If good intentions were building materials, I would like to inhabit a mighty fortress of my own making. I would be perfect, for such is my desire. I am filled with many righteous desires and plans, but they rarely become more than simple optimism. My good intentions frequently become sins of commission or sins of omission. (more…)

I have a friend that I met over the Internet, not same-sex attracted like me, but struggling nevertheless with an addiction to pornography. He usually seeks my help and advice through email, but I got a call from him last night. We had a very long talk. He had been doing very well and then had a relapse yesterday. He was trying to analyze the reasons and see what he might have done differently. (more…)

This concept of “capturing” is taken entirely from Colleen Harrison, and is described in her book He Did Deliver Me from Bondage, which I recommend to every English-speaking member of the Church. This article is a summary of the idea in my words, with an example thrown in. Many of the ideas are Colleen’s, and even some of the words, so any value you find in this should be attributed to her.

One thing that’s definitely from Colleen is the point that, while the primary song teaches “search, ponder and pray,” capturing is to be found in the model of “pray, read and write.” The purpose of the exercise is to make a connection with God and receive inspiration from him, by means of pondering inspired words, and then exploring them in writing. It works something like this: (more…)

Everybody has tried counting days of sobriety. It’s easy. It gives you a tangible way of measuring your progress. When your day counts get larger and larger, it’s encouraging.

But then comes the dark side of counting days. It can be a problem when you can’t get past a certain number of days, be it one or three or seven or fifteen or thirty or one hundred. When you have a day that you plateau on, it becomes very discouraging to approach that day and feel the anxiety that you’re going to blow it again. That anxiety can make failure a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it adds to the anxiety you’re feeling from not using your most reliably coping skill. And the more you focus on your day count, the more this danger will present itself. (more…)

One of the most interesting phenomena I see is when people slip in their recovery, after expressing a complete understanding of the efficacy of prayer against temptation, yet failing to put it into practice. I know this to be true in my own life. In fact, I have written a lot about the importance of prayer and other spiritual approaches to addiction, yet when given the chance to think about it, it is often the last resort for me as well. (more…)

In the early days of recovery, it’s natural to feel a need to focus on overcoming the behavior. It seems at the time that it is the goal, the thing we’re even bothering with the process for. So, when people start with the platitude to “let go and let God,” and the jargon about “turning it over” and stuff, we think that the thing we need to turn over and let go of is the behavior that has been causing us the problem. (more…)

At the feast that is life, some people come to the table only to eat and not to serve. Many things are there of which to partake, but no food is quite so sweet as the joy of serving. As the banquet is laid before us, we often take no thought for those who clean, cook, prepare, and sacrifice. I have often found myself so wrapped up in feeding that I could not even remember that the food did not suddenly appear just for me. (more…)

I finally went to college in my forties and graduated at fifty. It’s an accomplishment that I claim some pride in, since I’m the first generation in all of my lineage to get a college degree. It felt good and it has been of great value to me. (more…)

Commenting around here requires surmounting two barriers to entry. The first, and simplest, is the technical requirements for leaving a comment. The second, and hardest, has to do with finding one’s voice and being willing to talk about the topics this website is about. (more…)

Coming to LDSR is something usually done in a mixture of sadness and hope. The sadness usually comes from yet another experience where we thought we had our sexual behavior under control, but didn’t. The hope is that an LDS oriented environment will be the trick that will make this time different, that this time will be the time that will work. Perhaps there is even some magical thinking involved – just coming to this website will miraculously heal us right away, and we can be all better from now on until forever. We want to find useful ideas and support from people who have been where we are and who know the secrets to recovery, sobriety, and maybe even cure.

Some of those things are possible, and some of them aren’t. The purpose of this article is to help you get the most value from the resources on LDSR you can. (more…)