Trying to Win Against Masturbation and Pornography addiction

[Tregarla]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post so I don’t really know which category this fits best in. Anyway so Im a sophomore in college (19M). I have met a strong community of Catholics that are striving to keep Christ at the center of their life and they’ve been a great influence on me these past few years.

Obviously I struggle with many things but the main sin I always find myself confessing is porn and masturbation. My friends all have the same problem and we’re trying to keep each other accountable. One of us has even made it 90 days! However, I keep falling around 8 or 9 over and over and over again.

If anyone reading this can pray for those struggling with this sin I’d appreciate it! Also, if you feel called to share about your experiences with this sin and how you conquer it when tempted I’d also appreciate that!

Thank you all!

 

[mdbaumert]

Lots of thoughts on this topic:

This is most certainly a winnable battle and God can and will do the work of breaking the cycle of sexual addiction as you submit yourself and continue to repent and confess when you fail. Our response in growth of Christian holiness is in part putting to death that which creates enmity with God through sinful living in us but almost as important is the necessity of turning in repentance more quickly and fully each time. When you see a pattern of turning in repentance and accepting the grace of his forgiveness, you are already walking along the path of sanctification even if you are still in the midst of occasional relapses.

The big picture in all of this is that you are not a slave to your sexual impulses - you are a son of the most high God though Christ. God has not only blessed you with everything that you need to say no to misplaced sexual behaviors (Eph chapter 1) but he has also given you a will to say yes to him and what he can truly offer that is better than what misplaced sexual gratification can offer.

The turning point for me what that I eventually realized that, in the core of my being, while I confessed Christ’s lordship with my mouth, I did not truly believe in my heart (based on my actions) that he had anything better to offer than what my own sexual gratification could temporarily provide (before besetting grief). I didn’t believe that he had a better story for the sexuality he created in humans.

This did not sit well with me. I realized that I didn’t really think he was capable of being God over my sexual impulses; it also didn’t sit well when I realized that I didn’t really believe he could provide anything better or had a more compelling and fruitful way to live. This caused me to turn to God and repent for the sin underneath the sin of lust - I didn’t believe that God was capable of being God over my sexuality.

We are continually formed and informed by that which we practice. We begin to form our own twisted theology of sexuality the more that we engage in ways that are contrary to the ethic of sacramental marriage with the openness to life. The more we engage outside of the sphere of the created purpose, the more we believe a different story and, should you get married some day, all the more that you’ll have to unlearn about sexuality as you also learn about it in its intended place. This is certainly not to suggest that broken sexual practices are irredeemable in any way but more of an exhortation to continue to take it seriously as you appear to be doing and be willing to put in the work with God to ultimately put it to death.

Something helpful on consider is the HALT acronym:

H: Hungry
A: Angry
L: Lonely
T: Tired

All states within us that the enemy uses to your disadvantage. If you sense a proclivity towards sexual sin, first turn (physically flee the circumstance - I.e. turn off the electronic device) and then assess which of the four he is using to cause you to stumble. Set up accountability with your friends to push each other onward towards holiness.

Hope this is helpful in some way to you and your friends. God bless.

 

[drac16]

Try to control your gaze. What we look at matters. When you’re at a store at a magazine rack, don’t look at them; you know that there will be pictures of women wearing things that are not-so-modest. Don’t play video games that have sexually explicit content. If you’re watching football and the cheerleaders appear on the screen, look away. If you learn to control your gaze, you will find yourself lusting less often, which will lead you to masturbate less.

 

[rosefern]

Look to the Lord and be radiant. Ps 34:5 Repeat this verse to yourself and the Lord will pull you out. Praying for you and others in addictions

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Hello,

First, Praying for you and your situation.

Second, there are many, many past threads on this topic of beating masturbation/ porn addiction on the forum. We probably get at least one a week. I would suggest doing a forum search or a google search to find the past threads, so you can read even more advice on this topic from the past threads.

Third, you may have done this already, but don’t neglect to ask your priest for advice on this, and also look into joining the Angelic Warfare Confraternity .

Fourth, just a reminder that Prayer Intentions is meant to be for prayers requests and prayers only, and is not supposed to contain discussions. If you want to have a discussion topic - for example, people sharing their experiences, as here - you should post in a different section, not Prayer Intentions. For sexual issues, the past practice hsa been to post them in Family Life. It is OK to ask for prayers in your discussion thread also.

OP, I realize you are new and were not sure where to post the thread, so please just be aware of this going forward - no need to start a new thread as this one is already active and we’re not supposed to start duplicate threads.

If someone can move this thread out of Prayer Intentions to Family Life, that would be helpful.

 

[Katie777]

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[Prayer-Partner7]

Firstly, you are to be commended for joining this community and asking others to pray for you.

Consider doing things each day to develop the saint within you and to exemplify your faith (do a good deed, pray for another, read a Psalm or Proverb, etc.).

I pray that our Heavenly Father provides you a boost of guidance and strength, and helps you to “crowd out” opportunities for temptation…

 

[Inquiry]

Here are the most important things I can give you:

You don’t just have a temptation, you have a habit. You need to treat it like one or you are going to spin your wheels. What’s actually going on is that you have dozens of triggers that all start your mind down a path towards the object of your habit (for instance a smoker might always smoke at a certain time or place, so whenever that time or place comes up they think of smoking). By the time you are consciously aware of the temptation, the battle has already been raging. That’s why you suddenly find yourself in the middle of it without apparent warning. I did, anyways.

So the first thing you need to do is start watching yourself carefully. When you get hit with the moments of weakness, start looking at how you got there. You need to identify the locations, the behaviors, the ideas, and the times that kick off the process. Then you need to cut them from your life, or work to associate them with other, healthier things. It’s much the same process as stopping any other bad habit, it’s only going to work if you start rebuilding yourself.

The second thing is prayer. Now actually both of these should happen at the same time but I am listing prayer second for a reason. A lot of people pray for relief, or help fighting, and that is good. However, when we only pray for relief we are very often saying Lord, please take away my temptation so I can stay exactly as I am now. I certainly was. But if you are a masterbater you don’t want to stay as you are now. You want to transform yourself. That’s what you need to pray for.

I list prayer second because transformation is something you need to be an active participant in. God loves helping people transform themselves towards sainthood. He will do most of the heavy lifting so long as you give Him something to work with. It won’t happen all at once, but you can beat this with His help.

These are the two elements that most helped me. I pray they can help you as well.