Former NBA champion Lamar Odom revealed his struggle with porn addiction in an exclusive interview with Covenant Eyes, calling the fight worse than even quitting drugs.
“It’s just like if you’re addicted to drugs, you know, that first time can lead to an addiction. And I was definitely addicted to porn and drugs,” Odom said in the interview, as reported by LifeSiteNews.
Odom entered rehab for drug addiction after he was found unresponsive in a Las Vegas brothel in 2015, having suffered two heart attacks and twelve strokes. Though he cleaned himself of drug addiction, Odom’s addiction to pornography came to a head after meeting his now-fiancée, life coach Sabrina Parr, who challenged him about the addiction upon seeing him watch it in her presence.
“Hello! I’m right here. What are you doing? Why are you doing that?” Parr recalled saying to Odom at the time, according to Covenant Eyes.
“She just brought it to my attention like, no you’re not going to be in a bed with me and watch porn,” Odom said of his relationship with Parr. “And she started asking me, you don’t desire me? Obviously, she’s very beautiful. It was just something that was hard for me to answer.”
Parr recalled the shame Odom would often feel when she brought up the subject.
“Anytime I would bring this up to him, he would experience a lot of shame. A lot of shame,” she said. “Later I learned he didn’t have the answers because he’s never been asked these questions. Ever.”
Odom’s porn addiction would manifest itself in some rather destructive ways, as he would often watch it while sleeping with other women and would even be late to the NBA bus on game days just to watch another porn scene. Most painfully, Parr recalled Odom often reaching for his phone to watch porn more often than he reached for her.
“He was reaching for his phone more than reaching for me,” she said. “And I had a problem with that. Because I’m like, I want to be 100% desired especially if I’m lying right next to you.”
Parr gave Odom an ultimatum, and, fortunately, he chose her over porn — a struggle that has not often been easy. In fact, quitting drugs came easier.
“I think it was a little easier to give up drugs, because I don’t think you can die from watching porn, even though you kill relationships, people that you really love,” said Odom.
After some unsuccessful attempts to regulate Odom’s porn usage, they eventually discovered Covenant Eyes, which allowed them to implement high-tech filtering software onto his devices. Though every day has been a struggle, Parr said that he has made efforts to focus that energy on something positive.
“He would do that. Meditate. Watch a movie. Take a walk. Exercise. Something else to calm him down,” said Parr. “And just watching him learn these things is the turn-on. Is what makes me attracted. To watch him overcome this and not be like oh, we’re dull because this porn is gone. He’s found other ways. That was the difference between a very low relationship to now we’re very high.”
Odom ultimately thanked God for bringing him back to equilibrium.
“God brought me back, hopefully for me to tell my testimony and help as many people as I can,” he said. “Just by sharing my story and telling them that they can overcome anything if they put God first and family first. And I’m living proof of that.”