If we have a broken leg, we go to the hospital and have a doctor set the bone and put the leg in a cast. We do not seek out a priesthood holder for a blessing and then head back to the armchair in the living room for more prayer and meditation and a recommitment to spiritual growth. Although a blessing may be helpful for the healing of the broken leg, we recognize that the Lord expects us to get medical help to fix our injury.

Disease in a broken brain, however, is often treated differently. For some reason we think that a broken brain can be fixed by praying and asking the Lord to heal our unhappiness. Because I suspected that my friend suffered from depression, I told her that I thought she needed to see a psychiatric specialist to consider that possibility.

My friend seemed surprised. This had never occurred to her before. I was also surprised. During all this time and throughout all her interactions with people close to her, it appears that no one before me had ever raised to her the possibility of depression. Eventually, she met with a psychiatric professional, was indeed diagnosed with depression, was prescribed the proper medication and blessedly began enjoying the happiness that can occur when a brain fires on all cylinders.

For years, my friend had been looking in the wrong direction for a solution to her problem. For years, she had been praying with ever increasing fervor for the Lord to remove the burden of her misery. The Lord did finally answer her prayers, but it was not in the way she was expecting. She assumed she would get direct intervention from God. Instead, God put a friend in her path that observed her and, relying on his own experience with depression, was able to convince her to seek a doctor’s help.

I believe that addiction—and sex addiction, in particular—is treated in a similar way by addicts and those around them. Sexual transgressions are second only to murder in seriousness. Sexual sins are a blatant violation of God’s law and therefore evidence of a deficient moral character. Sin and immorality can only be overcome by the Atonement of Christ after faith and sincere repentance accompanied by a broken heart and a contrite spirit. In effect, God (through Christ) intervenes in the life of the sinner and purifies him of the sin. The sinner repents of his sins, focusing on his direct relationship with God and Christ, but also confesses his sins to a church leader. In some cases, church discipline follows. Through the miracle of the Atonement, the sinner is born again and becomes holy, without spot. But what about the sex addict and his sex addiction?

Like depression, addiction is, in large part, the product of a broken brain. One LDS neurosurgeon has documented the destructive physical effect that pornography has on the brain. It eventually incapacitates parts of the brain in the same way that cocaine or alcohol can destroy an addict’s resistance to the compulsion to take those drugs into his body. Because of the neurological component of sex addiction, treating it as one would treat sexual transgression—as a purely spiritual malady—is ineffective.