I can remember the feeling of my heart falling when my boss called me
and told me the IT department had found porn on my laptop. I had
handed my old laptop in and IT had transferred files over to my new
laptop. I have been working in IT and technology for years and always
thought I had covered my tracks. But not this time.

That night I can remember the panic and fear I experienced all night
as I slept beside my then girlfriend, now wife. In the next few weeks
I ran the gamut of our internal disciplinary procedure and somehow
managed to retain my job. I decided on good advice to take an honest
approach with HR but in hindsight it was guardedly honest. I never
revealed to them the extent of my porn use.

Over my whole life, I have used soft and hardcore porn from sex shops
and the internet. I had collections of pornographic images burned onto
CDs; the latest collection ran to about 7000 images. I say "latest",
as of course I had made repeated, futile attempts to stop and move on
from it. It affected of course my sexual life, and also my emotional
life. It affected relationships. It affected how I saw myself. But in
the midst of addiction, I did not see this.

Is it an addiction? There are those who say "rubbish". But I can only
attest at how pervasive it was, and also how difficult it was to stop.
That I think is a good measure of an addiction. I joined SLAA shortly
after the disciplinary procedure and it has taken me almost 18 months
to get on top of the addiction. I can honestly say, that without the
support of the SLAA fellowship and my sponsor and working the "12
steps", I would not have made it."


J. Dublin Ireland