Last January, SA Lifeline hosted a Parent Panel at Thanksgiving Point for anyone interested in gaining more information about dealing with the problem of sexual addiction with their children. Among the presenters there, we were privileged to hear from Vauna Davis, founder and executive director of Reach 10, an organization dedicated to helping young people navigate the challenges associated with pornography in their personal lives and relationships. Vauna was also formerly the executive director of UCAP (Utah Coalition Against Pornography), which hosts the world’s largest Conference dedicated to educating the public on the many debilitating effects of pornography. Vauna also serves on the SA Lifeline Advisory Board.
Vauna reminded us that when we look at the big picture, family culture and home environment are major influences on young people’s ability to avoid or overcome any challenge they face – including pornography use or addiction.
The beauty and effectiveness of working 12 Steps comes from the fact that it can help us stop trying to fix our children, and start working to be the kind of person who could inspire them to fix themselves.
Vauna’s comments included the following mantras.
7 Positive Affirmations That Will Help You Create an Emotionally Healthy Family Environment
What kind of person am I working to be? Stating these goals as positive affirmations helps us see ourselves as capable and powerful.
· I am generally happy, grateful, and enjoying my life.
· I admit my challenges and problems in life and share how I am working to overcome them.
· I deal with stress in healthy ways.
· I openly identify my emotions and model how to manage them (emotion coaching).
· I share how God is blessing my life in sincere and non-threatening ways.
· Every time my children are around me they feel better about themselves.
· My family knows I love them no matter what.
Thanks to Vauna for her expertise and insights on this important topic. For more on her work with Reach 10, we invite you to check out reach10.org.
If you are a mother who has a child struggling with pornography use, we want you to know that there is a special Mother’s Meeting the last Tuesday of each month at 9pm. This meeting takes place on Zoom and you can request an invite here.
My daughter is married with 2 children under 5. She has been married for 11 years. The first year of her marriage, she found out her husband was looking at porn. It has continued now for 11 years. He has progressed from porn to talking to women online and has had liaisons with 2. He says he won’t do that again, but says there is nothing wrong with him looking at porn and says it s natural for nen to do this. He and my daughter have so much friction between them. But she loves him and doesn’t want to leave him. We do not know where to turn.
Peggy, I can appreciate the difficulty of your situation. One thing I have learned from my own pathway of recovery is that I only have the power to control my own actions and reactions. As I immersed myself in recovery, educating myself on addiction and trauma, establishing healthy boundaries, finding qualified therapy, and beginning to work the 12 steps, I found that I began to change. Like a puzzle piece, my changes had to affect those around me. I have seen mothers work their own recovery through SAL and find greater peace and clarity in their relationships with their affected children. Ultimately, every person has to decide for themselves when enough is enough, but I have seen my life and so many others transform as they commit themselves wholly to their own recovery. With this addiction, lust is toxic. There is no way to continue to practice lust in any form and find recovery, for self or for relationships. The good news is that there are so many tools and so much support available for the addict, the traumatized spouse, and family members through SAL 12-step groups.
But ultimately, the decision to heal and find recovery has to be made by both your daughter and your son-in-law. The best thing you can do to support her may be to educate yourself on addiction and trauma and to attend SAL 12-step groups yourself. Working the 12-steps helps me to see with much more clarity what is mine to change and what I must surrender to my Higher Power. Hopefully your daughter will be willing to give 12-step a chance as well.
Hope this is helpful. Let us know if we can be helpful in any way. You can email me directly at becky@salifeline.org and I am always happy to take a call as well.