What’s up everyone!!
So my last blog post I went into detail about my past porn addiction, the history and how I overcame that situation. If you missed it you can check it out here. Many people told me it was a very good and informative post. I touched on staying free from porn addiction but I didn’t go into exact detail on how I stayed free. When I was going through my addiction it would have really helped me to have some step by step rules to go by. Here’s my next entry on staying free from porn. Let’s keep each other built up and eradicate this sickness for good!
STEP 1 :
Joyce Meyer wrote a very popular book titled Battlefield of the Mind, and that really is the key. With Porn addiction we must win that battle, but how is it done? First you have to acknowledge and admit you have a problem. If you do not want to quit, chances are you will not. Let’s say you do want to quit but just feel like you can’t? Well, you have taken the first step, and that’s admitting, “I Have a Problem.”
STEP 2 :
The next step will separate the mice from the men. This will determine if you really do want to be free from Porn addiction. You must throw away or destroy any pornographic material you possess. It must all be deleted off of your computer/phone. In this day and age where physical media is becoming more obsolete, a person may not have a huge stash of videos, but if the porn is just one website away, you must take the necessary precautions. Ultimately this step will become unnecessary because your desires will eventually change, but until you grow and mature, it will feel like you can’t help yourself. When I say grow and mature I’m not implying anything negative or putting anyone down, but it takes growth to move to the next level. Depending on how bad your addiction is, it could take years to stop, only because there are years of habit going against your will power. People also trust the Lord to help deliver them, which I will get into later, but regardless I do not believe the Lord will violate the free will He gave us. So even though we are trusting the Lord for help we have a choice to make if we truly want to be free. This goes for anything in life.
STEP 3 :
This step goes along with the second. So after you have made the decision to quit, you have admitted you have a problem and thrown out the videos, next you need to put some type of filtering app on your phone to help keep you from slipping up and having a weak moment. Almost anything can be a trigger, once you close that mental door lock it and don’t allow it to be opened again. I had an uncle tell me we lust everyday and can’t help it, that every time we see a woman we lust after her. I disagree with that. I do not believe noticing a woman’s beauty or even acknowledging someone is attractive is lust. It takes mental effort to 1.) see a woman then 2.) mentally imagining yourself in bed with her or whatever. To me those are two different things and shouldn’t go hand and hand. So we are doing pretty good so far. What’s next, are we now free once we do these three??
STEP 4 :
Close but no cigar…..The next step is very important, well all the steps are but this one especially and that is forgiving yourself. You have to understand that more than likely you will slip up. Very few people can quit any addictions 100% cold turkey, It’s just not realistic. Don’t ever be too hard on yourself, the devil is gonna be hard on you enough. I don’t want to necessarily turn this into a religious post, but I do believe the devil or Satan exists and he effects the mind. You can call it your conscience if you like, I always like to touch on both perspectives because I know not all my readers are Christians. As a believer of course my stance is we need a relationship with God, which comes through knowing Jesus Christ. If you don’t have that relationship it just makes life exponentially harder, that though is another post for another day. When you do slip up, I would always call mine having weak moment. Always make sure you come back with a vengeance mentally. Treat it like a new day’s resolution. Remember even if something happened 10 minutes ago or 10 seconds ago it is still in the past. Let the past stay there, and focus on doing better the next day, or the next hour or whenever the temptation attacks again.
STEP 5:
Next is developing your moral compass. This will determine how things affect you mentally. For me this was one of the key things that allowed me to escape pornography. In my last post I mentioned educating yourself on the lifestyles behind people in the adult film industry. Searching for this info may cause the wrong info to appear though, so you must be careful in trying to educate yourself but at the same time aware of what can lead to temptation. Knowing that some of these girls are being sex trafficked and really taken advantage of really caused me to feel bad about what I was watching. I’m sure some men are able to separate their conscience or moral thoughts so they can just enjoy the false pleasure and indulge in that imagery. Prayer and reading my bible helped me to develop my moral compass even further. I asked God to help me and asked for guidance and wisdom as well. As you grow in Christ and just as a person in general you learn that your life has the potential to be 100 times better if you would just be nice and treat others with respect and do your best to live righteously.
STEP 6 :
The final step is one that will constantly need refreshing. This step goes along with throwing all pornographic material away: filtering your eye gates. The reason I say it is always changing is because you may not know what your triggers are. I call this stage Cleaning House. If you have mastered the above steps, now it is the time to really focus on keeping yourself clean mentally. On a side note it could take you 6 months to reach this stage or 6 years, it really depends on the person and how bad they want to stop or the other people involved they may be hurting. Cleaning house includes but isn’t limited to : unfollowing sexually explicit accounts on Instagram or people who post certain sexual things, obviously, there may be movies that reveal a little too much but isn’t considered porn. We have to just be aware of what we are seeing and hearing each day. As people continue to work on things to be mentally free, you do not want to take 10 steps backwards by watching something too provocative when you are trying to change a mindset. Some people may have friends they need to cut off, it just really depends on the individual in terms of the way they Clean their own House.
THE GOD EFFECT
When we talk about sex and pornography and all these things, we can’t get away from the Biblical stance. I think a lot of people in this society have a lot of their beliefs influenced by the bible, whether through the actual word or tradition. If I take the Lord into effect that should in reality change my whole perspective. So when I mentioned in STEP 2 about people trusting the Lord to help them get through porn watching, of course faith is activated. This is where your actual desires began to change as you grow closer to the Lord and learn and be more Christ-Like. You begin to have stronger convictions and your conscience speaks to you on things. Scripture even tells us if we walk in the spirit we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16). To me being a Christian who is spirit-filled is automatically the easiest way to overcome this problem, but not everyone has that luxury, or should I say not everyone accepts the free gift. My path was completely different. You have to pray and have a relationship with the Father, by the Bible’s standards, if you have that you are well on your way to mental freedom.
My next blog I will be discussing some steps on how to know if you are walking in the spirit.!
Thanks Peace and Love
-Symbol
Recent Comments