Terry Crews admits he almost lost his wife Rebecca due to porn addiction

Crews, 57, said everything changed when his personal life began to unravel.

‘First of all, my wife [Rebecca] left…’ he started. ‘I had never been to therapy before. I actually went to a place called Psychological Counseling Services, and they literally talked to me about what was going on.”

While he was in that difficult place, Crews said a friend told a hard truth that stuck with him.

“Here’s the thing: I had a friend who gave me the best advice ever,” he recalled.

“He said, ‘Terry, I can’t guarantee or promise you that you’re going to get your wife and family back, but you have to get better for yourself. And how are you going to get better?'”

The question forced a change in perspective.

“That was the question I had to ask,” Crews said. ‘Because what happens is you tend to blame others.

‘I could have blamed my wife… or you can blame it on your past. But what you’re actually doing is repeating the problem – you keep repeating it, you don’t solve it.’

Instead, the White chicks actor realized that the responsibility lay solely with him.

“Remember that every problem has a solution… but it’s up to you to find it. It’s not anyone else’s job,” he said.

Despite wanting to quit, Crews admitted he felt like he was stuck in a pattern he couldn’t break.

“You also have to understand: I didn’t want to watch pornography, but I did. I thought, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, I won’t do it,’ but I kept feeling withdrawn,” he said, comparing the experience to other forms of addiction.

“There are so many people – alcohol, drugs – that they don’t want to use. But suddenly… they use it as a coping mechanism. You don’t know how to deal with hard feelings… Life becomes too hard.”

Through therapy, Crews said he began to uncover deeper patterns related to his upbringing.

“The doctor – he didn’t know me at all – asked, ‘Is your mother religious?’ I said yes. He said, ‘Is your father an alcoholic?’ I said yes. It turns out that these are often the first two things people with this problem encounter. I felt like he was reading my email,” Crews said.

However, the biggest breakthrough came when he began to understand the role of shame.

“They started talking about shame – what shame does. Shame doesn’t say you did something wrong. Shame says you’re wrong… you’re bad,” he explained.

“Think about this: if shame says you’re bad, and you have to cover it up, when you’re done hiding it, you go back to being bad. I thought I was just a bad man,” Crews added.

Crews said everything changed when he separated his actions from his identity.

“Then I realized something: It was something I did, but it wasn’t something I was,” he said. ‘You have to understand… that changed my life. It changed everything.’

That shift allowed him to finally move forward.

He explained, “Recovery means becoming the real you. When I wiped it away, I was the real me.”

Now he relies on a simple mentality to stay the course.

“When you’re tempted, you feel the need to go back… but you say, ‘That’s not me. That’s not me.'”