Long Road Home

Last week the counseling center here at BYU had put on a symposium about pornography. I wasn't able to catch as much as I would have liked, but I did manage to see a Q&A that the counselors had at the end of the day. Just a few things that I thought were interesting:

• They likened pornography addictions to driving a car. Some people imagine that you can curb an addiction and simply put on the brakes, but it's more just shifting from drive into neutral. The drive, so to speak, is always going to be there but you can reshape a person's habits so that it will no longer be a propelling force.
  
• They encourage their clients not to set "dead men's goals", or goals that dead men can accomplish. The emphasis isn't simply to get someone to never look at pornography again, rather it's to fill that person's life with other positive outlets. I liked this point and is something that is getting more and more attention in psychology these days: it's the idea that rather than just focusing on diagnosing problems, it's better to focus on the positive outcomes as a means of creating better outcomes.
  
• The cards with the questions were submitted by audience members on 3x5 index cards in between sessions. One of the questions fielded by the counselors had filled up both sides of the card. In it, the woman had asked how a "clean" woman can stay away from "unclean" men. The word clean was mentioned about a dozen times in the reading of the card. It seemed like she was coming from a place of some deep bitterness and resentment. A lot of judgment was coming through in the tone of the question.
  

As I've associated more and more with the clinical and counseling students, it's been really interesting to me how the treatments they use tend to shy away from using shame and guilt as a means of correcting behaviors. In our church culture, this is something that is especially prevalent.

So much of the problem with pornography addiction for LDS men is that the shame and guilt that gets heaped on them drives them into isolation and further removes them from resources that might help them to learn to deal with their problem. One of the counselors who had also served as a bishop had expressed how their emphasis both as counselors and as church leaders was to focus less on the punishing aspect of the gospel, and more on the hope and pathway back for those men struggling with those problems.

It's been a neat couple of months getting to know a lot of different people. Some of them are new, and others are ones that I've known, but only just recently have I begun to get to really get to know them. I think I've mentioned this before, but I know one guy who loves to hear people's "war stories," those stories that revolve around heartache, broken off engagements, dropping out of school, lay-offs, etc.

As I've gotten older I'm finding that I like hearing those stories more and more also, just because it makes the people around me feel more real. I guess I just feel like they're more human, and it makes me feel like I can relate more to that person. A friend of mine used the phrase, "I have a past," the other day and I felt like saying, "well who doesn't at your age?" What's cool to see is how it's shaped her to become the amazing person that she is now. Another person I've gotten to know recently had been away from church activity for several years, but she came back around a few years ago and if she had never said anything about it, I would have never known.

The hardships that you go through, well, they're common to us all, in one form or another. We're given weaknesses and trials that we might be humble, so that we might come unto our Heavenly Father. For some it comes in the form of certain proclivities that can turn into addictions, for others they come through trials like divorce, break-ups, etc., but there is always a way out of the wilderness.

In September Elder Holland gave an awesome fireside on Lessons Learned From Liberty Jail. During the talk he goes into some detail about Joseph Smith's prison-temple experience while being wrongly incarcerated in Liberty Jail. One of the points that he made was that in our extremities are God's opportunities. A similar point is made at the end of Elder Neal A. Maxwell's biography as the author begins to talk about Elder Maxwell's experience with cancer and how his sufferings helped him become better acquainted with Christ and what he suffered in Gethsemane as well as on Calvary.

I just love that gospel message. Not only is there a pathway leading to Heavenly Father for all of us, there are additional ones that we can take along the way that will lead us back to the strait and narrow. If we can avoid the trap of being completely consumed with whatever difficulties we may be facing, then we can see that those roads are there and that they do indeed lead to home.