Can't seem to stop doing this

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Frank13

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21 year old dude here. I can’t seem to stop masturbating. I know the consequences to my soul regarding heaven and he’ll. But alas, I do it, as if I’m a machine. I also look at porn and video chat with others. Prayers please
 
Friend;

You have free will. Use it. Just say no.
You have to change your mind set- think of all the disadvantages of sin, and the advantages of being pure. Even simplify it to:
Okay my choice is heaven or hell, God or satan.

Go to confession and mention all of this.
Go to confession weekly, and keep confessing.

Pray eAch day. Rosary or divine mercy (at least a decade). Our Lady has a promise that anyone who prays the rosary that she will decrease sin in their lives, cause virtues to flourish, and withdraw their hearts from love of the world and it’s vanities.
Pray the St Michael prayer daily (it keeps evil spirits away).

Do you wear a blessed object? Brown scapular with a miraculous medal.

St Benedict medals have an exorcist blessing.
Get a bottle of holy water for your car and bedroom.
Sprinkle holy water around your room before you sleep at night and trace the sign of the cross on any laptop -commanding all evil spirits to leave in the Name of Jesus.

If the computer is causing you to sin:
If you do not need computer for work:
Think about getting rid of it, and getting rid of having Internet for a while. Jesus said in the bible: ‘if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off.’
Get rid of anything sinful in your home, any magazines, books.

Get a little statue of Our Lady for your bedroom and an image of the Divine Mercy.

Carry a blessed rosary beads on your person always.

Read the bible occasionally -eg 10 mins each day if you can.
Read a catholic book -this will help you change your mindset.

Go to mass each Sunday. Daily if you can.
Do an hours adoration weekly if you can.
Join a prayer group weekly.

Your thoughts are the battleground. Start saying no to those thoughts.
It is a sin to deliberately entertain impure thoughts or make decisions in your thoughts to committing mortal sin.
You have free will.
Use it.
Frank13 said:
21 year old dude here. I can’t seem to stop masturbating. I know the consequences to my soul regarding heaven and he’ll. But alas, I do it, as if I’m a machine. I also look at porn and video chat with others. Prayers please
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Keep faith.

Listen to some epic music if you get urges.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=x84m3YyO2oU
(If you end up buying that, don’t do it from iTunes. Apple pays employees for egg freezing, which often leads to the abortion of multiple embryos. Use amazon mp3.)

Some cold water can help, or if you are in bed, try keeping your legs entirely still as soon as you predict trouble.

Remind yourself of why you shouldn’t: think of the fact Jesus died for you, and you are blessed enough to know it. Draw a line at today, and utterly refuse to cross it ever again. Remember that this won’t bother you in heaven, for whatever reason, and also rest assured it gets hugely easier if you get through the first month. Not a bad sacrifice for a lifetime of a clear conscience.

I would also suggest that staying still, kneeling and praying a rosary is not a good thing to do if facing these things, but certainly pray, and courageously.
 
Pray 3 Hail Marys daily in honour of Our Lady’s purity.

Psychologically:
Discover ‘why’ you commit this sin. And tackle the root.
Eg: desire for impurity, seeking some false happiness in sin due to unhappiness about life/ work/ future,

Positivity is powerful. Don’t think negatively. Satan finds it harder to tempt a joyful soul. The Holy Spirit is joy, and satan causes discouragement. Practice positive thoughts always
 
Firstly,

Post your request here in prayer intentions so more people will pray for you:

forums.catholic-questions.org/forumdisplay.php?f=86

Destroy what porn you may have. Wipe your hard drive. Do all that is necessary to get rid of all of it.

Remember this, porn robs you of your masculinity and poisons the way you look at women and the way you relate to them. It’s basically Drano for your soul. As in like ingesting Drano, I mean.

Break free of it. One key is to begin to be devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Satan is scared of this Lady. Ever heard the expression, "Your mama wears combat boots…well, she does. 🙂
 
Hi Frank,

A great many of us struggle with this as well as all types of sexual sin… you’re really not alone in that. What has helped me (so far) is this:
  1. the realization that it does offend God. I mean, I knew it was wrong already but it didn’t stop me from looking for loopholes.
  2. the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 10: 13 which tells us that no temptation is too great that we cannot overcome it. - God gives us what we need to handle all temptation.
  3. putting my trust in God to help me. We have to trust God to help us when temptation seems too great for us to handle but we have to do everything in our power to help ourselves also, like blocking sites, throwing away anything on your hard drive, walking away… whatever it takes.
  4. noticing certain triggers to my behaviour and avoiding them.
  5. praying the Rosary
Being truly sorry about it and the act of confessing to the priest are deterrents too.

I agree with what the others have said also. We really do just have to keep trying and, believe it or not, the more you turn away from sin, the easier it will get. I think initially we need to be conscious about avoiding putting ourselves into tricky situations in the first place… so the video chat is probably one to avoid too.
 
Also, don’t be embarrassed to bring up masturbation in confession; your priest has undoubtedly heard it all before from other parishioners confessing their own struggles.
 
I dunno man. I’ve been trying to stop for 4 years. I doubt it’s possible, for me at least. That’s what happens when you have coward parents and coward priests who don’t mention anything in church or in confidence to you about sex, just expect you to figure it out on your own. It’s ruined my life as much as something could without me becoming homeless and unemployed. I think it’s time to go the Origen route.

I suppose I’d be more hopeful if there were actually stories out there of dudes who looked at porn and masturbate routinely in their teenage years (like the vast majority of teenage men, either though desire or coward parents and coward priests not saying anything about the evils of porn), but then manage to live chastely successfully after developing that habit for years and then breaking it for good. As far as I can tell this has never happened, I haven’t seen one story of this. I mean I can go a month or two or three no problem, but I always end up going back, it’s been the same for four years now. This is generally what I see elsewhere, no legit success stories. I don’t know, maybe people just don’t talk about their success.

“My yoke is easy and my burden light” lol. This has consumed me for four years now, almost ruining my life. It was a lot easier being an atheist. It’s a shame atheism is a ridiculous notion that I can’t rationally hold to anymore than I could say that the sky is red otherwise I’d go back.

In fact if you could show me someone who was an atheist who lived chastely it’d probably be more convincing to me. It seems that most atheists are atheists just to justify sexual immorality. If you had a legit atheist who lived chastely I’d be just as happy and surprised to find a success story of breaking free of porn and fapping.
 
“All things are possible with God.”

I would recommend weekly confession to a regular priest who will help you with overcoming this sin

Be patient with yourself always. As long as you are fighting against it and not giving up, that is what is most important.

Confession confers powerful Grace to overcome sin which is what we humans stand always in need of to win the battle.
 
St Dominic or st thomas Aquinas wrote:
‘How did I preserve my purity? From avoiding all occasions of impurity.’

Do not watch impure things on tv or in cinema. Google a parental review of a film or programme before you see it, generally anything for the 15 age group older are very sinful and explicit. Even some of the films played for 12 year olds can have scenes that are soul destroying.
Even if there are only occasions of impurity on a programme. That’s soul damaging.

do not go to night clubs.

Jesus said:
‘The eye is the light of the body. If your eye is full of light you are full of all good things. But if your light is dark, how great is that darkness!’
In other words: avoid being tempted, avoid slipping into temptations

Yes it is possible, it says in the bible, ‘the commandments are wide as easy for those who love God.’
Not on your strength alone, but your strength with God’s strength it is possible.

One of the saints wrote: it’s a sin to think ‘Oh if that wasn’t a sin I’d love to commit that act’
That’s aligning yourself with a sin quiet strongly.

The strength is :
Always say ‘no’ in your mind and call the sin ‘disgusting and wrong’.
Once you deliberately look at the false ‘attractiveness’ of the sin, and let the sin ‘lure’ / ‘appeal’ to you deliberately, then you open a door of your soul to stronger temptations.
Temptations lose their power if you say no immediately.
 
Estevao said:
I dunno man. I’ve been trying to stop for 4 years. I doubt it’s possible, for me at least. That’s what happens when you have coward parents and coward priests who don’t mention anything in church or in confidence to you about sex, just expect you to figure it out on your own. It’s ruined my life as much as something could without me becoming homeless and unemployed. I think it’s time to go the Origen route.

I suppose I’d be more hopeful if there were actually stories out there of dudes who looked at porn and masturbate routinely in their teenage years (like the vast majority of teenage men, either though desire or coward parents and coward priests not saying anything about the evils of porn), but then manage to live chastely successfully after developing that habit for years and then breaking it for good. As far as I can tell this has never happened, I haven’t seen one story of this. I mean I can go a month or two or three no problem, but I always end up going back, it’s been the same for four years now. This is generally what I see elsewhere, no legit success stories. I don’t know, maybe people just don’t talk about their success.

“My yoke is easy and my burden light” lol. This has consumed me for four years now, almost ruining my life. It was a lot easier being an atheist. It’s a shame atheism is a ridiculous notion that I can’t rationally hold to anymore than I could say that the sky is red otherwise I’d go back.

In fact if you could show me someone who was an atheist who lived chastely it’d probably be more convincing to me. It seems that most atheists are atheists just to justify sexual immorality. If you had a legit atheist who lived chastely I’d be just as happy and surprised to find a success story of breaking free of porn and fapping.
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Thanks man, I appreciate your replay. Seems like you can really relate to me.
 
Estevao said:
I dunno man. I’ve been trying to stop for 4 years. I doubt it’s possible, for me at least. That’s what happens when you have coward parents and coward priests who don’t mention anything in church or in confidence to you about sex, just expect you to figure it out on your own. It’s ruined my life as much as something could without me becoming homeless and unemployed. I think it’s time to go the Origen route.

I suppose I’d be more hopeful if there were actually stories out there of dudes who looked at porn and masturbate routinely in their teenage years (like the vast majority of teenage men, either though desire or coward parents and coward priests not saying anything about the evils of porn), but then manage to live chastely successfully after developing that habit for years and then breaking it for good. As far as I can tell this has never happened, I haven’t seen one story of this. I mean I can go a month or two or three no problem, but I always end up going back, it’s been the same for four years now. This is generally what I see elsewhere, no legit success stories. I don’t know, maybe people just don’t talk about their success.

“My yoke is easy and my burden light” lol. This has consumed me for four years now, almost ruining my life. It was a lot easier being an atheist. It’s a shame atheism is a ridiculous notion that I can’t rationally hold to anymore than I could say that the sky is red otherwise I’d go back.

In fact if you could show me someone who was an atheist who lived chastely it’d probably be more convincing to me. It seems that most atheists are atheists just to justify sexual immorality. If you had a legit atheist who lived chastely I’d be just as happy and surprised to find a success story of breaking free of porn and fapping.
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Wow - I tried to post and it said it was too long…I hope this isn’t all rambling and that some of what I said can help you out.

I can honestly understand your perspective, especially your first paragraph in which you talk about how you think your upbringing (or lack thereof) about sex brought you to where you are today. I was actually brought up in a pretty strong Catholic family, especially by today’s standards, yet I was introduced to masturbation when I was 10 years old. This was even despite me going to a Catholic grade school at the time, so not even much/any secular influence yet. No, it wasn’t by a pornographic movie or TV show (we didn’t have a TV growing up), nor curious childhood Internet exploration (we also didn’t have Internet). It was actually my older brother, who at the time was in 8th grade, and, as far as I know, was learning about sex for the first time. This is where I say I can understand you - I have thought many, many times about how if my parents had actually talked to me/us about these things, perhaps I wouldn’t have struggled so much with it, and at so early an age. So I am only 23, but at the age of 21, I had already been masturbating for half of my life. I had known intuitively that what I had been introduced to in 4th grade was wrong, but I didn’t know it was a mortal sin (grave matter at least). By the time I found that out in 6th or 7th grade, I had developed a terrible habit of doing it so much that I couldn’t even come close to stopping.

But though I can understand some that line of thought, and I know this is hard to do especially if you’ve been actively struggling with it for 4 years, I want to try to get you to not blame things too much on your parents or priests. I can relate in the sense I mentioned above with my parents - I can’t be sure I wouldn’t have had the same problems if this had happened, but I firmly believe that all parents, whether Catholic or not, who are aware of the immorality of masturbation/other sexual sins, NEED to get over the fact that it will be “awkward”, and TALK to their kids about it, multiple times as they grow older. And the fact that my parents didn’t do that with me has often left me wondering about how things might/could have been. But in the more recent years, I know it really is my problem now. Even though at least early on for me it could be called a habit and therefore I was not fully culpable for my acts, now I realize that I am fully responsible for my actions. There’s nothing wrong with admitting this to yourself - we’re all sinners!

I don’t say this to make you feel guilty, and I’m know you’re already aware of that fact anyway. I only say this because one thing that may help in overcoming this sin is acknowledging that you are fully responsible for your acts. It will make it much harder to overcome, in my opinion, if you always have that thought of “well this isn’t really all my fault” running in the back of your head. What you should try to do is to say, 1) okay, I am fully responsible for these acts, 2) I struggle with them very badly, therefore 3) I cannot overcome this on my own - I greatly need God’s help! This last step is key! This is something that has helped me. I notice that each time I fall, I am telling myself that I failed - in other words, I was relying on only myself and not on God - I can be sure that I will be fail if I do NOT rely on God!

…continued…
 
(Part 2) Luckily for us, we have a very merciful God. 🙂 You sound awfully discouraged in your post to me, and I just want to encourage you to try to have a more positive outlook. As long as you are doing your best to grow in your relationship with God and are honestly trying to overcome this, know that God is pleased with your efforts! Do your best to grow in your love for God, and the more you do that, the more you can grow in your love for others, which will help you be less self-centered, which should help in cases of those struggling with masturbation. Whenever you feel the urge to masturbate, or look at porn or whatever, try to channel those thoughts into a positive thought stream - that is, ask yourself why you have sexual desires in the first place. The (very basic) answer to that that you should tell yourself each time you have these desires is, we were made to love others and give ourselves to others! That is, try to turn the inward desires outward. And of course our Blessed Mother is a wonderful person to turn to for intercession. Good luck in your endeavors and I will keep you in my prayers.

I’ll also quickly add, it may take quite a while to overcome. You could say I have been trying to actively quit for probably 5-6 years. While I have not completely succeeded yet, the frequency is much lower than it was then. We must not be discouraged, and have confidence that God will help us overcome this problem as he sees fit. I have confidence that I will be able to quit soon with his grace! If we continue the “good fight”, God will not be outdone in generosity! 🙂

All right, I have rambled on enough. I hope some of what I said makes sense/helps a little bit. Frank13, you will certainly be in my prayers as well. I hope much of this can apply to you as well, and others have already given great advice. I hope that if you are continuing to fall, and to fall somewhat often, that you are regularly going to confession and/or speaking with a priest or someone else you trust. Accountability can be a very big help.
 
Estevao said:
I dunno man. I’ve been trying to stop for 4 years. I doubt it’s possible, for me at least. That’s what happens when you have coward parents and coward priests who don’t mention anything in church or in confidence to you about sex, just expect you to figure it out on your own. It’s ruined my life as much as something could without me becoming homeless and unemployed. I think it’s time to go the Origen route.

I suppose I’d be more hopeful if there were actually stories out there of dudes who looked at porn and masturbate routinely in their teenage years (like the vast majority of teenage men, either though desire or coward parents and coward priests not saying anything about the evils of porn), but then manage to live chastely successfully after developing that habit for years and then breaking it for good. As far as I can tell this has never happened, I haven’t seen one story of this. I mean I can go a month or two or three no problem, but I always end up going back, it’s been the same for four years now. This is generally what I see elsewhere, no legit success stories. I don’t know, maybe people just don’t talk about their success.
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I have several friends who were deep in porn/masturbation addiction for decades, and now hardly deal with it at all. I myself spent almost 30 years deeply immersed in this sort of sin. About 20 years into that time, I took some tremendous steps (3-4 months of chastity, and probably two years of relative chastity), but I later fell back into the habit bad. Right now, I’m in a different place. I only have a real fall around once a month – this streak has been going on for probably about 5 months, and there were 18 months before that when I was making progress. It’s AWESOME. I’m so blessed.

You say, Estevao, that you can live chastely for months at a time, but you seem utterly dissatisfied with that. I would suggest that you could progress further – both practically and emotionally – in this area if you were gentler with yourself.

Falls are falls. If you fall on your way to going somewhere, that doesn’t negate the progress you’ve made. Jesus fell on the way to the cross. Did he still get to the end of his journey? Yes! We obviously want to avoid falls, but we also want to avoid despair. I’m convinced that Jesus will free us from our bondage to sin precisely at the moment when we desire HIM more than we desire to be free.

God bless you! 👍
 
Thanks for the responses guys. My long post there was during when I was in a state of moral sin and charity was gone. So I lashed out at others like the parents and priests who may not talk about purity enough. I am sorry for this. I also nourished despair. Not a good thing to do although that was all I could do then.

Well I went to confession, then went to the extraordinary form of the mass which was very nice, and I’m ready to start again, and I’m not in the same mood as I was when I wrote that post.

You’re right BobBallen, I shouldn’t blame others. My actions got me there, although my culpability might have been reduced in the ways that the Catechism lists when discussion masturbation.

You’re also right prodigal son, I should be gentler with myself. But not too gentle. I really liked your last line, something to think about in tonights prayer.

I won’t make some big long post about how now I’m better. I don’t have anything to say except God was merciful, he didn’t ask for my soul yet, and granted me the grace to go to confession, and I cooperated enough to get me into that confessional booth and to start again.

About me being depressed that I haven’t kicked this habit and that I haven’t heard of many others doing so, one thing to think of good coming out of this evil is that it can temper our pride. Another is to remind ourselves that the just man falls seven times a day, and that narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life. There are saints who’ve lived purely if I need an example…and I’m sure their example includes custody of the eyes, penance, fasting and prayer. 😉

Keep up the good fight brethren.
 
I had a chance to go to confession last night, but decided not to go. Im not ready. I go thru these periods where i decide enough is enough, and am able to abstain for a bit. To be honest, right now i want to jerk off some more before i confess. It’s such a double edge sword, because i know it’s not good for my soul and yet it’s so hard not to do it because of the physical pleasure and desire. Add that with various things on the internet (picutres, videos, video chat), it’s so very hard to say “no”. Almost as if I don’t want to.
 
Frank13 said:
I had a chance to go to confession last night, but decided not to go. Im not ready. I go thru these periods where i decide enough is enough, and am able to abstain for a bit. To be honest, right now i want to jerk off some more before i confess. It’s such a double edge sword, because i know it’s not good for my soul and yet it’s so hard not to do it because of the physical pleasure and desire. Add that with various things on the internet (picutres, videos, video chat), it’s so very hard to say “no”. Almost as if I don’t want to.
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Code: 
Hey there, your struggle sounds very hard and like you're really trying.  Do you know what may your reasons for doing so?  For me, I've used masturbation to feel good and project confidence when my world feels bleak and boring.  I can connect to the feeling of not wanting to confess, like God please save me, but just not yet.
I recommend this talk by Fr. Larry Richards on Confession–maybe see if you can support him by buying it if you see it in a parish–since he helps one examine your conscience and realize that God wants to love you and support you.
Code: 
I've been trying to get over porn for almost 8 years, and I stay clean for longer when I trust and let God work through me instead of trying to control myself for my own satisfaction.  Maybe that's not a coincidence.

Do you think you might know why you could want porn in addition to the pleasure and desire, or what causes the desire?
 
warriorgent said:
Hey there, your struggle sounds very hard and like you’re really trying. Do you know what may your reasons for doing so? For me, I’ve used masturbation to feel good and project confidence when my world feels bleak and boring. I can connect to the feeling of not wanting to confess, like God please save me, but just not yet.

I recommend this talk by Fr. Larry Richards on Confession–maybe see if you can support him by buying it if you see it in a parish–since he helps one examine your conscience and realize that God wants to love you and support you.
Code: 
I've been trying to get over porn for almost 8 years, and I stay clean for longer when I trust and let God work through me instead of trying to control myself for my own satisfaction.  Maybe that's not a coincidence.

Do you think you might know why you could want porn in addition to the pleasure and desire, or what causes the desire?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. To answer your question, the reason why I look at porn and wank is the same as anyone else: I get horny. Married people have it easy, they can go have sex. That’s not the case for those of us who are single. I really don’t think that there’s a deep meaning or reason why I wank. We all have sexual urges, and need to satisfy them- that’s why.
 
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