It takes a whole lot of energy to live a double life, pretend that you're one way, and then sneaking into this secret, private world another way. Denial is a huge, huge issue with this thing. Most individuals know that they have a problem, but they think they can get out of it. I tried for so many years to battle this on my own and just realized that I am not nearly enough for that. I felt an added level of shame and an even more intense feeling that I needed to change this on my own. And that didn't happen. It's not a matter of making the change. I wanted to change, but I couldn't change. It just made me hide from everybody. And every time I would indulge in pornography, I would feel that shame and that guilt and kneel down and pray and say, "Please help me." That's not enough.

Well, most people's initial plan in overcoming pornography is just to say, "I'm not going to do it anymore. I'll stop it when it happens," or "If I get tempted, I won't do it anymore." But we've found that that rarely works. People have to develop specific plans about what they'll do ahead of time if they come across certain situations, if they go to certain places, if they get reminded of certain things. And that plan has to be practiced and instituted enough in someone's life that it becomes somewhat automatic. One of the things I have learned is that you've got to invoke the Holy Ghost and the spirit of revelation in this process. And it's not the revelation of the leader. It's their revelation. If I'm talking to someone who has struggled with pornography for some time, they don't feel worthy that they can get revelation. They feel broken. They feel evil. They feel--and first thing I do is, I establish the fact that God loves them, that He will speak to them. And they just need to learn to listen to the right voice. And as we try to empower them with that revelation process, then the Lord will start to reveal to them how they can navigate through their plan or be able to identify how to overcome this. So you want lots of external controls while you're getting internal controls. I think when you look at those outside things, one of the most important things people can do is keep an honorable fast, because it's a transferable skill. If you can steward your body in fasting, it helps with controlling pornography over here. If you are serving others, I think that's one of the biggest outside things that you can do to control those urges. Let's say a young man comes in that has struggled with pornography. Again, when they come in to a bishop or a stake president, it's usually after they have struggled with it and tried to overcome it on their own, and they're kind of discouraged. And they're at a point of, "I need help." I always like to try to establish that this is not them. There is more to them than just pornography. What Satan wants to do is, he wants to brand you and make you identified as--that's all you see, is that. And I try to do some just basic--"Tell me who you are, and what is your hobbies? What do you love?" I have them go read their patriarchal blessing. And the process is to let them come in and say, "Oh, this is a weakness. This is something I've struggled with, but it's not me. I have so much more to me than this." And it helps them put it in perspective of, "You know what? I have power. I can choose to be happy in all of my other activities and not let this one shame or this one mistake or this one weakness overpower me." And that's where we bring in the revelation process with them, is, "OK, now that we've made this what it is and contained it, what's our plan? How do you want to start to live the rest of your life and not let this one little thing destroy the rest of your life?" And that's kind of what I've noticed as we walk them through this process of empowering them with revelation. When I'm feeling depressed or triggered by something, or just overwhelmed with the difficulty of juggling work full-time and mom and four kids, and all that that entails, the good thing for me is that I'm able to see it for what it is and then surrender that anger, surrender that sadness, surrender that hardship, that heavy load. And it's great because I know I don't have to carry the load by myself. Somebody else already paid that price. I have to exercise. I have to get up in the morning. I have to follow that list of things that I write and review it. As long as I make sure that I do these things every day, I'll stay sober. If I forget any of those things, I have to look back at it and say, "OK, why is today harder for me? What is the problem?" I have to look at my list and just follow the simple little things. The simple little things are going to make the big difference. My experience is, I need to go find a quiet place and really consider my role in this issue. I will think about where I'm at, where I'm wrong, where I need to make a connection. I need to make a connection again with God. I have lost or broken that connection because of anger. Get back into those things, like prayer and scripture studies, the temple--all of those things that were positive, goal-setting kinds of things. And then add to it: "What else do I need to be doing right now that is my mission now in life, to develop my talents and gifts, to figure out the problems of the world that I'm going to try to solve?" And to really dig in to helping the people around them and helping themselves to grow and develop with resilience in the problems that they're facing. My heart needed to be very soft, my willingness level to participate in recovery had to be very high, my level of honesty had to be complete, and my willingness to do the work myself had to be in place. If any one of those factors are not in place, I'm not going to find long-lasting and real recovery. Education, information, qualified counseling, involvement in 12-step, a willing heart, total honesty, a willingness to do whatever it would take--and in some cases, that meant being willing to go through some embarrassment. Those things are not easy, but they were part of my pathway to recovery. I believe in setting a goal to overcome the problem and then planning, what steps do I have to take to be sure that I reach the end or the objective that I'm trying to reach? When we turn to the Lord, when we really turn to Him and ask, "What should I do?" we'll get the promptings from the Spirit of the Holy Ghost telling us what we should do and what corrections we need to make, or what decisions in life we need to make, when we have to make them. And He does it through the gospel of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Ghost as the Teacher and the Comforter. And we're all entitled to that blessing if we'll just let our hearts move in that direction.