I give up trying to defeat my addictions

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Miguel2 said:
I am discussing and collecting information. In the end of It, I will see if I discovered something useful and will decide what to do next.
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The will is there,that is the first step.A friend prays each morning St Patrick’s breastplate,I’m not sure if you are familiar with it …I wish I had the words to describe all the feelings when I pray that one, a thorough prayer of protection. There is a huge spiritual battle going on,but you aren’t consumed by the bad.
Do you get out in nature ,away from people and triggers ,leave the phone at home ?Getting out of your own head and hiking if you can ,taking in the immediate scenery ,living in the moment…a whole day will pass,you will feel the physical benefits .A day at a time.
 
I’ve struggled against serious sins (not mentioning what kind for personal reasons) for years. Frequently making a good confession and Holy Communion have helped me turn the tide.

As another posted earlier, you won’t win the battle overnight. See what St. Paul says in his second Epistle to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 7 et seq. w/ footnote:

[7] And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. [8] For which thing thrice I besought the Lord, that it might depart from me. [9] And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. [10] For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful.

[9] “Power is made perfect”: The strength and power of God more perfectly shines forth in our weakness and infirmity; as the more weak we are of ourselves, the more illustrious is his grace in supporting us, and giving us the victory under all trials and conflicts.
 
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A - Get yourself a real woman

B- If you think that there is some force that causes you to do things against your will, then you are mistaken. That is a logical error.

C- Addiction is when you have a behavior that you want stop, but don’t. The reason (see B) is that you want to do it, so you do. There is no force making you do it.

D- Be honest with yourself that you want to do it.

E- See A
 
I don’t normally listen to Dr. Phil, but he said once “you replace bad habits with better ones” in regards to addictions. Is there something else you did or should be doing during this time? Perhaps focus on that.
 
I’m not sure getting a real woman is a cure,perhaps unfair to both until the addiction is addressed .The risk of objectifying is real and not healthy.God bless.
 
1- I don’t want to start a relationship while I am addicted to mastubation and especially to pornography. It could really damage my relationship (especially my marriage), so I don’t want to risk.

2 - Well, if stopping masturbating or watching porn was that easy, I and many other people would have stopped these habits a long time ago.
 
I should be doing a lot of things now, but when I don’t neglect these things to masturbate and watch porn, I neglect these things because my motivation to do anything dies every time I commit these sins.
 
@Miguel2:

I had a weight problem. And I decided I wanted to lose weight. I reduced
my portion size and cut out “garbage” calories.

I lost 90 lbs. I still have to eat every day. But I have a new relationship
with food. I no longer let it control me.

I have to be diligently monitor my weight and record my calorie intake
– every day. But I made a decision.

I’ve overcome chronic back pain and the depression that went with it.
Sometimes, I had to white-knuckle it. The pain was so bad that I had
to use a cane. Some days, I could barely move around at all. This situation
lasted for years.

But God gave me the strength and the will to keep going. In 2018, I
found a new treatment that keeps me mobile. The cane hangs in the closet.

If you want to move ahead, you just have to keep going, no matter what.
Stop saying you can’t, because you’re reenforcing the habit. Don’t call
yourself an addict.

As St. Paul writes in Philippians 4:13: “I have the strength for everything
through him who empowers me.”

You, my friend, can choose to be a warrior! You can do all things
if you call on the strength our Savior so lovingly gives us.

Don’t make life so complicated. As St. Thérèse would said, “Just do
the next right thing, and do it all for the love of God.”
 
This is great tbh. OP do you have a good diet and excercise regime? That can help balance neurotransmitters too. Perhaps take up hiking or another outdoor activity. Or start volunteering. Great use of that time, and in line with the gospels!
 
Frankenfurter said:
Addiction is when you have a behavior that you want stop, but don’t. The reason (see B) is that you want to do it, so you do. There is no force making you do it.
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Be thankful that you have so little familiarity with addiction.

Romans 7
 
Vico said:
Actually, it is not resisting the thoughts that come before that.
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To be fair Vico, as someone experiencing the same problem as our OP, it’s really not as easy as that. It can start out easy enough to resist the thoughts, but over time they just keep coming back. They also come back louder and louder each time, until they’re basically the only thing you can think about. I’ll reach a point where no matter what I think about my brain somehow connects it back to something pornographic. I’ll wake up in the morning and immediately be inundated with sexual thoughts or images which invariably cause a physiological response. Once that response starts the brain falls into the well-worn grooves of behavior and it’s basically painful not to give in to them.

None of this is to excuse the behavior. It’s still a sin and it needs to stop, but if you’ve never experienced the addiction you can’t really understand what it’s like trying to resist it.

Still, resist we must. It is eternity at stake.
Frankenfurter said:
Addiction is when you have a behavior that you want stop, but don’t. The reason (see B) is that you want to do it, so you do. There is no force making you do it.
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You clearly have no experience with real addiction.
A - I have a real woman. I’ve been married for a decade. It doesn’t help.
B - It’s not a matter of being forced to act against your will, it’s a matter of your will being feeble, and the constant unrelenting drive to act out wearing you down until you literally feel like you can’t resist.
D - Of course we want to do it. That’s how an addiction works. There is some aspect of us that desires the evil. There is also some aspect of us that desires the good. The addiction makes it harder to chose the good. I don’t want to watch pornography right now. Who knows where I’ll be in a week when I’ve had a constant stream of sexualized thoughts bearing down on my night and day, filling my mind with all kinds of perverse images that arouse my curiosity and desire.
E - Again, study after study has shown that being in a relationship does little to cull tendencies towards pornography and masturbation.
 
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Miguel2 said:
I tried many strategies, but in the end, I can’t control myself
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Then you need to control your access. I am in the exact same boat as you, I’m lucky if I hit a week right now. In six years the longest I’ve ever gone is seven weeks. After this last time I’ve decided to make a real change. I’ve set up a filtering DNS on my home wifi, and i’m installing a handful of programs on my phone to help prevent access.

Clean Browsing - This is a DNS server that actively blocks pornographic sites, among other things. There are three free levels of blocking you can pick from. One is primarily security-focused, one is specifically for pornography, and one is a full blocking of pornography and mixed-media sites like reddit/tumblr, twitter, etc.

Blokada - This can be used to block specific sites you know you have issue with.
BlockerX - This will monitor what’s going on on your phone and actively prevent accessing based on key words or sites. It can be a little annoying because it will have false positives from time to time and block stuff it shouldn’t, but all in all it’s far better than just giving yourself open access.

There are other programs, but there are what I’m using for now. They all have paid versions, but their free version are still highly effective. I especially like blockerX (and I think Blokada also has this function) because there are sites I know that other blocker systems don’t or can’t include, as well as keywords that are generally missed by other filtering software. BlockerX free allows me to set up to ten sites/words that will be blocked automatically.

Don’t give up, we’re talking about eternity here. Know that God desires your healing, and accept that it will probably be a long road to recovery. Some people have an Emmaus road moment and walk away clean for the rest of their lives. Others, like us, have a constant thorn in our side which will bug us till the day we die.
 
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ProdglArchitect said:
Once that response starts the brain falls into the well-worn grooves of behavior and it’s basically painful not to give in to them.
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I will never know exactly what another person experiences, we are all unique, but I sympathize. There is no sin in what is involuntary, but resistance is required, even when painful. Sin is a disorder of the will, not merely an external rule being broken.
 
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Vico said:
I will never know exactly what another person experiences, we are all unique, but I sympathize. There is no sin in what is involuntary, but resistance is required, even when painful. Sin is a disorder of the will, not an external rule.
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I agree completely. Pain does not excuse the behavior. I was just trying to give some explanation as to why we find it so hard to actually stop.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
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Vico:
I will never know exactly what another person experiences, we are all unique, but I sympathize. There is no sin in what is involuntary, but resistance is required, even when painful. Sin is a disorder of the will, not an external rule.
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I agree completely. Pain does not excuse the behavior. I was just trying to give some explanation as to why we find it so hard to actually stop.
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Same thing happens to married people that are chaste and that are tempted to dwell on past good marital relations or imaging new, when there is not a likelihood of current marital relations – such as when apart from the spouse, or when it is not known that the spouse will agree to them at the time of the thoughts. So consent to lust begins in thinking.
 
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Heavens no!!! Would you want your sister to meet a guy who got her to use in that way?
 
Frankenfurter said:
A - Get yourself a real woman
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I disagree. There are so many ways this doesn’t work. I’ll stick to two. The addict wants what is in the porn, not a real life person. Marriage is hard enough without starting it while being an addict who can’t control themselves.
 
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