Commentary: Get help for pornography use!

Telling people to avoid pornography is almost useless. Church leaders have been doing this for decades, and, yet, we still have a huge problem with porn, masturbation and other aspects of SA within the Church, both men and women, both single and married, both adult and adolescent. This isn’t something where a small portion of individuals are involved — almost all adolescents in the US (at least) have regular contact with pornography. Most bishops spend an immense amount of time dealing with this problem, and, at that, they’re only dealing with the people who are willing to come to them for help.

It is more constructive to tell people to seek the help they need to deal with this, and Pres. Hinckley and Pres. Monson have both said that also. But that doesn’t tell people where to go, other than “qualified professionals.” Few folks know how to tell who is qualified in this field, which is a very big deal when it comes to dealing with sexual matters. Not a few professionals will consider viewing porn and masturbating to be normal, and may even encourage them, and that is going to concern Church leaders in a major way.

The Church needs to build a comprehensive program for addressing this problem. I believe they are working on this — ARP and PASG are good early efforts along that line, but they are still forming and tend to err on the side of keeping Mormons comfortable, rather than on providing what addicts really need. And they are not being mentioned in General Conference as a part of the solution, so most of the Church has no idea that they’re around.

Progress is being made, but, for now, it is up to the members to educate themselves about these issues and pass around the information about what is available to each other until the leadership builds and finds solutions they are willing to promote.

Thanks for your comments. Statistics that I have recently come in contact with show that other westernized countries are also dealing with similar statistics regarding pornography use.

Here are some other 12-Step Recovery Group resources:

• Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA): By far the largest of the fellowships – first to identify “sexual anorexia” and “the love addict.” Most inclusive. Place where most women are comfortable. www.slaafws.org
• Sexual Recovery Anonymous (SRA): Alternative of SLAA. www.sexualrecovery.org
  
• Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (SCA): Know to be gay friendly. www.sca-recovery.org
  
• Recovering Couples Anonymous (RCA): Uses a 12-step approach to coupleship recovery. www.recovering-couples.org
• www.sexhelp.com is a great website to get information.
• www.addictionresearch.com provides current research results and trends

When you are looking for a “qualified professional” make sure you ask if they are certified to treat addictions and if they have experience working specifically with sexual addiction. Know that successful addictions treatment includes some form of group therapy. Most sex addiction counselors that I have come in contact with do not see pornography use or compulsive masturbation as normal, whether or not they are LDS.