My Name is Sally*

*Name has been changed to protect confidentiality.

My Story

Hi I’m Sally and I’m a recovering addict, recovering codependent, sexual trauma and betrayal trauma survivor. I’m also the wife to a recovering addict.  My life has been steeped in addiction in one way or another from all angles. Not only am I a recovering codependent due to addiction, but a generational codependent.  

    From my first paragraph, I am certain pictures of dark smoke filled rooms, alcohol, needles, like we see in the movies, would fill the minds of most.  Actually though, I’m that sister sitting next to you in church who has filled numerous callings, holds a temple recommend, in fact we have served together often. I’ve been an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints my whole life. I have gone to great lengths to make you think I’m as normal as the next person, yes, I’m a recovering perfectionist too. I feel like I should just state, “Hi I’m Sally and I’m in recovery period.” The truth is, we all are.  We will be recovering from many things in this life because we were sent to experience opposition in all things. I am 47 years old, and this last year was the first time I embraced my whole story and that is when true healing began. No one should have to struggle alone. So, I opened up and told my story in effort to educate, reach out, and help others. I have been richly blessed as I have been tutored by the hand of my all-knowing, loving Savior, Jesus Christ through His recovery plan. I had no idea when I began this journey that I would find the peace I now enjoy. I pray my words will bring comfort and lead many to the Savior where they too can find solace in His healing balm.

My Youth

     I was introduced to the world of sexual type addictions at a very young age. My first encounter was 4 years old. I hadn’t even been taught yet about the dangers. I carried a lot of anger over this fact for many years. My innocence was robbed so early on. Once I was given those God given sexual feelings, it became very difficult to put them away. A little at a time, in my home and the homes of other children, I was taught things no child should be taught by other children. They had all been hurt by someone else, unfortunately mostly family. Some were sexually abused by adults, some by teenagers. The last piece placed in my path was pornography. By 8 years old I had a full blown sexual addiction and soon after, I was addicted to pornography. Almost everything that happened to me happened while parents were home and often behind closed doors.

If I could share one thing that would prevent anyone from crossing into the private hell of addiction, it would be this experience I had at nine. At this point my parent’s eyes were partially open to the seriousness of the struggles I was having. I’m certain there were many tears and much pain as my parents prayed for me. I’m sure there were many prayers that went out in my behalf. I, however, denied having a problem and continued to struggle.

I am able to trace this experience I’m about to share back to the exact age because I received a very special gift at this time. A favorite Aunt and best friend, was preparing to go to Seminary and had received a new set of scriptures. I adored my aunt and we spent much time together. I attribute much of my healing to her example and unconditional love. She was much like an older sister. She had this beautiful Book of Mormon that was in a cream colored zipped pouch. I felt the book was special and desired to have one for myself just like it. When she received her seminary scriptures, she gave it to me.

I recognize now that this was a pivotal time in my life as the feelings of the Holy Spirit prompted me to begin reading on my own. I don’t remember what I read only how they made me feel. Oh, how I loved those scriptures. After I started reading the scriptures, I started to have nightmares.  It was the same dream and it only happened when I was reading my scriptures and praying.  The dream began with a heartbeat that got louder and louder, then I saw a man, and he just sat there laughing at me.  I was completely frozen and couldn’t move my body at all. I went to my parents and told them what was happening. They told me that if I prayed and kept reading my scriptures, they would stop. Only instead of stopping, what happened is, the more I read and prayed, the more it happened. This went on for several weeks and was to the point that I was terrified to even go to sleep. I had the same nightmare each night I read my scriptures and prayed. It wasn’t until my father laid his hands on my head and gave me a priesthood blessing that the nightmares finally stopped.

Step one in the LDS Family Service 12 Step Program reads, “Honesty: Admit that you, of yourself, are powerless to overcome your addictions.” This describes my experience perfectly. I was powerless against the destroyer of souls, even with reading my scriptures and praying, because I was bound in the chains of addiction. This is what addiction does to you. It freezes you, binds you, and keeps you stuck as the Adversary, the Father of all lies, laughs at you. Though prayer and scripture study are vital parts of the recovery process, because I was lying about my addiction, I was literally bound. I, myself, was completely powerless to overcome my addiction and my life was in the control of the adversary.

As I grew older, attended church, participated in Family Home Evening and Scripture study, I continued to have experiences with the gentle feelings of the spirit. I was still struggling, still keeping most of my struggles to myself and still very much personally steeped in addiction. Somewhere between the age of 14-16, I remember attending a fireside by our Stake President. He was definitely called of God for my generation in our area.  I remember bits and pieces of what he taught, but what was most life changing for me was when he invited us to read the “Miracle of Forgiveness.” I also remember him sharing his own failings from his youth. This really made him relatable for me and filled me with hope that perhaps I could become something better.

My parents had a copy of the book in our library, and I began to read from it and allowed myself to become tutored by the spirit. This book helped me take an honest look at myself. It wasn’t an easy book to read, but was pivotal in helping me recognize what I was doing was a sin and taught me what I must do to repent. I finally went to my mother and fully disclosed all that I was going through and struggling with. She handled it beautifully and I felt of her love. We talked about what I must do and she helped me gain the courage to go talk to my Bishop. I went and talked with him, but relapsed shortly after visiting with him.

I continued to struggle of and on. I felt the weight of my burden and felt so much shame. I felt because I am a woman, that it was somehow worse. I attended seminary, kept trying to overcome, but it was difficult. After graduation, I received an unusual calling. I was called to be in a musical production with the assignment to play the lead part of Cindy, a drug addict, in the play “It’s My Life” by Carol Lynn Pierson and Lex De Azevedo. I really feel this was another piece to my personal healing. I was taught so much about addiction. I marvel to this day that I was called to this assignment, it was a tender mercy for me, one who was struggling with not drug or alcohol addiction, but sexual addiction. I had a full testimony of the gospel by this time and desperately wanted to be rid of the addiction once and for all. I went and spoke with my Bishop and explained the situation, my prior attempts to stop, and asked if he could give me a healing blessing. I had done all that I could do to overcome. After my blessing, we met a few times. I was able to report to Bishop that I was finally doing well. I was in a state of recovery. The Savior stepped in and made the difference.

Marriage & Divorce

I wish I could say I lived happily ever after, but my life only got much more difficult. A year and a half later, I was married in the temple to my high school sweetheart.  A year later after that I got pregnant and found myself in the midst of divorce. My divorce was finalized just under a week from the birth of my first daughter. I am not at liberty to share the details of all that happened here. What I can share is that even though divorce is not of the Lord, I was carried in my adversity. This is when I learned for myself that the Lord can lead us into other paths when necessary for our own personal salvation.  I was blessed with dreams that helped guide me in all of my decisions, it was during this time that I learned to lean on my Savior at a whole new level. My heart was broken and I never thought I was ever going to recover, but I did.

I had three dreams during my relationship with my then husband, one was a pre-warning of what was to come, the second one was telling me it was time to change my course, and the third came when I was considering reconciling my marriage due to confusion, after much prayer the Lord showed me some things that were taking place that had been hidden from me. Later, after the divorce, everything was fully disclosed to me, that added another witness that my dreams were in fact from the Lord. Even at my young age, and with all my imperfections and difficult past, I had indeed been blessed with a spiritual gift.  

Remarried

My second husband and I started dating when my daughter was just a few months old. It wasn’t long before I received a witness that we should marry. He loved me and my daughter. He was sweet, kind and gentle. We were married by time she was 8 months old. Together we have a family of four. One daughter (He adopted her) and three sons.  When we first got married it was difficult, we didn’t know it then, but I was still struggling under the weight of my prior marriage. It made it a bit rough.

My husband is a convert to the church and didn’t join until 12. Growing up he was constantly subjected to pornography because his grandfather left magazines laying around. My husband’s past is much like my own. He too went through the steps of repentance and served a mission. As we were raising our family my husband had a relapse with his pornography addiction. The signs were there, but he denied having a problem. He was afraid if I ever found out, that I would leave him too because of my prior divorce. Satan was using fear to keep him silent. I suspected his problem and kept feeling like I was going crazy, then one night while lying in bed I had an impression to go check on him, but to be really quiet as I approached. This is when I caught him. He still denied the severity of the problem, but did go into the Bishop.

It was at this point that I really began struggling emotionally.  I was in full blown betrayal trauma. I became depressed, withdrew from friends and was overwhelmed by what I was being called to go through. I started having symptoms of PTSD, which included panic attacks, nightmares and horrible anxiety. I was so depressed that at the end of each day, often the only prayer I could offer was, “Heavenly Father, I need help!” Which was always answered with, “It’s on its way, hang on.” I was afraid to talk to anyone about what I was going through and suffered in silence for five years. Only a few were aware.

To make matters worse my sweetheart’s dad died leaving us with the responsibility to care for his aging mother who was ill. Our son while serving a mission got really ill and ended up with a life-threatening illness at the same time, I was working and my own health was going down fast due to stuffing all the emotions from what our family was going through. The only thing that got me through was I was serving as a Seminary Teacher and studying the gospel daily. It’s the only thing that kept me from sinking completely into a state of despair.

I finally called and made an appointment with a counselor. I knew I was having an emotional breakdown and was trying to do more than I could handle. I decided to get away from the family for a bit and I took a class at the Salt Palace called “Master Your Influence” by Kirk Duncan. I loved the class so much that I signed my husband up for the next class. He loved the class and really helped us strengthen our relationship. We then attended another class called “Royalty and Romance”. Kirk, our teacher, touched the heart of my husband and gave him back to me. On our drive home after this class, my husband pulled over, and I received an honest disclosure of his past. He had been free from his addiction since the time I caught him.  He was so affected by how much it had hurt me that he never dared go back. He scheduled an appointment with the Bishop and gave an honest disclosure of his past and completed the repentance process. At this point I was being mentored and taking mentor classes.  We took many classes together as a way to bond and strengthen our relationship. On the way to Salt Lake and back home we listened to Brene Brown on CD and I read her books out loud.  We spent a year strengthening our relationship taking these frequent trips and classes. It was absolutely necessary to the healing of our relationship. It was the first time we had something we were doing together that we both loved. It truly saved our marriage.

My husband and I began to talk about opening up about our story in an effort to provide support for others, however, fear of what others would think kept poking up its ugly head. Instead we stayed quiet until I read an online post where a Mormon author came out with a blog post about men needing to stop breaking the hearts of their tender wives. The way he presented it, and the notion that men can just quit addiction cold turkey, though some have, woke something up in me. I knew at that moment I had to open my mouth and speak. There was simply too much ignorance on the subject to be quite any more. At the moment, “Inside to Empathy” was born, and I began to blog my story in hope of educating people how to be a better help and support. As I blogged, I ended up hitting a wall. In opening up and being so vulnerable about my life, my PTSD symptoms started to surface again. I had to take a break from blogging and just focus on healing. I ended up hiring a personal mentor who specialized in overcoming the struggles I was having and I am still working with her.

While opening up and blogging, I fell in love with the LDS Family Services 12 step program.  I was going to group on a regular basis and actually visited my past experiences while going through it and found additional healing there.  Not only that, I started studying in depth the Spouse and Family program put out by LDS Family Services.  I have such a strong testimony of this program and love the podcasts that are available to listen to. I have experienced some amazing healing experiences as I have been focusing on my recovery. As I studied the LDS Family Services Addiction Recovery Program, I felt so close to my Savior. I recognize daily that there isn’t anything I have or currently experiencing that my Savior hasn’t felt first.  

I also fell in love with the books, “Strengthening the Family” and “Strengthening Marriage”. These were also put out by LDS Family Services and have a lot of clinical work in them. Between all my training as a mentor, my favorite reads, including “Overcoming Codependency” by Douglas Dobberfuhl, I have found so much help and healing. This last book mentioned helped me understand the gospel perspective of Codependency and helped understand how to work the 12 step program in a more spiritual sense. It is here, that I learned for the first time that codependency is actually the opposite of Charity, the pure love of Christ.

This last General Conference, after listening to the men’s session, I began to start praying for Charity.  As I have started doing this, the spirit has been tutoring me. My heart is changing in ways I have longed for, for many years. I truly have a testimony that a study of the gospel will change behavior quicker than a study of behavior will. I have witnessed this personally in my life repeatedly.

With my love of the gospel and the Church’s inspired programs I found myself desiring to become an ARP missionary.  A few weeks later, my husband and I were called into the Stake President’s office and were called to be ARP Missionaries.  We absolutely love this calling and have such a strong testimony of the program.  I testify that the Savior is truly the master physician to recovery. I love the people we work with and am looking forward to seeing the miracles of the Savior unfold in their lives like it has in ours. This call has added so much healing and strength to our marriage.

I have learned that sometimes the answer is to leave a companion, but most often the answer is to stay. This is a personal decision that must be made prayerfully. I have received both answers in my life time. My own experience with addiction from my youth has given me a perspective that has blessed me in being able to extend empathy to those who struggle and relapse. I get it.  I owe everything to my Savior Jesus Christ. Without Him, I would not be who I am today.