Chicago woman once addicted to porn says God helped cure her

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Woman once addicted to porn says God helped cure her

19-year-old Gracelyn Sorrell says she was 14 when she began her interest into online porn, and claims she would watch porn for up to four hours a day. After losing her father in 2013, Gracelyn said porn became a way to comfort herself and escape her grief. Sorrell finally confided in her mom Karen, who encouraged her to find healing through the family's Christian faith. Sorrell now travels around the country sharing her experience.

A teen who watched porn for up to four hours a day has vowed she won’t even kiss before marriage, now that she has conquered her addiction. Gracelyn Sorrell, 19, said she was 14 when an explicit picture on social media triggered her “impure desires” and prompted her to delve further into X-rated websites.

The teen sadly lost her dad in 2013 and said pornography became a way to comfort herself and escape from the grief.

Sorrell, of Chicago, would secretly access the porn on her cell phone and regularly stayed up until 3 a.m. trawling through porn websites and apps. The then-high school student would binge on porn for four hours every day but said her splurges of pornography and masturbation left her feeling guilty and ashamed.

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By 2016, Sorrell was surviving on just three hours sleep each night which caused her grades to plummet. She said she finally confided in her mom Karen, an office manager, in August 2016, who encouraged her daughter to find healing through the family’s Christian faith.

"My phone was the easiest way I could access porn," Sorrell said. "I could sneak around and do it in the afternoon when I got home from school and my mom was at work. I had my own room and my older sisters and brothers were usually at work. After everyone went to bed I would turn off the lights and watch videos, sometimes until 3 a.m."

"I was watching about four hours of porn every day, one in the afternoon and then three or four hours non-stop at night," she said. "When I watched the videos it gave me an adrenaline rush. It was like insulin to me, I needed it. I was finding a place for my soul but it was an impure space. The porn and masturbation was never fulfilling. It was always a chase. It was dehumanizing. I felt guilt and shame afterwards."

Sorrell said God helped her heal and now travels the country speaking to others about addiction. (SWNS)

"I lost my focus on my schoolwork because my addiction was always on my mind," Sorrell said. "I was always so tired because I would stay up until the early hours of the morning watching porn. I was very stressed out. I grew up in a Christian household. I basically grew up in the church my whole life. I felt like I was leading a double life because I was this Christian girl in school but secretly I was addicted to this drug of sin."

"When I went on vacation with my family I was stressed because I should have been enjoying Thanksgiving with them but in the back of my head I was thinking, 'I just can’t wait until night time when I can watch the videos,'" she said.

After confiding in her mother, Sorrell began expressing her feelings to God through journaling and purged her phone of apps which might rock her “self control”.

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The teen said her mother was very supportive and encouraged her to come to her for counseling whenever she was struggling.

"My mom was so supportive and she told me we had to pray about it," Sorrell said. "From that moment on I started journaling. I forced myself to have self-control. I stopped taking my phone to bed and I took extra precautions like deleting the apps and deleting YouTube."

"When you’re addicted to something, it is all you can think about," she said. "You have this powerful urge to watch. But I dedicated those urges to my journals and bible worship.I didn’t have professional counseling but my mom has a lot of experience and is spiritually in tune with God."

Sorrell is now a public speaker who travels around the U.S. to share her experience with addiction.

The 19-year-old is also an advocate for abstinence and has made a vow not to kiss or have sex before marriage.

"I have had relapses. Not many, but I have had times where I just couldn’t fight it," Sorrell said. "Some nights in bed I would cry afterward and feel sorry I failed again. I slipped back into it for short periods of time. Whenever I had a relapse I confided in my mom. She was never judgmental."

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"I felt like that transparency helped me get back on track," she said. "I haven’t relapsed since 2016. I am waiting until marriage to kiss and have sex. I always say it was my impurity that made me pure."

"Right now I am not looking for a relationship," Sorrell said. "I believe it’s up to a man to find a wife so I’m not searching. If he comes into my life then great."

A 2008 study from the University of New Hampshire indicates that 93 percent of males and 62 percent of females reported seeing porn as adolescents.

Sorrell believes politicians need to do more to protect children from the dangers posed by pornography, which blighted her teenage years.

"My advice to anyone going through this would be to keep on trying and turn to God," she said. "Confide in someone close to you about what you’re going through. Be transparent and find that safe place where you can talk without judgment. Get out of your bedroom and verbalize it."

"I think access to these sites should be blocked, or at least blocked until a certain age," she said. "The videos are dehumanizing especially to women. It’s not healthy to watch. I wish it could all just be taken off the Internet for good."