What the 12 Steps Gave Me

I tried the 12 steps for a while, and I’m glad I went through the process. It helped me take an honest look at what I was doing and gave me a place to talk about it with people who understood. I know it’s made all the difference for some people. Having somewhere you can tell the truth matters, especially when you’ve spent a lot of time keeping something to yourself.

For me, there was still more to understand. I could acknowledge that I was watching porn and wanted to stop, while having much less clarity about what I expected it to do for me. That distinction is easy to miss. Being honest about an action and understanding the reasons around it are two things you can keep learning separately.

Say you look back on last night and think, “I watched because I was stressed.” That’s a useful beginning, but “stressed” covers a lot of ground. Perhaps he made a mistake at work and has been imagining the consequences all evening. Perhaps he had an argument and doesn’t know how to start the next conversation. Those evenings may end with the same action, but there are different problems waiting for him underneath it.

It helps to get a little more specific without turning the whole thing into an interrogation. What happened before the urge showed up? What did he make that event mean? What was he hoping he could stop feeling or thinking about for a while? He may find that he needs to address a mistake, repair a conversation, or get some support with a worry he’s been carrying alone. “Don’t watch porn” gives him very little guidance about how to do any of those things.

The steps gave me something valuable. They weren’t the silver bullet for me, and I still had to work out what I was using porn to cope with and why I believed I needed it. I wish I’d understood that sooner. You can appreciate the help you’ve received and keep looking carefully at the parts you haven’t figured out yet. There’s room for both.

John Wiggains
Founder of Mental Myst