"Wisdom is knowing reality and adjusting yourself to
it"
(1) Tell someone you trust about the addiction.
The power of sin is in its darkness. When sin is brought out into
the light, it loses a lot of steam. The best idea is to enlist an
accountability partner with whom you will promise to be honest. The
Word of God tells us that we need to confess our sins not just to the
Lord, but to each other. If you are married, you need to make
confession to your spouse. If you are a minor, you need to confess
to your parents. Whoever has been wronged by your actions needs a
confession. That brings up another issue: is pornography a
victimless problem?
(2) Pornography is not victimless. The addict is
the first victim. I will discuss that in more detail below.
Spouses are victims. If married, you have left the sanctity of the
marital vows. What? Just by looking. Un huh. Jesus
said that the sin has been committed when the mind is engaged, remember?
The action is just the result of the actual sin.
If unmarried, you have already cheated your
future mate. All matters regarding our sexuality were created for a
two-fold purpose within marriage. One is for procreation. The other is
for a sort of bond or cement to the marriage vows. God's Word is clear on
His created purpose for human sexuality. There are clear boundaries.
Going against the created purpose of the universe is butting one's head
against reality. There WILL be consequences. Just like in an athletic
game, staying within the boundaries allows you to not only keep playing,
but to win. Those who continually go out of bounds either get sidelined
or lose. They will never be happy or find any joy in it. Love is
not a feeling, but a daily act of commitment to the well-being of the
beloved. By its very nature addiction to porn is a self-centered,
self-absorbed way of life. It's all about you. That was not
God's intent for marital love and commitment.
(3) Pornography is based purely on
fantasy. Reality can never match the fantasy. Again, one is living
against reality here. There will be an escalating desire for the fantasy
to become reality. Eventually escalation becomes necessary. Pornography
acts like heroin on the brain. The viewer may start off with very mild
porn, but that will cease to excite. They will slowly move into harder
forms. When that ceases to excite, some form of acting out will
happen. It's all about choosing reality over fantasy. The reality is
fairly dull. This is why so many are disappointed in marriage. Porn
addicts are inordinately affected with this issue because the fantasy has
become an alternative reality that can and will never be true.
(4) The problem is
not in your hormones or your body, but the enemy struggling for control of
your mind. The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Church in Rome, made a
statement that is little heeded in our pleasure oriented, self-centered
world. He said (this is from the NIV translation), "Do not be conformed
to the pattern of this world, but be TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your
MIND." This is
not a quick fix. Transformation requires something out of you. Notice
that the key to transformation is in changing your MIND. You see, this
particular problem stems from the fact that you are able view women (or
men) as
objects of your pleasure. Transformation comes by changing your mind on
this. The problem is in your viewpoint.
You begin by telling yourself the truth -
that all human beings, whether male or female, are direct creations of a
Holy God, created in His image and that they were not placed on this earth
for your satisfaction. As you begin to tell yourself this truth over and
over again, you will be unable to continue lusting after the fantasies you
have created in your mind because reality will have set in. You will see
that nothing in what you are doing now is satisfying and that working
towards a solid relationship that includes fidelity, faithfulness, love
and respect, will be satisfying. You will begin to believe the truth so
much, that even looking at the pictures will making you ill. You will no
longer have to constantly be concerned about leaving it aside, it will
leave you.
(5) YOU ARE NOT AN ANIMAL (no matter what
drivel they teach in public schools), at the mercy of your hormones and physical
sensations. God has instilled in humans the ability to think and to
reason. In making ourselves to be slaves of the physical, we must put all
reason aside and become as animals. This is not how we were created.
Naturalism says that we are an accident of nature and just a higher order
of animal. Creation says that we are distinct, not only as a species, but
each individual. Not only are you not an animal without reason, the
person you are looking at is not an animal. At this point, this is how
you are treating them. The pleasure you are getting here and now is going
to have future repercussions - not only future, but eternal. Nothing we
do is for the here and now. Everything thought and action effects eternity
(more on that in a moment).
(6) Understand the difference between the
immediate and the eternal. Every word, every deed, indeed, every thought
has eternal consequences. Again, naturalism has taught you to live in the
immediate because there can be no eternal. However, the reality is that
there is an eternal and you are part of it. Every thought you have in
darkness has negative eternal value because every thought is going to work
it's way outward in how you view and treat others. In reality, your
immediate desire is not important in the entire scope of things. Once you
get a grip on that reality, you are more willing to reassess what you are
thinking. One of the best quotes I have ever read said that, "wisdom is
knowing reality and adjusting yourself to it."
(7) You must realize that this is a PROCESS. It will
take time. God is going to be more patient with you if you are willing to
do this than you will be with yourself. When we come to Christ, God has
to remold us into the image of Christ. Sin has marred the original
image. The process is lifelong and sometimes very painful, for both Him
and His clay. C.S. Lewis made a great analogy. He said that when God
begins that process, we sometimes don't mind too much because He begins
with the seemingly larger, but actually smaller issues. He sweeps house,
takes down pictures, covers up a few holes here and there. Not too bad.
Eventually though, He starts into the things that are not quite so
obvious. He starts tearing out walls and ripping up carpet, etc. Ouch!
We think, "what on earth is He up to? That hurts!" Lewis response was
that our thinking is wrong. We think he only wants to clean up His new
dwelling, but He is the King of Kings. He needs to remake us, His temple,
into a palace fit for Him to live in. The issue you are facing seems
large, but it is one of the more obvious and actually less painful remakes
you will go through in your journey to becoming like Christ. However, if
you never get past it, you'll never get on to the rest of the process and
remain pretty much where you are spiritually. My advice is to do whatever
it takes now. Maturity is very much worth it. Eternity is very much
worth it. Freedom is very much worth it. Reality is very much worth it.
Human beings are very much worth it - at least Christ thought so. He was
willing to take the punishment we deserved in order to bring us back into
relationship with Creator God. Are you willing to begin the process of
giving up fantasy for reality, maturity, eternity and for others.
(8)If you are a spouse of a porn addict, demand
counseling. It is your spousal right to expect faithfullness and it
is your spousal responsibility not to allow your spouse to be caught up
into such sin without great attempts at intervention. How can you be
a good help meet and let this continue? Please, please
realize that the chance of escalation is enormous.
(9) If you are a parent of a porn addicted child - GET
THEM COUNSELING! Those images are never going to leave their minds,
but the hope is that they can stop seeing humans as objects of their own
pleasure before they hurt others.
(10) If someone you know is viewing child porn, even if
it is your spouse or child, the best favor you could do for them is to
turn them in to law authorities. This kind of issue needs special help and
intervention. Again, the chance of escalation is high.
(11) Parents and Spouses: There are some steps you
can take to help prevent future incidents. (1) Have the home
computer in a public place (2) Frequently check the computer for
spyware/adware/malware by installing an anti-spyware program. Many
don't know that porn sites routinely place this stuff into computers.
(3) Use a password system so that a child can't be on by themselves
(4) Use a monitoring program (with the full knowledge of the addict)
(5) Be careful of what gets watched on TV (partial nudity and sex scenes
could certainly trigger a desire to return to porn) and make sure that
magazines with sexual stories and partial nudity are not in the house.
Protecting your loved ones may mean making some adjustments yourself.
What doesn't bother you may bother them greatly.
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