This is the story of one man's terrible struggle with the addiction of pornography. It shows how this addiction can lead from such "softcore" magazines as Playboy and Penthouse to such things as strip clubs, prostitution, and sexually transmitted diseases. This was a letter submitted to AFA.

    It is with much embarrassment and a great deal of shame that I write this letter to you. I am a 25-year old Christian male currently involved in a relationship with a Christian girl and it is for this reason that I am writing you this letter.
    I have just finished reading your book "The Case Against Pornography." I've had it for several years and yet I have never been able to finish it. It is now 12:30 a.m. and I am writing this letter as I am powerless in my battle with pornography and with it masturbation, and I desperately want release and renewal in my life and my body.
    My battle with pornography started when I was about 10 years old and I found some Penthouse magazines under my brother's lounge. Ever since then I have gone from bad to worse, from looking at soft porn magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse to hard core pornographic magazines, to watching R rated movies to hard core pornographic movies and then to strip clubs and sex shows.
    I have never since my involvement with pornography and masturbation, had any real release from its evil grasp since I was 10. I have steadily been getting more involved and becoming more and more dependent on this type of material.

    The reason for my writing is so that I may get some help, possibly from those that you have treated, maybe from your intercession for me and those like me. It is very hard for me to write this, baring my soul and my dignity, but I am at a position of no return and I desperately need help.
    I became a Christian at 15......even my Christian life and rebirth has not stopped me from this sin and perversion. I know this is what it is, but I seem to be powerless to stop it taking over and ruining my life.

    My girlfriend is very attractive and very affectionate, we both want to wait for sex, but at this point in time, it is not even an option for me. I don't function the way that I should......
    As I said, I don't want to engage in premarital sex, but.....I am tired of being frustrated and confused.
    I have tried explaining what has happened to me, and why I am like I am, and she is very loving and kind, but clearly, she is hurt and confused by my inability to relax and enjoy her affections towards me.

    Pornography in all its various disguises has ruined my life, taken my innocence, and putrefied my thought life. I want to be free from it all from when I was 10 until now. If there was any way that I could unblock my mind and let it all drain out, and take with it all the preconceived thoughts, actions and turn-ons I would do it. Sadly I don't think that it is possible.
    I know that I am responsible for my actions, and it is through my own lust and my sin that this has happened to me and my life. I also know that my relationship with God has gone down and is continuing to do so, because I don't seem to get any real victory over this sin.
    I might go for a week, a month, sometimes several months, but it always comes back to haunt me and to possess me, and control me. I'm never free of it, and its tentacles reach out to me from wherever I am, and drag me back into the sin and darkness from which it comes.
    I am still getting porno catalogues from movie companies that sell porno movies, and I am endeavoring to tear them up and not even look at the filth that they are peddling. This is a huge effort in itself.
    This time I want to get help, and if that means baring all, then that is what I will do. I want to be a father, a loving husband and someone that can love and make love to his wife with a true heart and a love for her and not for any of the filth that I have indulged and lost myself in for 15 years.
    As I write this the shame and the filth is welling up inside of me, 15 years to be in this sin, it seems impossible but it is not, and I still have not got the victory.
    I am a man, a Christian man that has gone badly wrong and as a result my mind and my body is not what it should be. It is decayed and dying, it is badly in need of light and renewing. I am in need to a total overhaul, starting with my mind and then my body.
    I have defiled my own body with my own hands, I have masturbated over countless videos and magazines, each time hating myself and the lust trap that I have walked into. Each time that little bit more dead inside and a little more accustomed to the filth and perversion that I see portrayed in the magazines and movies in which I indulge.

    I no longer feel like a man, I feel like someone who is only half a man. My girlfriend is lovely, she is attractive and she needs someone who is a complete person. She loves me and I am trying to love her, but until I get rid of this sin once and for all, I am no good for her.
    I am a desperate man, I am someone who has tried everything, from burning pornography, praying and fasting, trying to exercise more, taking cold showers, and trying to avoid it wherever possible. Nothing works, and I fall deeper and deeper into sin and frustration.
    I am involved in counseling sessions with my pastor. However, I don't think he sees the desperation and the need that I have. I have tried to tell him how I feel, but it just doesn't come out right. I really am trying to do something about this. I want this sin out of my life and I want to send it and its demons back to hell where they belong.
    I work in King Cross, the busiest red light area in Australia (and, I've been told, in the world). here not only are crime and violence rampant but so is the sex and pornography industry. I might also add, that my work place really doesn't have an effect on me. I never involve myself in its vices, but I am no longer a child. I don't want to continue life like this.......
    I have taken something beautiful and made it putrid. I want to be released from this situation and I am prepared to work at it, if I have to. i wish to be able to return and enjoy my God-given sexuality and to just relax in the knowledge that my past is gone and I am moving on to becoming what God really wants me to be.
    I am in my 3rd year of my Criminal Justice Degree, I am a decorated policeman, and I am involved with a beautiful girl, but beneath all this lies a side very few people know. It is to my shame and my disgust that I reveal this side to you in desperation and in the hope that you will be able to show me the way that I may be free from all that I have allowed myself to be trapped by.
    I apologize for the length of this letter, but I wanted to let you know exactly the state that I have allowed myself to fall to. I wanted to let you know that I am desperate for any help that you can give me, and please, please pray for me, that I may return from the darkness and once again be able to walk and be in the Light.