Sexual, Masturbation and Porn Addiction Help Forum

As a Christian, I believe Jesus Christ is God's solution for overcoming every sin and addiction. God the Father sent His Son to die for our sins so that everyone who believes in Jesus will have forgiveness of sins and the free gift of eternal life, according to the promise of God who cannot lie. But God did not only send His Son to provide forgiveness for us; He also sent Jesus to give us deliverance from the addictive, imprisoning, enslaving power of sinful habits. Through Jesus Christ, God has provided power for every believer to become more than conquerers, so that we may live according to His good will in all godliness, purity, marital fidelity, decency, right conduct, healthy-mindedness and self-control. I am not saying anything that should be new to those of us who have been believers and Bible readers for some time. But our addictions to porn and self-gratification show that we are not applying the truth of Christ that is intended to make us free. It is as if we are remaining in a jail cell, not knowing that it has been unlocked by Christ, when all we need to do is push the door open and walk out. And who will stop us from walking out? God Himself is on our side and sent His Son Jesus to die for us and set us free. God's Word says that even the devil will flee from us if we simply resist him. Brothers and sisters, if the devil knows God is on the side of those who believe in Jesus, isn't it high time we knew it too and started taking ahold of the freedom that has been provided for us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

What is your relationship to sex and porn addiction? How is it for you?

adamant,
Thanks for asking about my relationship to sex and porn addiction. Like you, I have struggled with porn and masturbation addiction for many years. And like you, I have decided to draw a line in the sand and stop allowing these things to control and devastate my life. My last episode was Sept. 30, 2009, so my stand has just begun. But we can never finish a journey not started, so I now have successfully completed one day of my freedom walk. I love your posts and your self-analyses. I can relate to the various struggles both inwardly and outwardly that you describe, as can most everyone else who reads your posts. We are pulling for you, as you are also for us. My post titled “God Is With Us” is meant to encourage and challenge myself and everyone here to reach out and take the help God has provided to us through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I believe Jesus is the ultimate and complete solution to porn and masturbation addiction. I challenge myself and everyone else here to start practicing the teachings of Christ and then come and tell others here how God’s truth is making you free from these addictions.

THanks for sharing about yourself. It is good to know that others are drawing that 'line in the sand'. I will pray for you. Lets stay strong and remember.

Hi HouseBuiltOnTheRock.

My liking for porn started many years ago, some time after I had begun college. In those days, it was in the form of glossy magazines that could be bought from the ‘top shelf’ of news agents. It was also in the form of erotic novels. By the standards of today, it was very softcore and I was just infatuated by the images of beautiful naked women and words that evoked a tremendous sensuality. That infatuation continued for several years until I met my wife then it died away completely. It wasn’t until the advent of satellite TV that it returned and now the images were moving so the pull was stronger. It got stronger still as the satellite platform devoted a slice of its programming over to hardcore. I subscribed on several occasions but after a few weeks, I would cut up the viewing card to that programmimg. In the end, I decided to cancel the subscription to the satellite platform altogether because certain non porn channels had become too risqué. I just wanted to be free of it.

I thought I was done with all that temptation, then the Internet presented another and from time to time, I swallowed the bait and became hooked. For some years I was free but I was tempted from time to time. I thought I could control it but I began to feel the pull again from early spring this year and by the summer I knew I had to do something about it as it was effecting me physically, manifesting in tiredness, irritability, low spirits. This was also affecting my work.

At that point I decided to spend a good deal of the summer break looking at the psychology; thinking about the grip it was having on me and I looked at the subject of porn and my own interaction with it, in a detached way. For the first time in my life, I saw what utter crap porn was; at the same time I felt intense resentment at how the scale of it had grown since my college days and I began to consider the corrosive effect it must be having on society. I considered the influence it must be having on the young and vulnerable and the stuff that first got me on the hook back then was so tame compared to what the young could be exposed to now. So how affected will they be in five or ten years time living with such exposure in their lives? At that point I said “enough – I’ve finished with it.” I will never return to it. For as long as this forum exists and any other blog devoted to helping others in this, I will confirm my abstinence and rally round those who want so much to quit.

I think a sense of the spiritual does help the process because a liking for porn, as with any addiction, is like permanently carrying around baggage – weighing you down, losing your sense of focus on who and what really matter in life. It’s all negative. There’s no love in it. There is no sense of joy in it. That comes from within – bubbling up from the heart. All porn does is feed the senses. It’s like becoming detached from your source and you’re not true to yourself. It’s a blockage. Changing my mindset this summer, giving this up and letting it go has cleared the blockage. On one of my porn threads I used the same anology of the prison cell of our own making. I'm free of it, every day I'm further from it. I feel alive. I feel very positive. My spirit is raised and I feel reconnected to the source of my being.

As for the tag: 'God is for us' …... that has always been the case - there is no separation. Unconditonal love couldn't be otherwise.

My thoughts go to those still struggling and trying to end it; I've been there too but I've got past it - you will too if you have the same desire to reconnect to the source of your being. So keep going with intention to get past it and never give up. Just remain positive and focused on higher things than self obsesive crap.

Hi Steve B,

Thanks for sharing the history of your struggle with addiction to porn in its various stages of development. Your story no doubt could be repeated with great similarity by many of us who are old enough to remember the days when TV was still "squeaky clean" (when they didn't even allow Jeannie's belly button to appear in the "I Dream of Jeannie" TV show). Then they began to relax the standards; then cable TV came into existence; then softcore and hardcore porn began to be aired; then the Internet was made public and quickly became filled with every conceivable type of pornographic material, just a mouse-click away from men, women and children, right in our own homes, offices, libraries or whereever a computer is linked to the Internet.

Pornography's dirtly little secret is that it is extremely addictive and quickly enslaves the person who views it. This point is not lost on the producers of porn, who are profiting billions from the sale of this addictive substance to a self-sustained market of addicted repeat buyers, regardless of its documented ill effects on people. But, from a Christian point of view, there is even more at stake here than the devastating effects porn addiction can have to a person's mind, body, marriage, career, social relations, financial situation, personal freedom, etc. God the Father sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to teach us that God has made us with eternal souls, and that there are not only temporal consequences to our choices and behaviors in life, but also eternal consequences. However, as you pointed out so truly, it has always been the case that God loves mankind and is for us. And because He loves us, He gave His own Son to die for our sins and to call to us to repentance from everything that is contrary to His good will and design for our lives, not only because these things cause us harm in this world, but because there is a judgment day appointed and they can also cause us eternal harm. But the good news is that God's love has provided, through His Son Jesus Christ, both forgiveness for our transgressions and power to overcome enslavement to every harmful behavior. This is the emphasis I am trying to share and I encourage all here, including myself, to avail ourselves of God's promised help found in His Son Jesus Christ.

What if one doesn't believe in that dogma? What hope do you have to offer then?

Steve B,

If one doesn't believe in God and Christ, one simply can't enjoy all of the benefits to be found through that faith, the chief one being the gift of everlasting life that God has promised to freely give by His grace to those who believe in Jesus. However, I am certainly not saying that one can't overcome addictions without faith in God. God is good to all, whether they believe in Him and His Son or not, and whether they know to thank Him or not. As Jesus said, "He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." God is so good that He made sure Adolph Hitler could enjoy the sunshine and have beneficial rainfall on his property. And God will certainly help a person overcome a destructive addiction, even if they don't believe in Him. However, He does not promise remission of sins and the gift of eternal life apart from faith in His Son Jesus Christ. So if you don't want that, nobody is forcing you to take it, not even God; but if you do, God offers it freely to all.