PHOENIX - Elizabeth Smart's horrific story has been told before, but not like this.
She was kidnapped in Salt Lake City back in 2002. Smart was held captive for 9 months and raped multiple times a day.
“Looking at pornography wasn't enough for him,” said Elizabeth Smart, speaking for the first time about pornography’s role in her abduction, in a new video posted on the "Fight the New Drug" YouTube channel. “Having sex with his wife after looking at pornography. It wasn’t enough for him.”
“And then it led him to finally led him to going out and kidnapping me,” said Smart.
“He just always wanted more,” she said. “I can’t say that he would not have gone out and kidnapped me had he not looked at pornography, all I know is that pornography made my living hell worse.”
Should pornography be treated like a health crisis?
We spoke with a porn addict, Robbie, who says it's a health crisis for him. He started his recovery process eight years ago.
‘I’m a recovered sex addict,” He said. Not cured – recovered.”
Robbie spoke about the Elizabeth Smart case and his past pornography addiction.
“I’m a member of a local 12-step fellowship that supports people with sex addiction,” he said.
It’s an addiction he’s not proud of.
“Porn was kind of my gateway drug,” Robbie said.
He’s now weighing in on what Elizabeth Smart is saying about her abductor’s porn addiction.
“The cancerous nature of porn -- it grows,” he said. “The disease of porn, it can really affect people in a strong and profound way.”
Robbie knows how damaging that addiction can be. At one point, he stopped being productive in his daily life.
“I had no ability to control it,” he said. “I’m blessed that my addiction didn’t take me down the same roads that maybe that individual’s did, but porn definitely did -- once it got a hold of me, it didn’t let go until I found help.”
Eddie Valdez, a psychiatric nurse practitioner with Infinite Healing and Wellness, said porn addiction is not too far off from other addictions.
“When patients are addicted to porn and have these obsessive thoughts about porn,” she said. “They may experience the same thing that a drug addict may experience, for example, when they’re shooting up heroin.”
It’s like a reward system in an addict’s brain.
“When they watch it, it creates a level of satisfaction that they’re not experiencing in daily life,” said Valdez.
She says most addictions stem from different types of trauma.
“Once someone starts obsessing over it, once they become, you know unmotivated or distracted, there’s definitely a problem,” she said.
In Robbie’s case? He’s now feeling in control of his life and wants anyone who struggles with porn or sex addictions to know they can get help.
“Day and night, for men and women,” he said. There are even telephone meetings.”
Here are some resources for those struggling with sex and porn addiction: