My own recovery from pornography and sexual addiction has been a continual unfolding of new lessons. There was the intense counseling for several years, the support groups, the authors I learned from, the seminars I went to—each time meeting new people who were on the same journey I was on. I did learn lots of new tools and truths that helped me move from the mire I was stuck in.
But the lasting freedom I’ve found came from finding people I could share my story with, breaking the power secrecy once held on me. Only sightly less important was hearing the stories of others, each time gaining new insights into myself.
My family began our healing twenty years ago. Me for addiction, my wife for feeling betrayed, and eventually my children to combat the continual assault on their morality. The longer we have been on this journey to healthy intimacy the more we have all come to realize the importance of relationships and community.
While I no longer consider myself “in recovery,” I find I rely more than ever on community to keep me in a safe place. After all, in this day and age none of us are unaffected by sexual temptation.
What is “Pure Community”?
Pure Community is a national directory of intensives, counselors, seminars, groups, books, articles, and podcasts for men, women, spouses, and parents seeking healthy sexuality and healing from sexual brokenness. Our mission is to connect families and individuals with safe communities that assist in the pursuit of sexual purity. This is a collaborative effort to bring resources from a wide variety of sources into a single directory.
Pure Community also exists to facilitate conversation and collaboration between organizations. By acting as a neutral platform that promotes multiple ministries, we increase communication between ministries. I have had the invaluable opportunity to speak with men and women from a wide variety of denominations, specialties and approaches. A large part of what we do is help connect ministries who have resources or information that others need.
I am personally very excited to be sharing this resource on the Covenant Eyes website—they are a like-minded group focused on the importance of community. The accountability software they offer, for example, has proven to be an invaluable asset in support group settings and at home in sparking discussion in a productive direction. Covenant Eyes is also a pioneer in bringing multiple speakers and authors under one roof through this blog section. In fact, the blog section of Covenant Eyes served as a major inspiration for what led to the formation of Pure Community.
Pure Community launched July of 2015. Every week there will be new content and communities added to the site from all over the country, growing the number of resources visitors can connect with. Pure Community is an outreach of Be Broken Ministries and consults regularly with a number of other organizations.
I don’t see any Celebrate Recovery groups in this directory. Just wondering why.
That’s what I attend. They have Christian 12-step programs and a general worship and catching up evenings on Fridays…
http://www.celebraterecovery.com/
I will say that I’ve been desiring more intensive accountability, though. We don’t have small groups at our church. The men don’t seem to work too hard to get involved in each others’ lives. CR is minimally accountable, but one of the hallmarks of being around addicts is that they are a bit more undisciplined by nature, and don’t really go out of their way to ask difficult questions. I wish I had a close friend that I could work together with side by side and get honest and transparent with. My roommate is great, but he’s hardly ever around because of his work schedule. I need a Paul to be Barnabas with, I guess. I’ll keep praying that God will bring the right person into my life.
Just wanted to update this and say that I’ve been approaching some of the more aggressive guys in my CR and it is making all the difference from the very start. They are spurring me on the “aggressive amputation” and constant prayer and worship. Gotta blog about this. ;-)
The groups found in Pure Community are designed to specifically address sexual issues. While the community aspect is critical for healing, we need community that is well educated in confronting sexual compulsion. Sexual compulsivity, including pornography, is not entirely the same as other addictions. Because we are sexual beings, recovery does not typically revolve around abstinence. I’ve heard it explained this way: recovery from sexual compulsions is like an alcoholic learning to drink responsibly, rather than avoiding alcohol all together. That is far more difficult.
You will find some Celebrate Recovery groups in our directory, but only those that have leaders trained in sex addiction recovery. They usually do things not found in other Celebrate Recovery groups.
We are in no way against Celebrate Recovery. However, we want to send people to groups where they will find the highest chance of lasting healing.
Since Celebrate Recovery is very 12-step in nature, a great book for you and a few men to use would be “When Lost Men Come Home” by David Zailer. It is specifically about sexual compulsion, presented in a 12-step style, and quite excellent. It would give you and your group some great things to discuss while you work on accountability.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=when+lost+men+come+home
Gateway Church in Southlake, TX has a group for men and one for partners/spouses. They are growing fast and will be offering this at other campuses along with a group for women who struggle with addictions.
http://gatewaypeople.com/ministries/intimate-life/classes/2015/09/21/intimate-life-process-group-the-conquer-series
We would be happy to add them to our database. For others reading this article, there is an INCLUSION form on the Counselor and Groups pages, where you can request inclusion in the Pure Community directory. We welcome new groups helping people find freedom!
Is there a pure community in Perth, west Australia?
Pure Community does not offer groups, we promote groups run by other organizations that we are aware of. Our database, as of yet, does not reach to Australia. However, we would be happy to teach people how to set up and run a group. We will need more people setting up their own groups in order to reach all those who need support and community. You can go to the website and click the Contact Us link at the bottom to get help starting a group.