Many people see addiction to pornography as only an issue men face. However, women also suffer from this addiction — and it’s the main reason why Rachael Killackey started an organization called Magdala to help other women break free from this vice.

Courageously sharing her past struggles with porn addiction, Killackey spoke with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado last week on EWTN News In Depth. Killackey details her own journey and how childhood trauma is often a root cause of this crisis. She also describes her own mission in helping women reestablish their own “intimacy with Christ” and what Catholics can do to help so many struggling souls find hope and healing.

Tell us about your organization — and what do you do there?

Magdala is an organization that offers community and resources to women struggling with sexual addiction. So there’s a lot that can come under that umbrella, but it’s primarily addiction to pornography or other sexually compulsive behaviors. So we run virtual groups, and we also partner with college campuses and parishes to run groups in person.

When you think about sexual addiction, immediately, the caricature that people see in their heads is of men. Most would never imagine that women would have these struggles as well. Was that also something that surprised you? And when you started advocacy, was there a resistance to you bringing this forward?

Yes, there was, and there still is. That’s probably our biggest obstacle — is people being unwilling to admit that women might struggle too. And there have been several reasons why that I’ve encountered. I think the primary one is actually from men being afraid that if women are also struggling, who’s going to help them? I’ve actually had many men say that to me, rather than seeing this as a joint effort of both men and women trying together to become whole. I think men have been taught to rely on the purity of women for a little too long. So there’s definitely some resistance there. I wasn’t surprised. We’re all sexual beings. We all need to bring that under alignment with God’s will.

When you think of root causes, what would the root causes be? What would you identify as the root causes for this rise among women, for both pornography addiction and just sexual addiction in general?

Trauma, childhood trauma — most of our women experience some form of abuse or neglect, varying levels of gravity. But I think that’s the biggest tie — is just some form of emotional, physical, sexual trauma. We work out a lot of our traumatic experiences in compulsive behaviors. So it makes a lot of sense if women are experiencing higher rates of trauma. I think the data suggests that at least 1 in 4 women are victims of abuse before they turn 18 — abuse or assault — so they’re trying to make sense of what they’ve been through, essentially.

What does restorative healing look like? What does it look like when a woman completes that program, gets the help that she needs, and confidently enters the world understanding who she was made to be?

That’s a great question. I think recovery is not quantitative like a lot of people want it to be like. I think they want us to have metrics of “this is how many women come out in long-term sobriety; this is how long it lasts.” ... What we measure success on in Magdala is: How intimately are women walking with the Lord when they come out of our program? How confident are they that his mercy is enough for them? How much are they engaged with the sacramental life of the Church? Are they continually repenting? Are they seeking the help that they need? We care far more about the metric of intimacy with Christ than sobriety. And, ironically, out of intimacy with Christ comes more sobriety. So that’s kind of our first-fruits mentality. I think wholeness … we can’t accomplish it on earth; I think that’s something that’s complete in heaven. … I think we go into these programs wanting this stamp — like we’re never going to struggle ever again; we’re never going to feel broken ever again — and that’s just not possible. So I think we also want people to leave with a sense of hope that no matter what layer of woundedness they encounter in themselves, that Jesus is going to be enough. He’s going to pull them through it.

There’s a Supreme Court case that is going to look at age verification for access to pornography. Knowing what you know, experiencing the reality of the people coming to you asking for help, how important are those measures?

Extremely important. They need to be very thorough, though, like age verification in the past has been very easy to bypass. I bypassed it as an adolescent, so I think if they’re going to do it, it needs to be real. But if we can keep exposure from happening at the young ages that it already is, I think it would save people a lot of trouble. By the time women come to us, our largest age group is in their 20s. They’re sometimes 10, 15 years deep into an addiction. So if they’re just seeking help a decade in, that puts a lot more pressure on us. That’s a lot of work, whereas if we’re just encountering people who are a year or two deep, it might be a little easier to extract them from the harmful behavior.

A lot of people think that access to pornography hasn’t changed. Before, you would go somewhere in the cover of night to get a video; whereas, now, it’s accessible on your phone. Is it really different? Has that dynamic actually changed?

Yes, the ability to be anonymous online has completely changed porn access, and I think it has changed it primarily for women. So I think when porn was accessible only in the clandestine kind of settings that you’re talking about, men were far more likely to engage with it. But I think when the porn industry got access to streaming and … the world of the internet, there’s far, far, far more content on the internet than people want to believe. It’s everywhere. It’s geared towards men, geared towards women. It has no limits. So I think streaming, I think smartphones — it’s constant access. I’d like to say that having a smartphone in your back pocket as a porn addict is the equivalent of having a beer in your back pocket as an alcoholic: You have access to the harmful substance constantly with you, so willpower has no stand against something like that. So I’m definitely an advocate for digital minimalism, especially in recovery, but even beyond, even for your own mental health.

When you started working and saw this, you came into it through your own personal experience, and you have a beautiful testimony that you share very courageously with others. Can you share with us why you thought you needed help and restoration?

Thanks for asking. So my story involves porn use from the ages of 13 to 19. So I had six years of use, and it was very hard to admit to myself that’s what was happening, because, in my mind, only men watched porn, so whatever I was doing couldn’t possibly be that, right? And so I minimized it for a long time because of the messaging in culture, but also in the Church. And I think when I became an adult, and I entered long-term sobriety, and I encountered more and more of my friends with similar stories or who were in the midst of consumption, I just wanted to create the resources that I needed, that I would have wanted at the time. And that’s kind of how Magdala was born.

I don’t think I ever had a moment or I really saw: “Okay, I’m going to share now” or, “This is what I’m going to do.” ... It was one open door after another, and more and more people have just needed it. So I think I’ve just shared through each open door. But Magdala was mostly based in “What did my heart need to hear from the Church when I was struggling?And how can I be that voice now? How can my team be that voice now?” And the beautiful thing is, when you’re creating a community like an organization that’s based in community, you’re joined by many, many voices very quickly.

Courage is one of our organizational values, and it’s been amazing to see how many moderators and participants from our groups are now sharing their testimonies and their stories in their communities and circles. So I think the narrative is switching with this kind of grassroots effort, but it’s mostly based on the bravery of a whole collective of women, not just one — what did you need to hear from the Church? — and that I wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t alone, and that there was a place for me in the heart of God.

I think that was it. Because I think when you think you’re the only one sitting in sin in a particular way, you just think you’re an anomaly, or a monster or something. I just felt so alien. I felt so alien from women in the Church. So I think I needed to hear that this was a common experience of women — and that there was hope. And that’s kind of the basis of our message, at the end of the day.

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