Brandon’s Battle Through The Firestorm of Porn

Today, I’ve transcribed the inspiring testimony of a Christian guy named Brandon. Brandon became addicted to porn at age 13 soon after being introduced to it by a friend. His grades suffered in high school and the habit continued in college, which led his girlfriend to leave him and his religious friends to stop hanging out with him(!). Brandon eventually fell in love and married a woman named Tonia whom he had a sincere interest in getting to know. However, Brandon continue to struggle, which led to relationship conflict that even got physical at one point and included the cops getting called. Brandon recounts that his saving grace came in the form of an ultimatum from his wife: get help or move out.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. What stood out to me about Brandon’s testimony is the vital role that accountability played in his recovery. If you are struggling with pornography and haven’t established regular, proactive accountability with a trusted human being(s), and installed accountability software on your devices (E.g. Accountable2You), then you are not setting yourself up for success. There’s an old Biblical Proverb, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” Accountability is a must if we are serious about getting free and staying free.

Check out the complete video and transcript below!

Obviously, as I continued to go along and get further into freedom, a level of clarity came to my mind. It was like I was seeing with new eyes. It was really because I had that accountability in place that I was able to get to that point of wanting to keep the freedom and never wanting to go back.

Brandon

For more, see the complete archive of testimonies.

Transcript of Brandon’s Battle Through The Firestorm of Porn

So my first experience with pornography, I was 12 years old and I was at a friend’s house. At one point, he turned to me and he said, “Do you want to see something?” I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what to expect. And I had no idea that it was going to be so addictive.

So I would say by the age of 13, I was looking at pornography almost daily. When I think about the things that I searched for initially and what I ended up searching for later on, I’m appalled with myself. It had to continue going, because I had to continue getting that release, and it had to be more and more and more to a greater level.

In my junior year of high school, my grades were tanking, and that was the year I stopped going to church. By the time I got out of high school, I was really out of control with this thing. I entered into a Catholic Newman Center at North Dakota State University, and I had a really good solid group of friends. I was talking to my friends about the struggle and how it just didn’t seem to be getting better. And they flat out told me that if I couldn’t stop looking at pornography, they weren’t going to be able to be my friends anymore.

So when I did fall, they followed through on their ultimatum. My girlfriend at the time’s parents had found out, and they encouraged her to break up with me, as well. So by the end of my first year of college, I had lost my really good group of friends and my girlfriend. And I was alone.

When I graduated college, nothing had really changed on the pornography front. Just lots of sexual sin going on. But because I had trained my brain to just walk through open doors, ‘cause I had trained my brain to use pornography when I was in a stressful situation, I was already setting myself up for failure when I hit this moment. I had no self-control, so when it came to making that decision to have sex, I was willing to cross the line. And I felt a lot of shame. I had a tough time staying in a committed relationship, before I would get bored having the pornography in my life. I could go to whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

There was a point where I was driving back and I was heading to aunt and uncle’s lake cabin, and I had Christian music on the radio, and I was just overcome by how far I had fallen. And then Tonia several months later entered the picture. For me, it was really different than any other relationship I had up until that point, because in the other ones I had no intentions of getting to know the person on a deep level and wanting to build a solid friendship. And we got married in 2014.

So the addiction really hit a point where the years and years and years of pornography use led me to just not have any emotional control. Tonia and I began fighting on a regular basis over and over again, and the fights escalated in intensity to the point where one time we scuffled on the bed. I had a torn shirt, broken glasses. She had facial scratches. And this just continued to escalate and culminated in the cops getting called on us.

I felt like that was a low moment that I couldn’t get beyond, but I did. Because that second low point was when I was given the ultimatum by Tonia to either get help or move out. Because the porn, the anger, everything just culminated into a massive firestorm. It took those ultimatums to let me hit that level of vulnerability realizing I couldn’t do this on my own.

And that’s really where the Lord had to step in and say, “Can I do this for you?”

Being able to have accountability software and have an ally really became the gamechanger for my journey because I realized that I was not alone in this fight. That I wanted freedom and he wanted me to have freedom, and we could journey together in that. There’s accountability [with] what I’m looking at on my devices – my phones, my computers. It was enough of it to keep me from looking at that stuff.

Obviously, as I continued to go along and get further into freedom, a level of clarity came to my mind. It was like I was seeing with new eyes. It was really because I had that accountability in place that I was able to get to that point of wanting to keep the freedom and never wanting to go back.

My wife and I can share our story with others. It’s a message of hope. I can look at my daughter and say that she is a sign of hope. It’s always just a great reminder of how much loves us. That God never forgets us. He never abandons us. He always keeps his promises.

It’s the greatest gift that I think I can give to my family right now – continuing to live that way, continuing to seek after a life that ultimately brings joy and abundance of grace and all the hope that comes with it.