Overcoming Pornography Addiction

(NOTE: This article is a roughly edited version of an audio tape I recorded two years ago. Over the last few years I have worked with individuals who struggle with the problem of pornography addiction. The recording was made basically “off the top of my head” so the organization is not the best nor is it all-encompassing. It has religious overtones because it was intended to use in counseling members of my church. Pornography, in my opinion, is one of the ultimate Self Mastery destroyers. What follows is the text from my recording with very little editing.)

My intent is to give counsel to a person who has a problem with pornography. If a person came to me and was having struggles with pornography and wanted very much to stop, but was having difficulty with it – what would my counsel be to that person? That is the purpose of this article. So I am going to direct this article as if I were talking to you.

How Do You Begin?

Many solutions to this problem go into great detail about internet and computer technology and the use of filters and other similar methods to block out the unwanted content. Dealing with the technology and installing safeguards are important, but if someone really wants to find pornography they will find a way – it doesn’t even have to be on the internet. So the real goal would be to take away all desire for it in the first place.

Threshold

So how do you begin? Where do you even start? I think sometimes before a person gets up the courage to change they reach some sort of threshold. What this means it that they have gone too far, they have fallen into that slimy, filthy pit and then have come to their senses and thought, “Oh my gosh, what am I doing? What have I become? How did I get into this mess?” So there is a threshold point that I think a person needs to come to – not on purpose but I think it’s a real thing when someone realizes that they have a serious problem.

I think a person needs to get to that point before they can really be motivated to change. Now my guess is that by the time you would be reading this you will have already reached that threshold. Something will have happened. Either you got caught or you caught yourself and you came to a point where you realized that you need help. So then, what is the next step?

Make a Decision to Change

I think the next step is that you need to make a decision. The decision that you need to make is that you’ve had enough, that you’re tired of this, that you can’t live this way any more and that you are going to do whatever it takes to change.

New Direction

Then you can say that, “From this point on I am going to point my life in a new direction.” Now you’re still in the same spot where you were before you made the decision but you’re now pointed in the right direction. Now that you are pointed in the right direction and you’ve made the decision that you’re going to go in the right direction from now on, then you can begin to move forward with small steps.

When Have You Succeeded in the Past?

Perhaps this is a good time to ask, “Has there ever been a time in your life when you were successful at avoiding this problem or overcoming this addiction, where you have been clean for a long period of time?” If the answer is “yes” then “What period of time was that?” Generally it will be during a time when you were surrounded with positive influences or you were working hard at achieving a worthy goal. It also was most likely a time when you were on a “spiritual high,” when you were close to God, when He was there beside you.

Must Have Lord’s Help

I feel compelled to say at this point that you need to come to the realization that you can’t overcome this addiction, this problem, without the God’s help. No matter how many times you try on your own you don’t have the power within you to do it without divine help. That’s sometimes hard to accept, to realize that you can’t do this on your own, that you are going to fail if you don’t get help from above. You must have the Lord beside you as a partner.

You Must Do Your Part

One other thing I think you need to understand is that God isn’t going to do it all for you. You have to do your part. This is a joint venture and it takes both you and God.

Process of Steps

Now that you’ve made the decision that you are going to change, have pointed yourself in the right direction, and admitted that you need God’s help, you can begin the change process with small steps, with baby steps. In other words you’re going to attack this problem by taking small bites that you can chew and swallow and not try and do everything all at once.

Thoughts Precede Actions

The next step for you is to understand the idea that thoughts precede actions. No actions ever occur without first thinking about it. There is a thought, a very first thought that comes into your mind and what you do with that thought is important. You can’t always control where that thought comes from – they just pop into your head at times, or you see an image or a picture on the TV or a movie screen or the internet or you hear something on the radio that turns your thoughts into the wrong path. It’s what you do with that thought that is so important.

Fire Analogy

I liken it to fire. Let me share and example.

When I was probably about eleven years old, my family lived in Arizona, out in the country. Across the highway from our house, about a mile away, there was a wooded area that had ponds and swamps where turtles and carp lived. I loved to go over there and catch turtles and play around. There was thick brush and trees all around the ponds and in the hot Arizona climate a lot of those trees had dried out and died.

One summer afternoon my older brothers and I decided to go camping there. We each had our own little camping spots, as I recall. My older brother, Russell, even built a little campfire. Well, he began to play with his little fire. He took a stick and would poke the end of it into his campfire and catch it on fire. Then he would take the flaming stick and use it to light some dry brush and watch it burn for a moment and then put it out. He did this several times, letting the flames get larger each time. (Can you see here where I’m going with this?) Well, one time he let it go too far and when he tried to put it out he couldn’t. He started screaming at the rest of us to come help him. We all ran over to his campsite and started stamping and throwing dirt on it but it was too late. In just a few moments the fire roared into a huge inferno. We snatched our sleeping bags and got the heck out of there and ran back across the highway and hid on the other side. From there we watched the whole place go up in gigantic, fifty-foot flames. Farmers from all around drove up in their pickup trucks to see what was going on and to try and put the fire out but they couldn’t do it. The whole place went up in smoke and flames. What started out as seemingly innocent playing with fire turned into a near tragedy.

Think about a match. You can strike a match and how hard is it to put a lit match out? One little puff of your breath and you can blow it out. No problem. Another match lights, puff, blow it out. No problem. It seems innocent enough.

Sometimes we are tempted to play with symbolic matches. We look at an image on the internet and dwell on it a little bit. We think, “I’m stressed out today and I just don’t feel so good. I just want to look at a few racy pictures on the internet and that’s it, then I’ll stop.” Well that’s kind of like lighting a match, but instead of blowing the match out when that first thought comes into our mind we touch it to some dry grass, some dry brush, and say, “I’ll let it go for a little bit and then I’ll put it out.” So we watch it grow and it gets bigger and bigger and before we know it, it’s gotten so large that we try stamping it out but it’s going in all directions and try as we might we can’t put it out. It rages out of control until it consumes us.

Playing with pornography, or any kind of addiction, is just like playing with fire. If the flame lights and you play around with it instead of blowing it out right away then it can get to the point where you’re had, you’re done, you’re ashes, you’re toast. The point I’m trying to make here is that when the flame is tiny, put it out. When that match strikes, put it out. Don’t dwell on it, don’t play with it. If you play with fire you will get burned.

Step 1 – Pay Attention to Every Thought

So your first task is to pay attention and be aware of every thought that comes into your mind. When a thought comes, put it out. Kill it. Don’t dwell on it. Don’t play with it. Kill it. It will never grow into anything if you kill every bad thought. Another way of looking at it is to view these evil thoughts as monsters. These mean, big, bad monsters start out as babies. So kill the monsters when they are babies, before they grow too powerful for you to handle.

Some of these other steps may not be in exactly the right order but let me just talk about some of them.

Step 2 – Proper Sleep

When we are tired our defenses are down. We are weak. You know it and I know it. So this step would be to alter your sleeping patterns. I know it’s not the “cool” thing to do but you need to get to bed earlier and get up earlier each day.

One of the things that happens when you do this is to strengthen your self-discipline muscle by exercising it daily. Another thing you will find by going to bed early and getting up early everyday is that you really can do it. You think you can’t. You say, “Well I’m a night person, I can’t do it.” I say baloney. There’s no such thing as a night person or a morning person. This is a habit you develop just like any other habit. All my life I’ve said I’m a night person, yet when I changed and followed this plan I found I could change from a night person to a morning person. If you can develop strength in this area it will help you be stronger in other areas.

Step 3 – Serious Scripture Study

Coupled with the above step is that of serious scripture study. I’m talking about reading the Bible or whatever book you deem as your spiritual guide. If you don’t have one then find one. The point is to feed your mind daily with something uplifting and positive. If you make the previous change in your life then you will have time to read the scriptures in the morning and they will mean more to you and you will gain power from it.

Step 4 – Sincere Prayer

The next step would be personal prayer. I’m talking about daily communing with God. Not some rote, written prayer, but really talking with God. I don’t know all the right answers about prayer, but, have you ever watched the play or the movie Fiddler on the Roof? Look at the way Tevye speaks to God. He has a relationship with God, he talks to God, he knows who God is. I’m not saying that’s exactly how we should do it but there is a lesson to be learned there on how he speaks to God. Can we be walking down the road by ourselves or driving in a car and just speak to God, talk to Him, tell Him what a terrible day you’ve had or share with Him your deepest concerns? I believe we can. I do it and find it very helpful.

Summary So Far

So what we’re trying to accomplish here is moving along the path or trail. Remember the first thing we did? First of all we hit threshold. We reached the point where we realized that something’s got to give. We can’t live that way anymore. The next thing is we made a decision and that decision was that we were going to turn our life in the right direction; that we’re not going to put up with this nonsense any more. Then we moved forward on that path.

The next steps we talked about were getting to bed early and waking up early, then true scripture study and real personal prayers. Again we’re not just talking about saying a prayer at night and saying a prayer in the morning but praying throughout the day, constantly communicating with God. Ask Him for help, strength and guidance. Talk to Him.

Step 5 – True Fasting

Okay, the next thing to work on is fasting. How many times have we read in the scriptures about somebody struggling with some sort of problem and they fasted. Look through the scriptures under fasting and see what you come up with and all the reasons why people fast.

Fasting does a couple of things. First of all it shows that you’re serious about your efforts. Fasting is not easy especially if you fast during the week when you go to work. It can be a Sunday or it can be any day of the week – but have a special fast for yourself.

What this also does is it exercises your self-discipline muscle and strengthens it. It takes self-discipline to fast. It is mind over matter or spirit over flesh. It is the spirit telling the flesh what to do when the flesh wants so bad to do something else. You’re telling the flesh that “I am the master.” This is one thing you can do. It also strengthens you spiritually. It brings you closer to God. It focuses you for that day on the Lord, on things spiritual and not temporal.

Step 6 – Service

My next counsel would be service. Now what’s all this got to do with pornography or addictions? Well I’ll tell you. The more that you’re engaged in worthy causes and doing good things the less time that your mind has to be idle and to dwell on unholy and impure things. We’ve all heard the saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” We need to find ways to serve others. Find someone in your neighborhood, in your family, that is going through some sort of struggle or problem or has some need of something that needs to be done – you notice their car is broken down, it has a flat tire, their lawn needs mowing, you notice their leaves need raking – go and perform service for somebody else. You may have a hundred things to do of your own, but that’s not the point. It’s different when we are actually working and serving someone else. There is a spiritual aspect to it when we are focusing our attention on someone besides ourselves.

So what will that do for you? Again it’s a form of self discipline – forcing yourself to do something that maybe you don’t want to do. Secondly you are being Christ-like; you are developing one of the attributes of Christ. That’s all He did during his life was serve others. We rarely read where He did anything for Himself. So to follow that path to become more like Christ and head in His direction is to do what we see Him doing and that is to serve others. So we continue with the other areas that we’ve been working on but now we add the step of serving others. I suggest you keep a journal about it and write your feelings, your experiences and your thoughts.

Mental Focus – Images of Our Mind

Now notice that a lot of what I’m counseling here is not directly associated with or related to pornography or the internet or addictions. Why is that? First of all there can be a problem with focusing on our problems as a way to solve our problems. Do you understand what I’m getting at? Focusing on your problem by dwelling on it constantly as a way to solve your problem is counter productive. It doesn’t work.

For example, let’s say you’re overweight; you have a problem with eating too much. In order to try and do better you are constantly thinking about food. You’re constantly counting calories, you’re doing analysis on which foods have more fat, you’re constantly looking at the labels and you’re dwelling on what you don’t want. You’re saying to yourself, “Okay, I’ve got to make sure I don’t eat French Fries and I’ve got to make sure I don’t eat ice cream.” So what image or picture do you have in your mind constantly? The images and pictures you constantly have in your mind are of food, particularly the food you don’t want to eat! The problem is that your mind works in images and pictures. If I say, “Don’t spit on the floor” what image do you have in your mind, of you not spitting on the floor? No! The image is of you spitting on the floor. So if you focus on what you don’t want that’s what you see. You tend to move towards the things that you visualize and picture in your mind and dwell upon.

So, if thoughts precede actions and our thoughts are primarily visual, we need to be careful of what thoughts we’re dwelling on. What we’re doing is taking your focus away from your bad habit. We don’t want to be constantly analyzing it and reading about it and worrying about it. What we’re doing is channeling our thoughts in another direction. We are making a place for your thoughts to go.

Step 7 – Uplifting Music

So, the next step – it’s going to be a hard one for some people, but again it has to do with channeling your thoughts in the right direction. It has to do with a very powerful medium that can affect your thoughts, your feelings, your moods, and can excite you or calm you down – and that medium is music. Now you may think, “Oh here we go again – music, it doesn’t affect me, I don’t listen to the words, yada yada yada.” Music is hugely powerful and I can cite example after example about how music has affected people and how we learn by music.

I want to talk about one kind of music that I see prevalent among the youth today. I call it “Loser Music.” The Youth today are obsessed with Loser Music. My definition of Loser Music is the music that talks about hopelessness, about “why even try?” It talks about failure, about who cares about anything and on and on and on. There is a ton of music like that and it may not have one swear word in it or anything to do with sex or drugs or whatever. Of course that music we want to get rid of, but this Loser Music is creating a generation of losers.

The counsel I would give would be to go through your music and get rid of that music. Then get rid of all other music that is counter-productive to you having uplifting thoughts. Then fill your library of music, your MP3 player, your iPod, your laptop, your CD collection, with music that is positive and uplifting. It doesn’t have to be church hymns, but some of it can be. It just needs to be positive, good music. It can be contemporary music. There are artists out there today producing music that is great. Why not support them? Why not listen to that music instead of music that’s going to pull you down?

If you can kind of follow my process here, it’s to eliminate all sources of negative influences on your thoughts because it’s in your thoughts that all good and evil actions originate. Your thoughts are so important.

Step 8 – Good TV and Movies

Okay, the next step is a logical progression from music to, guess what, you got it – TV and movies. There is so much material on this subject that I could go into and cite on the affects that they have on us, the rating system, the content of movies, screenit.com, etc. Basically it is to be extremely careful about what movies you watch and don’t get sucked into the movies of today. Support the good movies. There are great movies today. You just need to be careful of what you watch. That’s the next logical step.

Step 9 – Good Video Games

Now the next step or area that we are going to talk about is video games. This world is filled with violence. I could cite newspaper article after newspaper article of youth killing youth, violent acts, terrible things going on in the world and the effects that these video games have on us. We need to go through and eliminate video games that have this kind of content.

Two things video games do. Number one is they teach you bad things. Number two is they suck your life away. When you’re all done with that game at four in the morning, what have you accomplished? What have you gotten out of it? You’re dead tired the next day. You gain nothing except wasted time.

Summing it up

So there is a whole logical progression here. This whole thing started with pornography and addictions, but really all of this is a pattern of bringing ourselves closer to Christ, of becoming a disciple of Christ.

Each one of these steps has to do with a little area of your life, a particular quality or attribute, that you can work on to help you become a disciple of Christ.

So I started out by talking about fighting pornography but really what it seems to have turned out to be is a set of steps that you can work on in your life that applies not just to pornography but to any temptation or sin that you are dealing with.

(Well, there you have it. I hope if you are struggling with pornography addiction that this entry was helpful. Let us know what you think.)

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

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