Hooked on Lust

Devori, age 17, is severely addicted to internet pornography. Like 34% of kids her age she got hooked the very first time. It happened when she found her mother’s Iphone and was instantly hit by a tsunami of overwhelmingly stimulating images and sounds that took over her life.  Her biggest challenge became how to know reality from unreality.

As she sank deeper into darkness and self-hatred, Devori was desperate for help but was afraid to tell her parents. She didn’t feel safe with either her mother or father. Both her parents yelled at her and called her names for much less than having a pornography addiction. She had no one to confide in. 

Devori lives in a very “religious” place where she probably would be branded as “evil” the second news hit the street that she had a problem like this. She feared that her parents would also have the same reaction and disown her. It could be she was right.

Finally unable to contain it anymore, Devori confided in a friend. The friend shocked her by saying that she had the same problem but that someone had helped her. It was a teacher. Devori couldn’t believe that she could trust any of the teachers from her school. In Devori’s school, kids learned the hard way not to reveal anything less than perfectly religious and well adjusted behavior. Everyone was supposed to have 100% emuna 100% of the time. It’s not the type of school where kids ask questions that might be bothering them such as why G-d didn’t prevent the Holocaust.

Nevertheless Devori found out that this teacher was an exception. She was from “out of town” and her popularity was growing fast amongst the girls. Devori’s friend shared with her that she had spoken to the teacher, Mrs. Rand, many times on the phone and saw her at her house as well.  That was last year and now she was doing fine.

Devori called Mrs. Rand and asked if she could meet with her. Mrs. Rand, who is a student in our emuna-coach training program, met with her that day. Mrs. Rand was able to win Devori’s trust with her accepting and non-judgmental stance as well as by being able to provide essential information to Devori about her addiction in a loving but professional way. The emuna coach promised Devori that she would respect her confidentiality and not reveal anything to her parents. They spoke for three hours and Devori left feeling cared for and understood for the first time in her life. She finally had someone to talk to who was an excellent role model for how to beat the addiction using Torah and emuna.

Mrs. Rand is guiding Devori by strengthening her belief in Hashem and teaching her to how to speak with Hashem. She also uses guided meditations, relaxation exercises, and selected readings with her. It is also the first time for Devori that she has been able to ask questions about Judaism to a learned woman and get really good answers. 

Mrs. Rand needed to meet with Devori’s mother at a PTA meeting but she knew that she couldn’t reveal what her daughter had told her. She had met the mother before and knew that Devori was right –  she wouldn’t deal well with hearing that her daughter had a pornography problem. Rather, we decided that the best thing for now would be to tell the mother about her daughter’s strengths in the hope that the mother would also begin to see her daughter’s strengths. We also want Devori’s mother to find Mrs. Rand easy to speak with and hopefully open up about the pain in her own life and marriage. The current plan is based on the assumption that Devori’s problems resulted from living with dysfunctional parents who are judgmental, emotionally unavailable and sometimes abusive. Devori escaped into lust in a futile attempt to get the love and sense of connection that she craved from her parents. In addition to giving continued support to Devori the goal now is to develop a supportive relationship with Devori’s mother so that she  will come to understand her daughter better and become sensitized to the need to protect all of her children from the internet. After meeting with the coach for several weeks, Devori stopped using her mother’s Iphone.  To the amazement of her parents and teachers, she is excelling in school and is happier than she ever was.