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When faced with the challenge of helping an individual overcome pornography addiction it can be daunting to know what to do. Thankfully, the church and other organization have created resources to help you, as a leader, become a stronger support for addicted individuals coming to you for help.
I had the chance of picking the brain of Geoff Steurer who is a relationship and addiction counselor. Geoff has been counseling couples for over 12 years about how to improve the most important relationships of life. He has an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University in Communication Studies and a Masters degree from the University of Auburn in Marriage and Family Therapy.
With Dr. Mark Chamberlain he co-authored Love You, Hate the Porn: Healing a Relationship Damaged by Virtual Infidelity. Geoff and Dr. Kevin Skinner have produced a 6-part series called Strengthening Recovery Through Strengthening Marriage: Healing from Pornography Addiction. All are awesome resources.
In our interview, Geoff explains that a bishop’s revelation to help addicted individuals many times comes from researching additional resources. It’s crucial for bishops to educate themselves about the best tactics to use when offering support.
The bishop should also strive to organize a support team for the individual, including counselors and addiction recovery classes in order to effectively find relief for the addict.
We also discussed the effective ways to help the spouse that is faced with a partner that betrayed them with pornography. They cannot be forgotten and need additional support as well to help them to find forgiveness.
It would be well worth the time to watch (or listen) the interview below and to share further thoughts you have about counseling those with pornography addiction.
Also, don’t forget to REGISTER for the Utah Coalition Against Pornography Conference on May 18, 2013 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Links from interview:
Understanding Pornography & Sexual Addiction (Leaders Resource Guide)
Overcoming Pornography (LDS Church Resource)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muKXE6WDINY
This past Sunday our Stake invited this group to come and present to our youth:
Fight The New Drug – http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/
They are UT based, but have traveled and presented nationally. Their presentation is not religious at all, they are typically presenting to Junior High's and High Schools. Our Stake President rapped up the meeting with a short spiritual message. The youth, which filled up the chapel and overflow by themselves, really enjoyed it.
As a Bishop I highly recommend it.
I'm glad you mentioned it. They were at the UCAP conference and did a remarkable job. I am actually working on lining up an interview with them. Their resources are worth checking out–especially for youth struggling with pornography.
Counseling can help someone explore what led to an addiction to pornography and how they can better cope with it moving forward. Counseling can also help people identify their triggers for using pornography and help them to develop new and healthy coping skills for these triggers.