Daily writing prompt

Have you ever regretted reading a book — which one and why?

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This prompt is going to be quite personal and if you are triggered by mentions of sexual content, please read this at your own discretion.

I would say I regret reading the whole series of 50 Shades of Gray one-hundred percent.

Back when I was taking in this type of content, I was also going through a very habitual addiction to porn. We are talking every night basically on the clock and struggling when I did not have access to it. This addiction not only affected my relationship with God, but my relationship with my family, my relationship with myself and even future relationship with my husband. It corrupted my view on what a relationship should be, what intimacy actually was, just everything was corrupted I would say.

It was honestly God that I was able to break out of that habit and having an understanding support group that was not just blowing smoke up my rear end. There is nothing more damaging to someone going through an addiction than when other people are telling you, “It’s no big deal, there is nothing wrong with it, blah blah blah.” While I am swimming in crippling loneliness and depression, feeling as though I am drowning in air. The gaslighting was quite real, and still is in certain circles.

My past with this type of sexual content is one of the main factors as to why I chose to only intake clean content on my book blog side of things. I have heard many past drug addicts say that you never truly get rid of an addiction entirely, and I am sad to say the same can be true in the porn side of things. I am not going to lie, I still deal with urges to watch adult content. This is why I have to be on guard constantly, since I am aware of how easily I can slip back into it.

This is made even more difficult with how openly sexual society has gotten. You cannot listen to mainstream music or watch mainstream movies and TV shows without having some sort of adult content barging into your system.

However, it is still not impossible to make that decision to not partake in that side of the culture.

If you are struggling with similar troubles, feel free to reach out for some sort of support. Hopefully you have some honest and upfront people who will be genuine with you and if not, there are counseling groups for this type of thing as well. I have heard of online groups for men and women as well.