Fight the New Drug (00:00)
Well Toni, thank you so much for joining me on Consider Before Consuming today. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you. I’m excited for our listeners to get to hear a little bit about you and your story and the work that you’re doing. So can you start by telling us about your company and the kind of work that you’re doing today?

Toni Collier (00:06)
Yeah. Sure. I have an organization called Broken Crayon, Still Color. Okay. I feel like it’s self-explanatory, you know what saying? This idea that, you know, our past doesn’t get to discount us, right? Like we can still create beauty from a whole bunch of brokenness. And we do so many cool things. I get to travel and speak about what it looks like to heal from all kinds of brokenness. I have a podcast called the Still Coloring Podcast. And then I write books. We create resources essentially to help people heal. So we have women’s courses on healing and

Toni Collier (00:46)
We have devotionals, I have my brand new book, Don’t Try This Alone, all around not healing in isolation, because are you really healing if you’re isolating, know I’m saying? So that’s what I get to do. And it’s cool because I say this all the time, know, the pain that we go through, the things that drive us to numbing and addictions and all these things, it’s never worth it. And it’s also never wasted. And I think what’s been cool is that I’ve gotten an opportunity to not waste all the pain that I’ve walked through from porn addiction to sexual manipulation and abuse to all just drugs, alcohol addiction, lustful, all the things. I’ve just gotten the opportunity to take it and to, you know, not waste it to like tell other people like, no, I see you. I know what’s happening. Me too, me too, me too. And we still can create a whole bunch of beauty. So that’s what I get to do. I’m the broken crayons girl.

Fight the New Drug (01:37)
Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that with us and for your work. As you mentioned, so our focus on this podcast is educating on the harms of pornography. And you mentioned that you have a personal story. Can you share a little bit about your own story when you were first exposed to porn as a child?

Toni Collier (01:52)
Absolutely. So I grew up in Houston, Texas. I always like to mention Texas because it’s the best country in the country. You know what I’m saying? But I grew up in a really unconventional family, a blended family. My mom and dad had gotten together. My dad had two sons. My mom had one. Then they had me. And we, you know, we had an unconventional family, but we still had a family unit nonetheless, right? Like my brothers.

Toni Collier (02:17)
were like my brothers. weren’t stepbrothers or other brothers. They were really my brothers. And when I was eight years old, my mom ended up having a massive stroke. She was paralyzed completely on the left side. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t feed herself. She couldn’t walk. And it created this moment of darkness in our family to where my two older brothers went to go live with their moms. My mom’s son went to drugs and alcohol and gang life and all the things. My dad, was a raging alcoholic, very verbally abusive. And then there was me and my mama. And I became a tiny little caregiver at eight years old, taking care of my mom, feeding her, changing her, all these things. And when you have a parent that is an alcoholic that works all the time like my dad was, and you have another parent who is really disabled and just unable to protect, you get exposed to things like pornography. And I remember…

My mom was on tons of medicine, so she was a vegetable half the time. I was just in the bed with my mama. She was knocked out and I was just flipping through channels and lo and behold, channel 77, which is crazy that I have so much trauma. There’s so many things I don’t remember, but I remember this. Channel 77 was a porn channel that I’m assuming that one of my parents had ordered or put on TV, whatever. And I just was scrolling and ended up getting exposed right next to my mother as she slept all high on different medicines. And from that place, it’s still so interesting to me that just being exposed a little bit, our tiny little brains become latched on and addicted because of what it does to our brain chemistry. And from eight years old, all the way into adulthood, I battled with pornography on and off and on and off. I lost my virginity at 13.

I was twerking, popping, drinking, smoking all over the teen club at 15 and 16. I probably slept with over 20 guys by the time I was 21. I think it really created a lot of harm and addiction in my life at a very, very young age. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (04:18)
You mentioned some other ways that that early exposure influenced your life. As you grew older, how did you really see that start to affect all of the other parts of your life, having that exposure at such an early age?

Toni Collier (04:30)
Yeah, think, mean, obviously we know pornography objectifies women in so many ways. And it’s not to discount or discredit that men are objectified in the industry as well. But it is to say for me personally, seeing women objectified, viewed as an object, a tool to be used and not a human to be loved created that belief in me. Like I was like, okay, I am only useful if I’m sexual. I am only loved if I give up parts of my body.

And that was my story for a long time, up until honestly, my last marriage, which ended in divorce two years ago. And my husband battled with porn. I didn’t see it as a big deal at first, because I was like, me too. I get it. I get it. But the difference was I was fighting to heal from it and he was not. And in our marriage, there was a lot of infidelity. But I think I decided that I would stay, even with all the infidelity present because again, I had this internal belief that was not true, that I was just an object, that maybe I just needed to give more sex, maybe I just needed to be sexier, maybe I just needed to be more available to him to be loved. And so I think it also created a lot of blind spots in the way that, I don’t know, I stood up for myself and the things that I accepted as a wife that I shouldn’t have. And so yeah, all those different areas, sweet Jesus, help us, you know?

Fight the New Drug (05:55)
Yeah, that was so, I mean, articulately said, a lot of the things you touched on are things we hear so often from individuals who struggle with pornography. But I think it can be difficult, especially maybe for someone who hasn’t struggled with it, or even for someone who has to really put that into words so concisely. So thank you for sharing that. At what point did you recognize that it was developing into an addiction?

Toni Collier (06:01)
Yeah. Yeah. Come on healing. We’re trying to heal. Yeah.

Yeah, so I think that oftentimes addictions manifest into things that impact all of your relationships, which is a telltale way for us to realize that, okay, this isn’t about me, but this also is impacting how I relate to the world. And for me, it created a lot of hiding, right? And so in my friendships, I wouldn’t really let anyone go deep because I really didn’t want anyone to see the real me. When you have an addiction that goes unspoken and unsurrendered, you begin to hide, shame gets you. If I told anyone this thing about me, that I struggle with this, they’ll leave the room. But it’s because I really didn’t give people the opportunity to get in the room, right? To know, man, I really struggle with this. I also think that the way that it’s really showed up in my life is I’ve had to really fight to want accountability. The effects of pornography on our brain, I mean, if we’re just completely honest, like we are sexual human beings.

Like this idea that we were created to have these sexual drives and to be in healthy marriages and to actually like experience that non-platonic. But when you do it in a way that exposes you when you’re not developed yet or when you don’t have a moral compass yet, it just starts to leak all over the place. So for me, the way that it showed up, is that I had really unhealthy relationships with men. I think I was easily manipulated. I was incredibly co-dependent on men. And then I didn’t have a lot of girlfriends. And again, I think it’s because I was hiding so much. let shame into my story and I only found deep connection and it wasn’t really deep connection, but I only found deep connection with men because I was looking and seeking for attention and not accountability.

So I definitely think it impacted my relationships and friendships as well.

Fight the New Drug (08:12)
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Fight the New Drug (09:00)
When you were growing up, pornography addiction was talked about even less than it is today. And was it especially tough to be a girl who was struggling with this in silence?

Toni Collier (09:05)
Yeah. Absolutely. I watched a documentary around the effects of pornography on the brain and they did this study where they had all these men and women in the room, they split them in half, all the things, and they were surveying them on things that they had been exposed to. And it’s interesting because the rate at which men were honest about pornography addictions was through the roof compared to women in the room who actually they were lying, so they were hooked up to lie detector tests, and the majority of women lied in the room. And I think men get a bad rap when it comes to vulnerability and being honest about what they’re battling with. But in this case, for some reason, I think because it has not been socially acceptable for women to struggle with sexual things already, right? I think it’s already just such a stigma.

I think women just got caught up in the shame cycle and they were like, I just literally cannot admit this, this is a man’s addiction, right? Societies made us think that this is a male addiction. And I think it also is, I mean, we can go on and on about this, but I also think the reason why that’s even a perspective is because it’s a male dominant industry. And so women who were weak and viewed as, you know, objects, it’s very difficult for you to realize, no, we have agency over our bodies and some of us are making bad decisions, okay? Like with our bodies. And so I do think it’s very, very, very, very difficult as a woman to talk about these things because I think we just haven’t had a lot of agency when it’s come to our good bodies and protecting our good bodies. And it took me, I don’t even, I mean, probably, gosh, 15 years to tell anyone that I was battling with pornography. And if I’m honest with you, it wasn’t my bravery.

I borrowed someone else’s bravery. will never forget my friend, Cicely, telling me, like we were just sitting down for coffee. We had just met. We were like, we’re gonna share our stories. And I left this part out of my story. And then she led with it when she talked about her story. And I was like, I just wanna, I feel convicted. I just want you to know that you are not alone in that. I also battled with that. a part that I left out of my story. Shoot, I didn’t realize we was going that deep. You know I’m saying? But I’m excited because I do think that

Fight the New Drug (11:08)
Wow.

Toni Collier (11:24)
The tides are turning, the times are changing, and we’re just getting brave, and we’re saying the thing that needs to be said. And I just think that’s really good news for all of us. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (11:34)
Yeah, you know, we hear that a lot from women who have struggled with pornography, how isolating it feels in a culture that normalizes this for men so much and not for women, when what we should be normalizing is that there are harmful effects to anyone that do not discriminate based on gender. And so I think it’s so important to have voices like yours in this space sharing these experiences so that others don’t feel as alone as well.

Toni Collier (11:39)
Yeah. Okay, cool. I like it. Let’s the people free. Okay. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (12:00)
That’s right. Growing up, you’ve shared that you also faced sexual abuse, early sexual experiences, and struggling with substances. How did those experiences intersect with your exposure to pornography?

Toni Collier (12:15)
Yeah, you know, I was talking to my counselor earlier today. I’m just really telling all my business at this point, but I told her, said, one of the most empowering things that counseling has done for me is it’s given me agency to name what’s healthy and what’s not. But when you grow up in an environment where normal and healthy look like over sexualized, promiscuity, you don’t really have the agency to name otherwise.

And I think for years, it’s just been acceptable for women to be sexualized for, and it’s grown, right? Like, I think back to some of the movies that I even watched and I was like, why did they let me watch that as a child? Okay. Like it’s just crazy. And so I think with that background, we get to a point where we really just have to start healing our own good bodies and minds.

Toni Collier (13:09)
to the point where we’re able to name, that’s not healthy. That is not something that should happen. That actually is really unhealthy and I need to get out of this. I think when we develop that agency, we are more able to look at our pasts and start naming things that are really, really hard. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (13:26)
Yeah, that’s such an important point because with pornography’s harms, that is something that so many people don’t know about. They don’t know that there are harms associated with it for themselves, for relationships, for society. And so I think it’s such an important reminder of the work that needs to be done for us to normalize healthy behaviors in our culture.

Toni Collier (13:33)
Mm-hmm.

Fight the New Drug (13:49)
When you look back, how do you see all of those challenges shaping the way that you understood yourself and relationships during that time?

Toni Collier (13:54)
Oh my gosh. I, you know, I’ve been on this journey, I think, for 12 years of healing. So started off going to counseling every week, okay, because I needed it. Lots of trauma in my past, lots of hard things that happened. And I look back now, and it’s so interesting because I have a daughter who’s 11 years old, and I am definitely a helicopter parent in some ways because
of what I was exposed to, so I’m like super serious about technology. We don’t do phones in our house. ain’t about, you know what I’m saying? Like every single device that we have has bark technologies on it where everything is just shut down. I monitor, I mean all the things. I say all that because our healing work is not just for us, but it’s for the generations that come behind us, whether we are parents or not. Our healing work, my healing work has impacted every single aspect of my life.

It’s given me more perspective, more capacity, more understanding, a well-balanced, grace-filled understanding of my body and of sex and of all the different aspects. And the cool thing is it doesn’t stay with me. I am now impacting the way that my daughter sees herself, the way that she should be treated, and the way that she is owed privacy for her good body. And that to me makes healing, which is not linear and very painful, all the more worth it. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (15:23)
That’s beautifully said. You spoke a little bit about shame a moment ago and how that was something that kept you silent for 15 years. Are there other ways you can see that shame played a role in your experience? And also you mentioned your daughter. I’m curious to know if your own experiences with shame have affected the way that you are parenting your daughter now.

Toni Collier (15:26)
Yeah. Absolutely. So now, thank goodness, okay, I don’t feel like an inkling of shame in my bones. Now I’ll get embarrassed, obviously that’s a regular feeling, and I’ll also be guilty of things, right? But I think that in my healing journey, that’s been the key. It’s that I’ve differentiated shame and guilt. I can be guilty of watching something that I know is not good for my brain or my thought process or who I want to be. I can be guilty of that.

But I don’t have to be ashamed of it. And that’s the thing that I’ve been trying to teach my daughter. It’s we can admit that we have done something wrong, that we’ve done something bad while also not claiming that we, our identities are bad. I am good. I have a good body and I was made for good things. And the decisions that I’ve made, even sleeping with over 20 men by the time I was 21, even that should not cause shame into my story because it doesn’t have to and it’s not true. Who I was in the past does not get to dictate what I get to have in the future. And my story, if anyone watches it, follows along, Googles my name, all my businesses on the internet, like you will see what it looks like to name really, really hard things. And my daughter’s used to that at this point, because I’m gonna say the thing. To name the really, really hard things and also not let it define us. And I think that’s the definition of defeating shame.

Fight the New Drug (17:16)
Yeah. Are there practical steps or kinds of support that made the biggest difference for you as you started to heal that you would recommend to others?

Toni Collier (17:24)
Yeah, I wrote about this in my new book. My friend Erin Eddy, such a sweet friend, been such a good friend to me for years and years and years. She was one of the first very close friends that I told about my porn addiction. And what I write in the book is that I just knew she would be like, we can’t be friends. Like I just believed it with everything in me. But I felt very convicted because she had shared so many hard things about her story.

And one of the hard things that she shared is that her ex-husband was addicted to porn. And so I’m like, I literally cannot tell her because she’s going to be like, nope, like trauma bond or trauma dumping, like, nope, not doing it. And I just ended up telling her one day and I was like, I just, want some accountability around this. want to get, you know, I want to get better at spacing out. This is a very interesting thing. But when I told my counselor about this addiction,

I was like, I am really trying. She gave me, and I felt really, I felt a lot of embarrassment and a lot of guilt. And she gave me a perspective that I thought was so sweet. She was like, um, when was the last time that you watched porn? And I was like, well, I mean, I mean, it used to be like every weekend, every this, every that. I said, I think it’s actually been a couple of months. And she’s like, I want to celebrate that. I want to celebrate that over time, you have done the hard work of spacing out these desires, these needs, these interactions. And you’re gonna look up a year from now and be like, it’s been a whole year. It’s been a whole five years. It’s been a whole whatever. And I just don’t think that would have been possible if I didn’t have accountability. If I didn’t get the bravery to tell my friend Erin that I had battled with porn since I was in elementary, which is crazy to even think about. And I just wanna spoiler alert guys, we’re still friends, okay?

And she has been so grace-filled and so kind and so practical when it comes to thinking about, you know, tracing the moments where I feel like I need to watch porn. What is there? What is being whispered into my ear? What gap am I trying to fill? What pain am I trying to numb? And then I’m a part of the sober community, right? So no alcohol for you, But that was another big thing, is that I realized that my sex drive increased when I was drinking.

And so another practical step that I’ve taken is I don’t drink because I want zero temptation. Okay. I don’t want to be in any state of mind where I don’t have complete control over my hormones, the way that I interface with my body. I don’t want it. So those have been really cool things. So accountability, friendship, being vulnerable with good friends that can hold you accountable. And then also figuring out your triggers and touch points and maybe some stumbling blocks that you need to unstumble on like drinking. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (20:12)
Yeah, thank you for sharing all that and shout out to your friend Erin for being a good, safe, good, safe person to talk with. As you started that healing journey, you mentioned you were spacing out the times that you were consuming. What positive things did you start to notice as you reduced that porn consumption?

Toni Collier (20:17)
Okay, this is going to sound so weird, but I really do think that I’m an attractive person. Okay. I actually believe that. And I think that there’s a healthy way to embrace that. Right? Like I’m hot. Okay. I feel that way about myself. I say that now from a different place. I said that in the past because I wanted men to look at me and notice me. Look at me. I’m hot. Look at me. I’ll give you sex on the first night. Look at me.

Now I’m like, no, I’m hot and this good body is mine. And the things that I do with my good body are not showing it off and all my glory’s out on the streets. But instead, I’m using my good body to work out in the gym, to do pull-ups. Like I’m so freaking strong, I can do pull-ups. Just wanna put that out there, right? I’m eating up these push-ups.

Physical movement, fun, play. I’ve been doing cartwheels and stuff. It’s like I’ve just gotten back to the innocence and the sacredness and the beauty of my body, and that it was made to do other really great things outside of just sex or sexual things. yep.

Fight the New Drug (21:34)
I love that perspective. I want to go back a little bit to your role as a mom. You mentioned earlier some of the ways that you help safeguard your daughter online. Are there other things in your own experiences that have shaped the way that you approach raising kids in the digital age?

Toni Collier (21:53)
My goodness. Again, like I said earlier, when I think back to what we were allowed to watch and listen to, I’m like, okay, baby boomers, whoever y’all were ahead of us, you done got it wrong. Okay, something went awry here. I was exposed to so many things that were deemed normal, like music videos, movies that were overrated and then nobody even cared about the ratings.

Like what in the world, right? So I think that because I’m really serious, I have been serious about my own healing journey and about the things that I watch and the things that I’m exposed to now, that has translated 100% in parenting.

I give her language around her body parts and privacy and puberty and what happens. Like my daughter knows the cycles of a woman’s, you know, menstruation cycle. Like those are things that we just did not know. And I think with the absence of shame, the tools that we have like a bark technologies or covenant eyes or all these different things with the digital tools that we have, I just think we’re able to make more informed decisions. And I don’t want to rag on the baby boomers either. If you’re listening to this, I apologize. Okay. Because I also just want to give some grace and say you were doing the best you could with what you had. But now we have no excuse. We have access. We know that these things are unhealthy and we know that we have to put plans in place to protect our children. When my daughter’s friends come over, leave your little cell phone at the door. Our house is a digital free zone. We don’t do TVs in rooms, even my room.

And I practice that with myself in front of my daughter, in front of my kids, in front of my son. We don’t do TVs in our rooms. There’s a family television. We do not do closed doors and electronics. Nah, you ain’t just about to be FaceTime-ing anybody, okay? In your room with your door closed. It’s not gonna happen, because you know how many times your mama took some nudes and sent it to these little nasty boys? I know, okay? Like, I’m just, I think, long story short, I’m on the offense, not the defense when it comes to this stuff.

And I think that’s where we all should be, living on the offense.

Fight the New Drug (23:56)
Right. Yeah.

Is there tension at all between having these safeguards in place that are so smart and so helpful in so many ways, especially given all of the harms that we know are out there and your daughter wanting independence, especially I imagine as she’s growing older and given everything you’ve been through in your experiences, how do you navigate that tension if there is tension?

Toni Collier (24:16)
Yeah, yeah, so I have deemed my daughter a strong-willed blessing, okay, because it makes me feel better about the situation, but baby, she is ready at any turn to challenge me, okay? I could be like, my gosh, look at the beautiful blue sky, and she’d be like, it’s green. I’d be like, okay. So yes, there has been tension. And you know, I named earlier, you know, I’m a recovering helicopter parent. Like, I’m really trying my best not to project my fear onto my daughter. And instead,

Toni Collier (24:50)
Focus on preparing my daughter. So what I’m a helicopter parent. I feel like we try To avoid the exposure at all costs. We’re like, no, no, no, no, no. So then we isolate our children, so sorry, you can’t go that slumber party. So sorry, you can’t go to this versus preparing them. Here is what you do if you’re exposed to something like this.

You’re not supposed to see other people who are not your family, their body parts, their sexual body parts. You know what they are, penis, vagina, breast, all the things that we make very normal in our household. Preparing her to be a leader in the things that she’s exposed to is a much better posture that will allow her to go out into the world and fend for herself. Because if we’re just 100% honest, they’re gonna say things that they’re not supposed to. And that makes me so sad to even say out loud, but it is true. And with that knowledge, it is now my job and opportunity as a parent, as a guardian, as a mentor, even to young girls, like to say, like, we’ve got a plan for that. We’re not gonna avoid it, and we’re not gonna pretend like it’s not happening. We’re gonna talk about it, we’re gonna address it full on, and we’re gonna prepare you to be a leader when it comes to technology and being exposed to sexual things. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (26:08)
Yeah, you mentioned some of the boundaries that you have at home around devices and media. Do you have boundaries for outside of your home that you’ve navigated together?

Toni Collier (26:16)
Yes. There are just certain things that we will not be around. Again, I’m a pretty assertive person. I can be a little aggressive when it comes to my children, but even down to we’re out at a restaurant and we’re sitting next to a couple that’s cursing. We want, we’re going to move. I’m not going to ask them to change what they’re doing, but we’re going to move. And I’m going to explain it to my daughter, Hey, I’d love for us to have a more peaceful dinner. And with all the cursing that’s going on next to us, I want to move us to a different spot so that we can have a peaceful dinner. Same thing with movies. We have walked out of a movie before that was marketed as kid-friendly and then it was not. And bye, I don’t care. Take them little $17.98 from the studio movie grill. I’m out, you know? And instead of being like, let’s go, I can’t believe this is happening, it’s a conversation. Hey, I know you really wanted to see that movie. I’m so sorry that we went. I probably should have watched it first. I didn’t realize it.

I would much rather us not be exposed to things like that. And I just, want you to take ownership in what you see and I just want you to know we’re not gonna stay for this movie kind of thing, you know? So yes, like we’re not just, I mean, if anybody’s watching or listening to this, you probably were exposed to hard things, unlike me outside of your house, at somebody else’s house, at your best friend’s house. Like, my-

For me, I just think it’s a weird situation that I was in my parents’ house in their bed and my mom was just, it’s a hard situation, know, it’s very different. And so we have to get good at like teaching the next generation that when you leave the confines of a safe, safe digital environment, it may be unsafe. Here’s what you do instead.

Fight the New Drug (27:55)
Yeah. You have a book that came out recently called Don’t Try This Alone about the power of community. And when it comes to parenting today, why do you think it’s so important that kids and parents don’t try to face these challenges on their own?

Toni Collier (27:59)
Let’s go. Yeah. Because we’re feeling crazy out here and we don’t know what we’re doing, okay? Like, my daughter comes home all the time and she’s just like, well, my friend has this phone and my friend has this phone and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And that was really challenging until I got friends that had the same beliefs as me. You are 11. You licked my elbow the other day. You are not responsible enough to have a phone and to make good decisions with technology and all the exposure, okay? Literally, all right? You made a volcano out of toothpaste and it exploded all over our bathroom. No, you can’t have access to it. You know what saying? Like, what’s interesting is that as parents, as leaders, as even singles, we have to cultivate an intimate space for community that views things the way we view them. And I’m not saying like we don’t have friends that don’t believe the things that we believe. Like I’m all in for inclusion. I have people, I have all sorts of friends that with all different beliefs.

But my friend Belinda and her daughter Journey, who’s the same age as my daughter Dylan, like we have conversations in community about it. And now not only do I feel less alone as a parent, cause I’m like, girl, you too girl, they showed this at school. They showed that girl what?

But now my daughter doesn’t feel alone. Now she’s no longer saying, well, all my friends have cell phones because her friend Journey doesn’t. She got a watch, okay? She got the Tic Tac, whatever it’s called, watch. We have the Bark Technologies watch. It’s, I’m not saying that everything has to be cool to our kids, but none of us want to feel alone. We all want to be included. We want to belong. We want to be a part. So what would it look like for you to maybe bring some friends close that have some of the same…you know, moral beliefs as you and some of the same convictions as you so that you’re less alone feeling this. And that’s really what my book is about. Don’t try this alone. It’s like, stop trying to do life alone and think that you’re just perfect and you’re the expert in everything or you’re the strong friend. I’m a strong friend. got everything. No, you’re dying out here. Okay? And you got to stop.

Fight the New Drug (30:09)
Yeah. And especially with everything that you had spoken about earlier with your experience with shame, knowing that opening up and having that support and that community, especially with this topic, can really help to break down that shame because you don’t necessarily know when you might just say something in a group setting that triggers for someone else, you’re a safe person to talk to about this. So I think, you know, there’s so much benefit of having community in so many ways, especially for parents today, but also for anyone who’s navigating these

Fight the New Drug (30:37)
these topics with their children or these issues within their own lives. Having support is we hear over and over again is always something that’s so integral to someone’s healing journey.

Toni Collier (30:50)
It’s the truth. just is. Think about, I just want to remind us that’s been listening to this the whole time. Think about that conversation I had with my friend Cicely. And she let out and said, so I’ve been battling with porn since I was, and I was like, And it was a bit of a culture shock there, you know what saying? think about the freedom that I felt to then say to her, hey, me too. I no longer have to hold this by myself. I don’t have to feel shame about this. I don’t have to feel like I’m broken or flawed because there are other people who know the pain, who know that, who know for real that porn really is just another idol to numb our pain, to not feel, to feel something or to feel something good and not bad. And when you have people that are with you and say, Listen, I know this is painful and I know what you’re going through is hard, but I’m not leaving the room. I’ll be with you in the valleys, but I won’t leave you there. We can overcome this in healthy ways. My goodness, it changes you. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (31:52)
If you could go back and talk to your younger self, whether it was that elementary version of you dealing with pornography or a teenager, what would you want your younger self to know?

Toni Collier (31:57)
If your mom wasn’t so sick, she would have protected you from this or she would have told you that this isn’t good. When I was a little girl, I just didn’t have any healthy adults around. And so there was no one that gave me the agency to name that that’s not good. That’s unhealthy. That girl that, that, that touched you sexually in kindergarten.

That’s not good. Your cousins who fondled you and sexually manipulated you, that’s not good. The guy that took your virginity, the much older guy that took your virginity at your parents’ house in your SpongeBob bed at 13, that’s not good. It’s not healthy. That’s not good for your good body. I really, really wish that I could tell her that I could be the adult in her little life that said, hey, that’s not safe for you. It’s not good.

And I just think so many of us had, just, no one said, we, first of all, we weren’t saying that we were actually doing these things, right? But then no one was there to say, are you battling with porn? Are you battling with promiscuity? Are you feeling lonely? Is loneliness the real source of why you’re clamoring for attention and for sexual release? Like, I just wish, man, that like the little boys and girls, the teenage boys and girls that were exposed to these things had someone to tell them, that’s not good and you deserve better. Yeah.

Fight the New Drug (33:39)
Yeah. And for any of our listeners who have experienced anything similar maybe in their lives, I’m so inspired by the compassionate approach that you shared with us and your desire to be that safe adult. And for any of our listeners who are adult in the life of a child to do anything that we can to be the safe adults to make sure that children are surrounded by safe adults who will be able to be there so that more kids don’t have to experience the types of things that you had to.

Toni Collier (34:08)
Yeah, that’s the goal, that we wouldn’t repeat these bad behaviors. We would help to stop them.

Fight the New Drug (34:18)
Yeah. For listeners who may be struggling silently with pornography or abuse or addiction, what’s one step they can take today to move toward healing?

Toni Collier (34:26)
Phone a friend. Let’s just take it right on back to whatever that game show was called. Phone a friend. A real safe friend, not one of your homies that’ll tell you it’s okay what you’re doing, but a person that’ll hold you accountable. And if you don’t have that, go and find it. Pursue accountability, confession, and integrity by bringing people along to give you those things when you know you can’t.

Fight the New Drug (34:36)
Yeah. Looking ahead, what’s your hope for the next generation when it comes to navigating identity and relationships a,nd technology?

Toni Collier (35:02)
No more shortcuts. No more shortcuts, no more numbing. If it’s painful, we go through it, not around it. If it’s hard, we build grit and capacity and we stop making excuses for shortcuts. It is way past time that we start naming things as though they are. Not, well, is it really bad for you? Is porn this, name it. Stop taking shortcuts. Stop being lazy. Heal and go and do the thing. That’s what I want desperately for the next generation.

Fight the New Drug (35:46)
Yeah, that’s beautifully said. Toni, is there anything else you wanted to share that you haven’t had the opportunity to share today?

Toni Collier (35:52)
I just want to reiterate what I said at the beginning. I’m the broken crowns girl because I just deeply do believe that our brokenness has the capacity to create beauty. And I just want to remind someone that’s listening or watching that you still have the capacity for so much beauty. What has happened to you, your addiction, the pain, it just doesn’t have the final say. Beauty is on the way. We just gotta work for it. That’s it.

Fight the New Drug (36:24)
Thank you so much for your time today, Toni. It was truly a gift to be able to have this conversation with you. I certainly feel inspired. I know that our listeners will as well. So thank you again. If our listeners want to learn more about you or your work, do you want to direct them?

Toni Collier (36:27)
Yeah.
Come on guys, come on, join the party. My Instagram is Toni J. Collier, T-O-N-I-J-C-O-L-L-I-E-R. And then it’s everything, Toni J. Collier, ToniJCollier.com. Don’t Try This Alone is my new book. I’d love for you to get it. I think this topic that we’re talking about is just so perfect and the book is so helpful in building a strong community that can hold us accountable when we’re in pain. So yeah, those are all the things. Come on, come join the party. We’re healing over here.

Fight the New Drug (37:06)
Thank you so much, Toni. And we’ll hopefully get to partner with you again and have you back on Consider Before Consuming. And we look forward to seeing your journey in this work.

Toni Collier (37:11)
Let’s do it. Yeah, thank you guys. Yay!

Fight the New Drug (37:19)
Yay.