How My Marriage Survived My Pornography Addiction
How My Marriage Survived My Pornography Addiction
By Mark Tyler
Randy Osi walked into his neighborhood store and bought his first pornographic magazine when he was 8 years old. “I told the store owner that I was buying it for my dad,” he says. “He said, ‘If you have money, you can buy.”
That started the former Washington Adventist University student on a 30-year addiction to pornography that followed him all the way through his adult life and into his marriage.
“The best day of my life and the worst day of my life was my honeymoon because it was important for me to be pure for my wife,” Osi recalls. “It’s very rare for a pastor to bring [sex] up in marriage counseling. When I was growing up in the church it was a taboo subject.”
Today Osi, who has relocated to New York, says proudly that he has been delivered from the sin that plagued much of his life. But, he had to find help through God and not the church because there was no official forum to help with his problem.
“This is something that I had as my own private struggle,” he says. “As you get comfortable in one level of sin, you get more and more comfortable. You go further and further and further.”
According to a recent study by Covenant Eyes, an organization that focuses on Internet accountability and filtering and tracks the prevalence of pornography, 50 percent of all Christian men and 20 percent of all Christian women say they are addicted to pornography.
The site’s 2014 annual report also revealed that regular church attendees are 26 percent less likely to look at pornography. However, self-identified “fundamentalists” are 91 percent more likely to look at porn.
And, says Covenant Eyes, 51 percent of pastors say Internet pornography is a possible temptation, while 75 percent of pastors do not make themselves accountable to anyone for their Internet use. (Read more at covenanteyes.com/pornstats.)
“Nobody is coming forward about it, but it’s incredibly common,” says Celeste Holbrook, a sexual health educator and mentor who attends Ohio Conference’s Worthington church near Columbus.
Holbrook deals with Inspired Intimacy on her website drcelesteholbrook.com. She handles improving intimacy, awakening arousal, raising sexually healthy children and other issues through a private practice, in part, because people feel uncomfortable addressing such needs through the church.
“Many women come to me because they find pornographic material on their computers,” Holbrook says. “We should have support for the husbands. We should have support for the wives. We should lift them up in prayer. And, we’re just not providing that.”
Claudio Consuegra, director of Family Ministries for the North American Division, says the church does make available a series of DVD toolkits called Freedom Begins Here for churches that need to tackle the problem head-on. The series is available for sale at AdventSource.
Osi didn’t lose his marriage or family. In fact, they have been very supportive through his recovery. But, he has to keep up his spiritual guard to keep from falling back into sin. He says part of his success has come from three actions: he got rid of all of his pornography, doesn’t stay up late and asks God to help him live a more disciplined life. “You get up early in the morning, you get to worship, you have your devotion and you’re ready for what the devil throws your way,” he says.
To hear more about Osi’s deliverance from addiction to pornography (and video games), click here.
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