I would go to bishops, and I would stop the behavior. And I was being sober, but I was not in recovery. I was not dealing with whatever other influences that I need to deal with. Every time that I would feel sad or angry or isolated, I would remember, "Oh, that made me feel good." So I went to it. I was the king at ignoring my feelings, ignoring how I was feeling, and just saying, "Oh, it's all going to work out"--kind of a weak cover. "This is my problem. I'll deal with it, or I will ignore it until it leads to a relapse."

Why do people view pornography? There are so many different people, so many different motivations, so many different reasons. However, I would suggest for your thought that until you yourself discover the reason--and I'll say "reasons," because oftentimes they're multiple, the reasons why you view pornography--you're going to have a difficult time changing the behavior. You have to meet the need in a healthy way. When I found myself not involved in anything or just downtime--you're just tired or really, even stressed out at times in life--you just sort of look for that escape. You know, it's something that I discovered and I kept doing. And I went back as a coping mechanism for whenever I was not feeling OK with myself. When you are hurt at that deep level, and you feel bad about yourself at the core, and you feel that people are looking at you and you're unworthy, and you don't feel anyone understands you--at that limbic region, it goes, "How do we get out of pain?" It searches for a memory, because there's another little part of the limbic system called the hippocampus, which is mainly involved in memory. It finds a memory of something that is very pleasurable. So where does it go? You can find pleasure by taking a drink, by getting online, looking at some images. And so then it creates this feeling called a craving. So assessing influences, I think, means just being aware of what's going on in my mind and in my heart to be able to deal with it in a healthy way instead of the old same way that I've been dealing with things, which is going to the addiction. We're not taught anywhere over here in the Western culture how to watch our thoughts. And that's why mindfulness and some meditation techniques that we use in treatment teach individuals actually how to do that--to watch their thoughts, how their thoughts go over off path, and then how to bring it back on line. And so by getting those triggers, the initial feelings, the initial stages that would lead to a relapse--once getting those out in the open at the very beginning and being completely honest in my thought process, I'm able to expose it to the light.