YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

This is my first post here. I can't figure out how to do the "introduce yourself" so I'll just jump in. I listened to my first Mental Illness Happy Hour segment today. It was the one where Paul interviewed Todd, who escaped from PTSD and meth addiction. I am grateful to have heard this story.... my youngest son died 4 years ago at the age of 32 of a drug overdose after 9 years of sharing my pain and the disruption of our family after his brother's death (my only other son) in a bicycle accident. My widowed daughter-in-law has a little brother now captured by meth addiction, seemingly hopeless. Can't count how many addicts I know... most of their addictive behaviours hidden from me, I am sure (I am sure because I know I hide mine!) My own father's family experienced alcoholism as "an intergenerational curse" and I include my own life in this. I was a well-mannered, productive drinker of too-much alcohol until recently. Now my talented body/brain is exploring other addictions, including sugar and tobacco -- two things that were never temptations before. I believe we all suffer from this stuff. I once read that "The human being is a factory of idols" and that's how I currently view addiction: idolotry : loving something with the need and passion that rightly belongs only to God. The reason I put PORNOGRAPHY on the subject line here is because of the subject being addressed in this podcast by Paul after his interview with Todd was ended and he read some "surveys". It upset me. On the one hand, Paul did recommend psych counseling to the man who was indulging in porn (his marriage suffering because of it) BUT he kept saying things like "a counselor with a healthy modern view of sexuality" and "claiming reasonable rights about your body and your needs" . I just can't let the issue of porn use off the hook because here is what I know: PORNOGRAPHY = HUMAN TRAFFIC-ing = MODERN SLAVERY. Check out a website by International Justice Mission (IJM.org) . There are currently more enslaved individuals in the world today than ever before in history. A percentage of this enslavement is adult men held captive by their governments in "illegal military service", forced to sign up for a term and then held long beyond that term against their will. (I know a man now living near me in northern California who had to smuggle himself out of his home country of Eritrea after being kept 9 years beyond an initial 2 year contract that drafted him into the army there). And there is a percentage of enslaved men forced to work in agriculture and mining in several countries. BUT BY FAR THE GREATEST NUMBER OF ENSLAVED PEOPLE today are young men, women and children kept in "the sex trades", virtually all of which now include the production of internet pornography along with "regular" prostitution. It is not a "third world" issue. I have a dear American friend who was sexually used FROM HER INFANCY by her own biological parents who maintained a "nice middle class lifestyle" with a family business of porn -- first in films, later video and then websites. Over the years the level of violence and torture increased. She lived her entire life expecting to be killed while her parents looked on, cameras rolling. In spite of escaping that home as a young woman and receiving psychiatric care for many years, she was not free from fear for a single day until the death of her father when she herself was more than 50 years of age. PORNOGRAPHY MAKES MONEY FOR SOMEBODY. SOMEBODY ELSE IS BEING ABUSED AND ENSLAVED WHENEVER ANYONE USES IT FOR "THEIR NEEDS".

It's hard, my ex was a porn addict, it's an epidemic based on newspaper reports I've read, so there's no need for relationships for some people
Read a few years ago some guy and Rashida Jones were making a doc about the shocking amount of American teenage (and also underage) girls coerced into films for a few $$$, but I can't source it anywhere maybe it's on hold

Porn is a tough subject, and when you think about reality, about human trafficking, it’s kind of a tough one. The perception is that this is solely a personal choice or a 'need,' but if you ask someone what it all does specifically, you’ll find that there’s a lot of harm going on in the background. It’s not that addiction, or what it does to people’s relationships, is the only thing to take away—they’re exploiting actual lives to allow it all to happen. We can’t ignore that.