How to stop sin from spiraling

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DeoVolente

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First, thanks in advance to anyone who responds. This is a difficult topic, but I don’t know where else to turn. I’m in desperate need of some sound spiritual and theological advice.

For most of my life, I’ve struggled with Internet pornography and lust. I’ve had varying degrees of success with overcoming it at times, and frequent confession has been a huge part of that. So, my problem isn’t necessarily with knowing what to do when the temptation or the sin occurs – I get my butt to confession as quickly as I can. The problem, rather, occurs BEFORE I can get to confession.

As almost anyone can attest, temptation is always a gradual thing. In other words, I almost never wake up thinking, “I think I’m going to sin today.” It’s always an innocent picture, a fleeting thought or a momentary lapse in judgment that gets the spiral started. It starts with an innocuous search that leads to a few (admittedly still inappropriate) pictures, after which the browser window is usually quickly closed in shame.

This, for me, is where the problem starts. I know that any amount of lust is a mortal sin. So, even after a quick glance, I feel the weight of that sin, and immediately know I must get to confession. But at the same time, knowing I’m ALREADY in a state of sin makes it that much more difficult to avoid sinning again. It almost feels like, “Well, the cat’s out of the bag, now,” and any preventive grace that might have stopped me (namely, fear of hell) is gone. I’m already headed there, until I can get to confession.

I know this thinking is erroneous, but I’m struggling with how to change it. I still strive to get to confession as quickly as I can, but I don’t know how to deal with that initial guilt, and how to prevent that from becoming a full-blown “fall-off-the-wagon” moment. It truly feels like this is the “thorn” that I can’t seem to remove from my side – that once I’ve fallen, I’ve already abandoned God.

I don’t like to phrase it this way, but I guess my question is this: Does the second sin “compound” the first sin, or is all sin “equal,” so to speak? In other words, how can I motivate myself not to sin again before I get to confession, knowing I’m already deprived of God’s grace?

Please pray for me.
 
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Meditate on the Passion and pray the Rosary. If you could pray the Seven Sorrows chaplet and try your best to meditate, believe me, you’ll feel sorrow for your sins. Deep, deep sorrow.
 
To begin, thank God that you are aware of the wrongness of this sin, even to the point where when you glance, just the momentary entertainment of it is wrong.

When I was younger, it used to be a problem for me too. While I still have to work hard toward virtue and sometimes my imagination goes in the wrong direction, I am thankful to say I don’t watch porn or masturbate anymore all thanks to God.

Sins aren’t exactly equal to each other which is why we have both venial and mortal sins. That said, we shouldn’t strive to do venial in place of mortal, The point is to avoid sin completely.
  1. Pray the Rosary. When you have any sort of urge to sin, clutch your rosary tightly – I mean it.
  2. Keep yourself busy. Many times, pornography stems from simply being bored. Set a to-do list for yourself daily. Include leisurely activities so that you can create the day that you want, but include all the responsibilities you have too.
  3. Confession very regularly. Continue going, and if necessary, go weekly – go multiple times a week if you need to. You are free to go to confession as many times as you need to and is available to you.
  4. Create goals for yourself. It can be picking up a hobby and mastering it, getting into good shape, growing your account, reading a book a week, etc. Don’t allow yourself to be idle.
  5. Adoration. This is extremely important too when battling a specific sin.
  6. Spiritual guidance. See if you can connect with a spiritual director.
 
If your intention is to use pornography and you willfully consented to use it, even though you didn’t go through with the act for some reason, it is still a mortal sin.

If you happen to look at an immodest picture and turned it off as soon as you could, then no sin has taken place.

If you were a little lax in overcoming the temptaion and only semi consented it may be a venial sin.

Every act is judged on its own morality. One sin(mortal amd venial) does diminish grace so it may become harder to fight that sin next time.

I would get that stuff out of your house, dont go on the computer untill you have controll of your desires. Or get a new computer and never go back on that garbage again so it will never pop up on your computer.

I wad once addicted to pornography and it is the most aweful thing on earth. Its hard even to this day to look at a woman not as an object. Its a tough battle but with Gods grace you can do it. Without Gods grace and humility we are doomed to fail. The turning point for me is when before I got married I could not bring this garbage into my house and into a family. I destroyed everything and havent gone back since, thanks be to God, but I still needs Gods grace to have a proper view of women and sexuality.

One thing you may try is when the temptation comes, to direct yourself to something enjoyable that is not sinfull such as a hobby.
 
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If you fell and broke your finger, would you think “Broke a finger, well might as well smash the rest of them and crush my wrist and snap my forearm!” Hold that thought in mind when you get the “sinned once, might as well keep going” temptation.
 
Make an act of perfect contrition. Then, you will be absolved from your sins before going to confession (provided you go asap). So then, you will be back to grace. And you won’t want to lose it.
 
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If you were a little lax in overcoming the temptaion and onky semi consented it may ne a venial sin.

Thanks for your reply and great advice. This describes the feeling most of the time at first. It’s difficult to describe, but it’s never a full, “Yep, I’m gonna sin now.” It’s sort of a half-hearted, semi-conscious, “Well, one quick look …” that does me in. I guess I just struggle with how to keep “one quick look” (knowing that’s still a sin) from becoming, “Alright, I guess we’re doing this now.”

If that makes sense.
 
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You mean one quick look to full fledged watchimg pornography?

If thats the case reject the thought as soon as possible. Meditate on how a woman is not just a body but a unique soul created by God. Meditate that only in marriage and only natural marital relations that are unitive and procreative are the only means by which we use our sexual faculty. Meditate on the Gospels and how Jesus treated women.
 
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Make an act of perfect contrition. Then, you will be absolved from your sins before going to confession (provided you go asap). So then, you will be back to grace. And you won’t want to lose it.

Thanks for your reply. I’ve thought about this, but doesn’t an act of perfect contrition require that fear of hell not be a motivating factor? I almost never feel capable of this. I don’t really know how to eliminate fear of hell from the sorrow for sin, since hell is always a very real reality. But this does seem like a very good answer to the problem.
 
no problem that can’t be solved by the holy rosary - sister lucia

honestly, if your doing the rosary everyday it will become very hard for you to sin (i’m trying to do the full 15 decade rosary) prayer has now become my day, so I find it hard to sin,

try it, if you don’t know it, go on youtube and pray along, you’ll need it as penance for all your sins anyway.
 
I had a deacon explain in a homily that when you sin you give a demon permission to bother you, and that spiritual creatures tend to communicate to us with images in our own memories. So a demon can keep putting memories of images before you to tempt you. He said that one of the best defenses is to ask your Guardian Angel to help block those thoughts and memories.
 
There are resources to help people with addictions.
Go to confession.
It’s embarrassing and humbling to confess this.
But it works.
God knows best. He gave us confession.
 
DeoVolente said:
It almost feels like, “Well, the cat’s out of the bag, now,” and any preventive grace that might have stopped me (namely, fear of hell) is gone. I’m already headed there, until I can get to confession.
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Not necessarily true. I understand the temptation to fall into this erroneous thought pattern, having been there myself in the past, but it’s simply untrue.

Get on your knees and pray the traditional Act of Contrition and Psalm 51 and make a vow to God that you will have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance as soon as possible, and immediately you are back in the State of Grace.

So do that, then remind yourself that you’re back in the state of Grace, so it’s a lie that you have nothing to lose - you have everything to lose, first and foremost, friendship with God.
 
I can resist any sin, except temptation … heard that on CAL the other day, made me chuckle.

OP: this is a toughie for men. I am a man. I had the same experience. The only advice I have for you is the advice I can provide from my own experience. It may work or may not work for others, just my own experience.

I stopped the internet porn and self gratifying thing by my own will. Maybe not completely my own will, now that I think about it, it was definitely not due to my own accord. Simply, I had the will to stop, wanted to stop, the desire to stop, but the concupiscence just is overpowering. As I did not have the power on my own to overcome, I simply pray stuff like “help me want to not sin even though I want to”

Pure act of the will, ask for graces.

But, in simplicity, what did it for me was 2 things. 1. God doesn’t like it. 2. If Jesus was hanging out with you next to the computer, what would you surf for?

OP: it’s tough and it is a journey, I will add a prayer for you.

Blessings and may the Spirit guide you.

[EDIT]

And, how could I have forgotten to mention Confession! That, above my will and graces from God, was my biggest motivator as in the Act I say, on my own lips, “I firmly intend, with your help, to do penance, to sin no more, and to avoid whatever situation leads me to sin”. You’ll find abundant graces to stay strong against temptation when you think about, or dread in my case, going back to the priest and saying you’re sorry, again, for the same sins. It’s a real motivator!
 
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I left this response to someone else recently on another thread struggling with purity. I will copy & paste, maybe it could help you :

When our fleshly passions have ruled us, it can be hard to put them back in their proper place once they have had free reign. I would start doing a very small act of self-denial every day. If you want a cola at lunch, force yourself to drink a water. Don’t put that slice of cheese on your sandwich. Eat one cookie, not two. Put the water in the shower a little cooler than you normally like it. Don’t sleep with a pillow. Or only sleep with a sheet and not a blanket. Drive in silence instead of turning on the radio. Don’t heat up your leftovers as hot as you’d like them.

Offer each one up to Jesus for your purity. Basically just do anything to show your flesh that it won’t die if it doesn’t get its way. You’d be surprised by how the smallest things like this can lead to spiritual victories. Jesus said deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me. Luke 9:23. It’s Jesus’ formula, that’s why it works. You can do this!

You can’t be surprised that you can’t bench press your hardest vice when you haven’t been practicing doing the lighter reps. Start small, do what you can, and build victory over victory. Think of it as training or boot camp for the spirit part of you.
 
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DeoVolente said:
an act of perfect contrition require that fear of hell not be a motivating factor?
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One can have imperfect contrition, which can lead them to make an act of perfect contrition. For example, one may decide to meditate on Christ crucified because they fear hell, but then while meditating on this, be moved to perfect contrition, being sorry because of what the did to God by their actions. Also to avoid porn, you may want to install a program that blocks such content.
 
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Internet pornography and lust can be an addiction. The fact that there are so many posters experiencing this, show that you are not the only one and that it is a common problem in the spiritual life of Christians.

I just want to agree with you that you are wrong for you to think that you are in a state of sin by having lustful thought and therefore going ahead to commit the sin.

We cannot prevent lustful thought- it comes and goes. That in itself is not a sin. It is, when you purposely go along with it and watch the pornography or commit any sexual sin.

Remember, you can stop it from happening, and at that point in time, you are not in a state of sin.

Pornography can be overcome as addiction can be overcome. Since you already known how the sin can start, it is important for you to avoid such situations. For starters, you can throw away any materials that you use for such purpose or can lead you into sin. This is what we call radical action in stopping sin - cut off the ‘hands’ or take out the ‘eyes’ that lead you to sin. They are not always literal but you know what are they, that need to be cut off from your life.

God bless.
 
DeoVolente said:
Does the second sin “compound” the first sin, or is all sin “equal,” so to speak?
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Aside from having to confess to committing the sin twice (or the other sin, if they are different in kind) it can indicate a presumptuous attitude, or at least one that tries to abuse God’s mercy as an excuse to commit more sins. The Baltimore Catechism (at least one version) states that we may be guilty of the grave sin of presumption “by being indifferent about the number of times we yield to any temptation after we have once yielded and broken our resolution to resist it.”

This kind of indifference to sin once we are outside of the state of grace will also increase affinity to sin in the future. In the case of more addictive sins such as this, it is even more dangerous. It is difficult, but the only sure way to progress against temptation (of course with the help of God) is a quick and decisive “no” even after falling into sin.

In addition, the quick transition from temptation to full-on sin is another thing that is tough to overcome. Since we can be caught up quickly in the momentary pleasure envisioned, we can lose sight of the ugliness and consequence of committing sin. The best thing to do I find is to simply get your mind off the thought as soon as possible. Others here have given good advice on the matter. And since you know it is an issue for you, it will certainly be a good thing to pray for God’s grace and for strength of will now for when temptation arises.

God bless!
 
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Pray for the grace to be more contrite and to hate sin more. Strive to resist temptation purely out of love for God and a desire to please Him. In a moment of temptation think about Jesus being nailed to the cross.
 
Have you looked for the underlying cause of your pornography use? Stress, anxiety, social problems, low self-esteem? (I’m not saying you suffer from these things but it could be worth thinking about.)

It sound like you hit the vicious cycle of ‘I’m damned already so what’s one more sin?’, again is there an underlying factor here? Falling into a depression over sin committed and then using pornography to ‘escape’ for a short while? Again this is just a suggestion.

Keep going to confession; going to a trusted priest who has knowledge of your circumstances (either for confession or spiritual direction) may help.

Do not fall into despair, that’s exactly what the devil wants. Keep trusting in God and ask Our Lady to assist you. You’ll be in my prayers.
 
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