just to quit like that. There are so many instincts and impulses and things that are going on emotionally underneath. If you're not replacing that with real relationships and learning how to take risks and open up and connect and be seen and be transparent and vulnerable, and all these things that people in recovery need to do, then pornography is going to be super addictive once again--over and over and over again.

When one tries to rebuild relationships after serious damage has taken place, the only way that those relationships can be rebuilt is to forget yourself and become more like the Lord. The only way you can do that is to overcome that natural person who wants an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and be submissive to the will of the Lord, who asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Our son had a really bad fever. I felt like I was going to call my home teacher--one of my home teachers--and have him come give us a blessing. Without hesitation or--he wasn't ashamed of it. He told me, "I'm dealing with a pornography addiction. And I'm trying to get a good handle on it, but I'm not quite into the position where I would feel comfortable giving a blessing." I couldn't believe that someone could be that open about it. And I remember ending the call with him and just-- He just stood in the kitchen. And I told her, and I said, "I can't--he--wow." And I just had to call him back. And I just opened up to him and said, "Me too. And it's becoming a huge problem, and I don't know what to do." And from then on, it just took off. As I've opened up, especially in terms of recovery in the pornography, and let people know what I was struggling with, I just feel like I connect to people more. I understand people more. I'm more willing to hear their stories. Probably the biggest change is just loving people again and looking to real people and having relationships with real, living human beings. My relationship with my husband is so much better. We have that intimacy now in our marriage, and it's growing. We still have a ways to go, but it is growing. We didn't have that before. I didn't even know what that was. I tried for so many years to battle this on my own and just realized that I am not nearly enough for that. So I need people around me who are going to help me. The more I share with them about my life, the more they're going to share with me; the more we can trust each other; the more we can help each other. I started to realize that this is what it meant to keep my baptismal covenants, was to weep with those who are weeping and mourn with those who mourn. That was life-changing for me, to see that the fold that Jesus Christ speaks about is real and that we are all, at times, lost sheep. Along with programs that are out there, both in the Church and in the world, one can never get away from the need to have a personal relationship with the Savior. The more you do, the deeper your love for our Savior will become. The more you love Him, the more you will desire to follow Him.