My Story

Hi, I'm Billy. I'm a normal guy from the great state of Utah. I have a BS in Mathematics and a Master of Statistics from the University of Utah. I consider myself a data analytics and visualization professional in the healthcare space. I'm passionate about powerlifting and competing in that sport. I grew up in a Christian home based on Christian values. I'm also recovering from an addiction to pornography.

My addiction to pornography started in the 6th grade. I heard a rumor one of my fellow students brought a 'picture' to school. I was curious and asked about it. My fellow student smiled and showed it to me. Unfortunately, that's all it took to start my addiction. From that point on, I found myself struggling with images and acting out. No matter what I did, I couldn't shake those images from my head. Pretty soon I found myself looking for more images in any way I could find them.

As I got older, I found myself increasing methods to please my addiction. I moved from images to videos to other avenues. I found myself struggling between not wanting to act on my addiction and really wanting to act out on my addiction. This pendulum shift continued to happen for several years. It wasn't until many years later I learned this pendulum shift was really a form of "rock bottom". 

Sometimes, it takes an action just as big as the initial condition to get things moving in the right direction. For me, this action had two parts. The first part was me deciding I didn't want to take this addiction into a marriage. The second part was meeting a young woman who would later become my wife. I knew right there and then that I had to be more than I already was. It wasn't going to be easy, but it was what I wanted.

From there, my story became focused on recovery rather than relapse. The chapters in my story show I learned here and scraped my knee there. I have chapters about the power of family. Seeing how happy my wife is, how proud my parents are, and seeing my sibling's support is empowering. I have other chapters about the friends I have made and their impact on me. There are several more chapters on top of that too!

My story is why I wanted to start this blog. I know there are lots of people who suffer from the same addiction that I do. The have been too many mentors, family members, friends, and brothers in recovery for me not to pay it forward. I want this blog to be part of my paying it forward. 

Here's to another day of sobriety!

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