"Dad, I can't kick this thing. I'm trying, and I don't know how."
Matt took a moment and a deep breath, and answered, "Then let's start from the beginning."

Hope started to leave Derek. With a hint of drawn-out sadness, he replied, "That's not what I said."
Matt stared in slight disbelief at his teenage son. He debated whether to respond with frustration or bury it and try to sound patient.
Derek continued, "Dad, you're not listening. I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't have brought this up…"
Matt took a hard swallow. His pride wanted to answer, "You better be honest with me about everything." At the same time, his sensibilities knew that would shut the conversation down entirely.
With a nod, Matt softly responded, "You're my son. You deserve to be able to come to me for anything. My job is to help you figure out how to handle the world."
At this, Derek relaxed a degree. He slid further back in his chair. Matt noticed that his son's shoulders fell a little. His hands opened up. His face softened. Matt couldn't help but thank the Lord that what he said actually worked.
"Dad, I can't kick this thing. I'm trying, and I don't know how."
Matt took a moment and a deep breath, and answered, "Then let's start from the beginning."
Derek carefully watched his father with eyes narrowed. He judged the statement and struggled to trust his father's heart. If he started talking, would his dad get mad at his choices? After all, that was usually how Dad responded to things like this. If he kept silent, would his dad badger him until he gave some half-truth in hopes the topic would die?
"I guess it started when I was in 4th grade," Derek began. He watched his father fight back with a shocked look. After Matt took a deep breath and nodded with a hand gesture for Derek to keep going, the 16-year-old continued, "One of my buddies brought something cut out of a magazine. We passed it around over the next couple of days. Everyone got a night with it."
Matt choked out, "Then what?"
After a pause, Derek chose to keep airing it out. He had gone this far. He might as well get it all out in the open. "When I was 12, one of my friends showed me some websites and I didn't think much of it. I probably knew it was wrong, but it's not like that really mattered. Once that happened, it kept going."
"So you've been looking at this stuff since you were in 4th grade?" Matt asked. He fumbled with his hands and attempted to calm his nerves. He loved his son. He wanted the best for his son. And it was dawning on him that he didn't have all the answers his son needed.
The realization deflated his beliefs about his quality as a father.
"Yeah, pretty much," Derek said.
Matt thought for a moment. He offered up a last-ditch prayer in his mind. Lord, give me the words.
"Why now?" Matt eventually asked.
"What do you mean?" Derek responded.
"Why bother to tell me now?" Matt asked. "You had this thing under wraps. It's not like your mom and I check your phone or computer. We didn't bust you. We've given you your privacy. Why are you coming to me now about it? What changed?"
His son thought and thought. Matt wondered if the question had somehow escaped Derek's brain. Eventually, the young man ran a hand through his hair and shifted in his seat.
"I felt like I couldn't hide it anymore. Dad, I'm going to be honest: I'm sick of it. But I can't help myself. I can't get myself to give up on the stuff."
Matt pushed his chair back and stood tall. "Let's go for a walk."
As they stepped into the soft sunlight of the evening, Matt steeled himself for the coming conversation. "Since you're honest with me, let me be honest with you." He debated whether to say it. He wondered whether his son would suddenly see him in a worse light. He questioned whether he would lose the mystique of being Derek's "father."
Something in him prompted him to keep talking.
"I went through the same thing. I've dealt with what you're going through. I fought it for a long time. It really started when your mom and I were having issues. It was an easy out. I didn't even realize why I was doing it until I sat with some friends and started talking about it. When I did, all the info came out. It was tough, but they admitted they had dealt with it all as well."
"You and mom had trouble?"
Matt chuckled, "Son, every marriage has some trouble at some point. It's just the truth. But in the end, it's how you guys get through it." Matt thought and added, "I didn't do very well with getting through it."
"Did you ever tell mom?"
"Yeah. And it didn't go well." Matt shook his head. "She reacted about how I thought she would react. You would have thought I was cheating on her."
Derek had softened. His father could sense an openness that hadn't been there even 10 minutes before.
"She flipped out?"
"Yeah, you could say that. And I don't blame her. In a way: I was cheating on her. I was replacing her with fantasies. I was drawn to that stuff instead of going to her. But the worst part was, it didn't stop there. The more I did it, the more I wanted it. It gave me some pleasure in a world that I wanted to escape. Except, it got to the point where I didn't even want to do it, yet it felt like I had to. It became a necessity the more I became numb to it."
"What did she say when you admitted it?"
Matt's eyes drew upwards as though he were searching the sky for the memories. "She cried. She took it personally and wondered if she wasn't good enough. She asked how I could do this to her."
The pair walked in silence. A small voice within Matt urged him to keep his mouth shut. While part of him wanted to keep the conversation going, he chose to listen to the small voice. After all, it hadn't steered him wrong yet.
"Dad?" Derek asked. "I don't want it. I always feel a bunch of guilt about it afterward. But there are a lot of people online who are telling me that it's okay and that it's good for me. They say the guilt is because my parents and 'society' are making me feel guilty about it."
Without understanding where it came from, Matt simply responded, "How many times have we talked about it?"
"Never."
"So you believe I conditioned you to not look at this stuff and to feel guilty even though we have never even had a conversation about it?"
The words caught Derek hard. Why did he seem to naturally feel guilty about it?
Matt watched his son and a wave of compassion overtook him. "The fact we feel guilty says that there's probably something wrong with what we're doing."
Derek put one foot in front of the other and the light rhythm of walking continued. After some silence and contemplation, Derek asked, "How do I quit?"
"It's not easy," Matt answered. "I had to convince myself that I was hurting myself, your mom, even God when I did it. I had to come to the realization that a part of me loved it, but the good part of me hated it. Then, it was some tough work of fighting those urges."
He added, "The good news is that the urge and the temptation should get easier to deal with over the long term. Some days, you might have to sweat it out by getting away from your phone or computer. But at some point, you gotta decide that you're not going back to it."
Derek thought it through and stated matter-of-factly, "I'm done. I gotta get this out of my life."
Matt took a heavy sigh. He knew the difficulty, but a wave of gratefulness washed over him at the idea.
As they rounded the corner to come back home, Matt thought to himself, "It's a good thing I didn't blow up when I wanted to..."
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