Jeremy’s story is one of hope and transformation. From a young age, Jeremy found himself entangled in the grip of addiction, facing years of shame and inner turmoil. Despite a loving upbringing and a strong faith, he wrestled with a deep sense of brokenness and loss. Yet, through a profound encounter with God, the support of a faithful community, and a commitment to healing, Jeremy embarked on a journey that would lead him to lasting freedom.
His story is a powerful reminder of the transformative power of grace, resilience, and faith in overcoming life’s darkest moments.
Innocence lost
Any addiction doesn’t develop overnight, and mine was no different. It began with a thought, reinforced by small decision by small decision, that eventually had me in for the fight of my life.
My name is Jeremy Devers, and this is my story.
I grew up in a good home and had two loving parents. I went to church regularly and believed in God. I had no major trauma from my early years and was raised in an overall healthy environment. I had always been a goofy, carefree child. I was typically the class clown and could make anyone laugh. I was an older brother, loved organizing my legos by color, and enjoyed playing with the local neighborhood kids. I was naturally curious and usually well behaved.
Our family loved spending time together. We ate meals together and both my parents were highly present in my childhood. We enjoyed watching movies together, and this became an open door to greater curiosity and trouble.
I remember that if we came across an inappropriate scene, my parents would have my brother and I close our eyes and we would quickly fast-forward that scene. I could remember having these thoughts, “but what was that?” “Why am I so interested in that?”
Whether you want to call it curiosity or temptation, I knew that I wanted more of that which I had known to be forbidden. So at the early age of 9 or 10, I remember pulling out one of these movies by myself and specifically looking for these inappropriate scenes. I can remember the rush of adrenaline as I secretly searched and hid. When I finally found what I was looking for, there was a chemical hit unlike anything I had ever experienced before. It left me satisfied, but also craving more and more…
This was just the beginning of my journey down the road of addiction and brokenness.
A growing addiction
It was my first week of middle school and I found myself in the midst of a class-wide discussion on the topic of pornography. I had never heard the word. But I was curious enough, so when I got home that day I jumped on google and found out what it was for myself. I’ll never forget the deep disgust I felt in that moment. Shock. Shame. I had never imagined anything like that existing. And it seemed like whatever this was, there was a lot of it out there… I was appalled.
I did share initially about what I had found with my parents. I found some relief in sharing. But what didn’t disappear was now this growing curiosity of what else was out there. I had already engaged in this type of content, but never to this extent. The desires of lusting after women had already sunk their teeth in me, and now I knew how to get brand new content. It looked free, but little did I know truly how much it would cost me.
This behavior continued for the next three years. Maybe once in a week, or once in a month. Always in secret. Whether it was a scene in a movie I could find or some dark website, I had found my new drug. I did make attempts over the year to get clean. I joined a men’s group as an 8th grader & I confessed a few times to others in community. But I was never able to fully shake this demon.
Thankfully, God was writing a story of freedom & redemption. In a time of confession and repentance with my parents, I had my first significant encounter with God. I didn’t feel anything in the moment but this began a three year season of total abstinence from pornography and any other sexual content. Understanding addiction better now, I truly believe that God himself rewired my brain in that moment. Addiction forms deep grooves in our minds, like ruts, that make it more and more challenging to avoid. I didn’t need accountability software or a men’s group to stay clean for the duration of high school. I was free, I was clean, and I was so thankful!
Going into my freshman year of college, I wasn’t expecting temptation to resurface. But introduce major transition, loneliness, and insecurities, and I found myself face to face with an all too familiar enemy.
My Darkest Hours
The transition into college hit me like a ton of bricks. I hadn’t realized just how good I had it in high school. I had been surrounded by a loving family, was in a small school where I knew everyone, and had a good community of friends and adults. It felt like all of that was stripped away as I boarded a plane and crossed the world after graduating high school.
It wasn’t even a few months into college that I looked at pornography again, for the first time in years. You could imagine the level of shame, frustration, and confusion I felt. What had been a three year journey before, would now grow into a much longer season of wrestling.
I had seasons of sobriety over the years as well. Two, three, four months of staying clean. Often long enough to feel confident that I really had “put these things behind me”. I had dated some girls over the years as well. Some in the midst of rough seasons, others in the midst of “sober” seasons. They had all loved God and wanted to help me as they could. But relationship after relationship ended in breakups. A relationship built on a rocky foundation like this would never truly last.
There was one special girl I met before a long mission trip. She was stunning. We stayed in touch for a while then eventually dated long distance for a year. Entering into this relationship, I had genuinely good intentions. I really felt like my challenges had been behind me. I was open about my past and we both believed that we wouldn’t have to face this challenge in our relationship.
A few months into dating, I was back in an all too familiar place. Undealth with roots, pain, and trauma resurfaced and here I was, soothing myself in the primary way I had for years now. I shared with her, she forgave me, and we moved on, or so we tried.
Despite some of these warning signs, we got engaged after a year of dating long distance. We began to plan for a marriage and a life together. Our desires for each other grew, but my brokenness continued to lurk under the surface.
Everything came to a halt as I admitted to looking at porn again, two months before our marriage date. This was the final straw that broke the camel’s back in our relationship. While trust had clearly been broken before, this one cut deeper than ever before. She was deeply betrayed. It was now very clear that I was not in a position to lead, to love, and to foster a healthy relationship or marriage. In a matter of weeks I completely lost the woman I had cared for the most.
I had never felt more broken, ashamed, and rejected. I understood why she didn’t want to stay with me, but it was hard to detach my behavior with who I was. I felt dirty, unwanted, and alone. The day I realized that all hopes of the relationship were gone, I remember going home sobbing. I sat on my bed and in the midst of my greatest pain and greatest shame, I heard God speak so clearly, “I will never leave you.” I’ll never forget those words. That’s the kind of God I know, that in the midst of my pain, sticks to us closer than a friend. These words carried me through the challenging season that would follow this breakup.
Behind all of this, God was writing a story of healing and freedom. It would come down the road, but still came with a steep price.
Hope Restored
One of the problems with addiction is that it doesn’t really matter what you know. We might understand addiction, know the right things to think and believe about addiction, but that still isn’t enough by itself to get us out of addiction. Addiction is like cancer, it’s like a disease. It wasn’t built overnight, and barring some sort of miracle, it also won’t disappear overnight.
In truth, the behavior can disappear in a miraculous moment. That was my own experience. How can you explain three years of behavior that vanished after 30 minutes of prayer and confession? I believe brains can be rewired. Truly, I believe that God can do whatever He wants in us. Looking back though, what didn’t change in that miraculous moment was the undealt beliefs I carried and my trauma from the past. While I am so thankful for the season of sobriety and abstinence I had in high school, I believe that the God-invitation for me later on was to actually work through and process the deeper things in my own heart that had led to all the acting out behavior to begin with.
What comes first, the chicken or the egg? While that might serve as a timeless debate, what we do know about behavior is this – beliefs drive our behavior, not the other way around. Porn use didn’t cause low self esteem, it was driven by low self esteem. Any sort of acting out behavior is always the fruit of underlying issues.
What would it require for me to really begin digging into some of my deeper, underlying roots that had driven my behavior for years? Unfortunately, it took another all too familiar breakup years after my engagement. Following my broken engagement, I had sworn to myself that I would never walk down that road again. Yet once again, it was the all too familiar story of an addict. What I wanted wasn’t enough, and I found myself in another extremely painful and shameful situation.
You’d hope that it wouldn’t always require hitting rock bottom to make significant changes in our lives, but this often seems to be true for many of us. Thankfully, these kinds of painful moments can fuel our desire to seek long lasting change.
Following my last breakup, I was desperate to do whatever I needed to do to find long lasting freedom. I had experienced that level of desperation in the past, but thankfully this time I found three key things that unlocked my journey of long lasting freedom: 1) A sponsor who understood my journey of sexual addiction, 2) practical steps into healing and freedom, and 3) a group of men who were in a similar process of freedom seeking.
For me, it looked like joining the 12 step process found through Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA). I committed myself to my sponsor and met weekly with this group of men. It was no overnight process, but when I committed myself to these steps and regular meetings, I found myself shedding layer after layer of undealt with issues. It took me a year and a half to complete the 12 step process. Upon completion, it felt like one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.
In many ways, I feel like I’m finally living again. I’m not afraid of relapse. I’ve worked through so many of my triggers and childhood traumas. I understand addiction much better and recognize what it does to us as humans. I’ve been met by the grace of God over and over again. I’m beginning to connect much deeper in friendships, finding security in my identity, and am finding freedom from the shame that used to weigh on me like a heavy blanket.
I found freedom, and I’m convinced that you can too. I circled the mountain of sexual addiction for a total of 18 years – three years in my teenage years and 15 years starting from my freshmen year of college. I experienced break up after breakup, heartbreak, disappointment, and hopelessness. Thankfully, I never quit on freedom and always held on to hope, even when it felt like just a thread at times. I was able to walk through healing, and I believe that you can as well.
