Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I remember as a child getting together with extended family in Salt Lake City on the fourth Thursday in November. The buffet was piled high with homemade rolls, mash potatoes, sliced turkey separated into light meat and dark meat, and the most exotic Jell-O presentations a Mormon kid could ever hope for. I remember the smell of roasting turkey and to this day, my mouth waters at the thought of that first bite of turkey hitting my palate.

This is my second Thanksgiving in recovery from the sex and pornography addiction that plagued me since I was six years old. Like all holidays now, each one is better than the last. As I progress further into recovery from addiction, I am less self-absorbed which translates into being more emotionally, mentally and spiritually present with my wife and children on important occasions.

Scrooge, invisible and looking in on Bob's family

I used to feel like Scrooge hovering in the frozen air outside on the sidewalk and forlornly peering through a frost-glazed window at a happy family cozied up by the fireplace as they opened presents and enjoyed one another’s company. I felt like I didn’t belong, like I was a fraud (I was), like I could only enjoy the happy events in life by proxy through my wife and kids.

Recovery from sex and pornography addiction has changed things in ways I could have never imagined. That sense of otherness, of alienation, is all but gone. I belong now–to my family, to my friends, to my community, to my profession, to my faith, to my Savior and to my Father in Heaven. I didn’t make this change. I couldn’t. I tried for years and always failed. In ways I don’t understand, Heavenly Father has changed me when I was unable to change myself. I suppose that’s the promise of the Atonement at work in my life.

Today, I express gratitude not just for a Father’s love and a Savior’s sacrifice, but also for some smaller sources of joy. Here’s what I’m grateful for today:

I am grateful for a wife who stuck around. A year and a half ago, I disclosed to her the extent of my acting out on my sex and pornography addiction–and it was extensive. She could have left and taken the children with her, but she didn’t. She stayed. She bought every book she could find on sex and pornography addiction and read them all in about three days. She learned that she couldn’t fix me and that she could only work on fixing herself from the damage my addiction had inflicted on her over the course of nearly twenty years of marriage.

So that’s what she did. She got a sponsor who helped her see what co-addiction was all about and how she was drowning in it. She began working the 12 Steps and attending S-Anon meetings that were over an hour’s drive away. Then she started her own meeting in our city. Then she began sponsoring other women (many of them LDS) whose husbands were also sex and pornography addicts. She has changed so many lives. She has saved some women’s sanity and other women’s marriages. She has inspired them–and me.

She stuck around and our marriage is recovering. This is where I’ve always wanted to be.

I am grateful for a friend–another recovering sex and pornography addict–who knew just what to say when I called him a year and a half ago and told him that I was in trouble. Almost a quarter century ago, I put on my new suit and crisp tie and walked through the front doors of the missionary training center in Provo, Utah. Over the next two months, I learned to teach the Gospel in a foreign language–and I made a friend. I remember standing next to him during a devotional with Elder M. Russell Ballard belting out “Called to Serve” with hundreds of others enthusiastic young missionary voices and feeling the comfort of the Holy Ghost confirming that I was where I was supposed to be–preparing for the greatest mission of my life.

Twenty-three years later, we were still friends, but unbeknownst to either of us, the firestorm of sex and pornography addiction had nearly consumed and destroyed both of us. He found recovery for himself and his marriage. He walked the path of the 12 Steps, reconciling them with his LDS faith. When I finally called him in absolute despair that evening in April 2010, he knew from experience and inspiration just what to tell me.

He explained addiction to me and told me I couldn’t get over it on my own. He encouraged me to start attending meetings of Sexaholics Anonymous–even though it was outside the Church. Without his insight, I don’t know that it would have occurred to me that my recovery would not–and could not–be found in the Church’s Addiction Recovery Program (ARP). It’s very possible that I would have floundered away like so many others in a program that had no chance of helping me get sexually sober before finally giving up like so many others. My friend saved me.

He said to me during that first phone call leading to recovery, “If J [his wife] and I had to go through all of this difficulty and suffering just so we could be in a position to help you, then it was all worth it.” God bless good friends–especially the ones who are LDS sex and pornography addicts in recovery!

I am grateful for a sponsor with eight years of sexual sobriety and a brain full of wisdom and experience that he’s willing to share. One of the most important spiritual influences in my life is a Catholic. Who could have ever anticipated that? He’s helped me recognize the deep-rooted lies I’d been telling myself for a lifetime. He’s helped me overcome character defects that were killing me body and soul. He’s shown me aspects of Christ-like love and charity that I had never seen before. My continuing recovery is due in large part to my association with him.

I am grateful for Sexaholics Anonymous. It is because of Sexaholics Anonymous that I am alive today. I mean that when I say it. As a Latter-day Saint for whom faith has always been paramount, I have wanted to be the man my wife wishes I was and man my children thought I was. Sex and pornography addiction made that impossible. Every time I tried to overcome it on my own through prayer, scripture study and willpower, I failed. It was like running into a fifty-foot brick wall at a full sprint. Sexaholics Anonymous opened a door in that brick wall and helped me climb through to a new life where I can enjoy the blessings of the Gospel in a way that I couldn’t before.

Big Book, Bible, Book of Mormon and White Book: Necessary tools for recovery

I am grateful for the White Book of Sexaholics Anonymous and Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. I read the Bible and the Book of Mormon to gain gospel knowledge. I read the White Book and the Big Book to gain addiction and recovery knowledge. They have opened my eyes to the ways in which I was lying to myself and others. Without directly addressing it, they have helped me come to see that I had created my own make-believe version of faith in Christ and His Gospel. Of necessity, that pretend plan of salvation arose from more than thirty-five years of feeling the power and influence of the Holy Ghost, but never being able to fully forsake the compulsions to act out sexually and consume pornography. To maintain a modicum of sanity, my addict brain had to reconcile my faith with my behavior, and it did so pretty convincingly. The White Book and the Big Book blew a crater in my denial that allowed me to see the Savior and His Atonement in a new light. They made forgiveness from sin attainable for me because I have now become able to forsake the sin.

I am grateful for the many people who have read the essays on our website and in the book and then have shared them with others. I am grateful for those who have taken the time to send us messages of thanks and who have recounted their experiences to us.

I am grateful for Latter-day Saints who are no longer content to suffer in silence, who are fighting for recovery, who are battling to save their families and marriages. We are on the front lines in this war. We have learned for ourselves that with God, nothing is impossible!

I am grateful for Mormon men who are willing to put their pride aside and admit that they really are powerless over their addiction to lust–and then are willing to talk to others about their recovery. The more we all talk and share our experience, strength, and hope, the more lives we can influence for the better. The more we all understand about the true nature of addiction, the more we all advance in recovery. That means we–the LDS sex and pornography addicts and the women who love us–are strengthening the Church as we save lives, marriages and souls. Who would have ever thought that we’d be following Christ’s admonition to feed His sheep by doing this? Not me. I didn’t pick this path, but I assure you that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

God bless the sex and pornography addicts in recovery in the Church. God bless the women of the Church who are courageously working toward recovery from the damage of their husbands’ addiction. And most of all, God bless all of those who continue to suffer in silence. May we recognize them, put our arms around them and bring them home again!

Happy Thanksgiving!