2024 The Best Year Ever

I think for some of us what can drive the desire can just be that we are addicted to lust. It's our drug of choice. So there will always be that weakness, that Achilles heel, that susceptibility. And it's up to us to rely on Jesus each day one day at a time for progressive freedom. We may never know in this lifetime or understand all the intricacies that go into why this is our particular drug of choice that we are recovering addicts from. In my case it's pretty obvious: I have a difficult and complicated relationship with my Mum (Mom), and she abandoned me and my siblings when I was 6. I have an intense desire to re-connect with the feminine and find affirmation in female nurturing which got sexualised when I became sexually developed. But does knowing that help me find freedom today? Maybe a bit. But not really. What does? Remembering that by myself I am completely powerless over lust, and choosing to turn to God and others for help and strength to live free today.

 

Satan tempts all of us. When we spit back key verses to him he will ease up.

 

It's not just spitting back verses that is effective, though. The Scripture is not a magic incantation. It's when we believe the truth of God's promises and desire the reality they portray over the reality of a life steeped in sin that we begin to find freedom. Weaving those promises into the fabric of our hearts and lives is crucial. Having those promises ready at the forefront of our hearts and minds in moments of temptation and stress is critical. But merely chanting verses will not help us very much. The enemy knows a straw man when he sees one, and he can easily overpower him.

2 Peter 1
3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 4 And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.

10 So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. 11 Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

 

Everything okay? This post contained way more typos and improper grammar than usual. It did not sound like you normally do.

 

Absolutely. With this simple act you are saying to God, I choose you and I reject this temptation. That's all God is waiting to hear. Great realization!

 

When defining this for myself, I refer to Saint Augustine's three stages of sin. (1) Temptation - an attractive image is suddenly before me (not sinful, we are all tempted) (2) Contemplation (venial sin) - My eyes linger on the temptation and I begin to take in details without considering referring it to God. I haven't defined a time limit here but my guess is no more than 3 seconds of viewing before I am reminded of God's will for me (3) Conscious consent (mortal sin) - I have recognized the image is arousing to me and causing me to lust, I consciously recognize that this is sinful activity and against God's will but I continue to stare and seek more .

Obviously, these three things are "the slippery slope". The difference between stages 2 and 3 is the conscious decision to commit sin. If we engage in the venial sin we are risking committing a mortal sin. Mortal sin - a conscious choice to sin is truly serious sin and would be a break in sobriety, as far as I am concerned.

I pray that I may someday have a heart so clean that I never get from stage 1 to stage 2. To me that would mean a truly clean heart and a state of holiness where one is totally devoted to God. After training myself to seek out attractive female images for so many years, I recognize that this is going to take much prayer and time to achieve. However, a house divided against itself cannot stand and thus a striving for a truly clean heart devoted solely to God is my focus.

 

I like SA's definition:

"No sex with myself or another other than my spouse, and progressive victory over lust."

Hunting-and-seeking does not technically break this, but most SA members would reset sobriety tracking if they looked up porn. Another way of thinking about it is: 'Did I take a lust drink? Did I get drunk?'

They also say with regards to this, 'To thine own self be true' when interpreting the sobriety definition.

If you reset every time you take a quick second look at an image of a woman on Netflix you are going to be resetting a lot.

 

I also think it makes a big difference whether you have sought something out.

KEY FOR WHAT FOLLOWS:
'=/=' means 'does not equal'
'=' means 'equals'...

An image of an attractive woman appears on a bus advert, TV, in newspaper, on my screen (unsought), or an attractive woman walks past my window or down the steet. I am tempted to look and lust, I maybe linger for a second--I look away =/= a loss of sobriety.

I deliberately look up an image / images of an attractive woman / women to look at and lust over = I have lost sobriety.

Temptation =/= losing sobriety.

Noticing =/= losing sobriety.

Lingering for a little bit of time when looking at a passing woman or an image of a woman, because of an attraction = being tempted to lust, maybe a little bit of lust, not ideal, not what we want to do, something we ask God for help not to do at all, but =/= a loss of sobriety. Comes under the 'progressive victory over lust' category. An area where we have not yet achieved total victory because we have not yet stopped fighting completely and handed the whole of the battle over to God to win for us.

Noticing that someone is attractive while you are talking to them =/= losing sobriety.

 

I agree and I wish to add that as we become more aware of our triggers, we must raise the bar a bit. For instance, before I commenced this rehabilitation, I probably would have clicked on a news story about some attractive model, actress or scantily clad female. I wouldn't have thought much about it and probably would have rationalized it as innocent curiosity. Today, I know that I cannot allow myself to do that for two reasons. (1) I now know that following such a link is motivated by lust. There are no other acceptable rationalizations for it. There is nothing I need to read or learn from whatever words are written on either side of her pictures. (2) I know where this choice could lead and I don't want to risk being drawn there again.

 

I think simple solution to the external problem here.

Stop scrolling!

It can't be a sobriety reset to scroll, unless you are really getting drunk on lust from it. But it could be a habit to track until you stop doing it. It is hunting-and-seeking, isn't it.

I barely ever scroll, now--I don't really read any of my social media feeds. And if I ever do, and I catch myself scrolling aimlessly, I stop. I could probably get better at not ever doing it at all, though.

Some other things I had to stop doing was stop looking for ways round my internet filter (see sig) and just stop having a smartphone.

I need to get more victory from God over not taking brief second looks in the street, not courting temptation by thinking about P highlight reels in my mind briefly, and not looking up wesbites and resources to do with P addiction (even helpful ones).

 

I do not want to judge your behavior. You must examine your heart to see where it lies. I can only offer that there are two degrees of sinfulness (venial and mortal) and these are determined by the degree of conscious choice. If you are consciously choosing to search for titillating images and you recognize that this is against God's will, before you make that choice, this sounds like a serious/mortal sin. However, you must decide for yourself if you undertook to go against God's will from the onset.

God knows humans will stumble and He does not condemn us for it. However, He does expect us to learn from our mistakes and thus intentional stumbling is surely a different matter than an unplanned mistake.

 

Not intending to short-circuit the counsel you've already received, but to add another layer to the discussion: Start asking questions and being curious about yourself and your actions. Why are you scrolling to find those titillating images, even if just for a moment? What are you feeling--tired, bored, sad, angry, anxious--when you get to the scrolling? Said another way, if you were in a great mood doing something you enjoyed--a hobby, or spending time with friends, whatever--you probably wouldn't have the "urge" to pull out your phone or jump to a computer and just start scrolling YouTube video stills. You are likely feeling something uncomfortable, your emotions are not in an ideal place, and so you subconsciously want to get to a better emotional place. And you, like me, have trained your brain that sensual images are a fairly reliable way (from your brain's perspective) to alter your emotional state. For me, when I am stressed with work, that uncomfortable emotion pushes me towards porn to find relief. First step is being curious enough about your emotions, how you're feeling, in order to detect this pattern. Once you're aware of the pattern, you can try moving to a better emotional state in better ways. So, I might take a walk and pray. I tell myself, "WW, what you are doing is good work, and although I'm uncomfortable with how much I have to do, I am a child of God and the Lord will help me through it. If you stick with it, and make progress, you will derive joy from your work." In other words, do things that will directly address your uncomfortable emotion and bring you back to a place of peace and joy. It's not easy, and I am learning to do this better day by day. But now, this dynamic is so obvious to me that I'm surprised I'd never really seen it this way before.

 

And this is the cycle of unhappiness that we rarely recognize. We are unhappy because of what someone has done that makes our lives more difficult and stressful. We choose to let their actions make us unhappy and then we choose to isolate ourselves and pleasure ourselves through PMO. But, we fail to see that by letting other's actions dictate our emotions it reinforces our victim mindset and the inward focus on self pleasure is a selfish pleasure which brings more unhappiness. Sin becomes a little fish bowl of unhappiness from which we cannot see the way of escape. However, God offers us something so much bigger. God has a unique love for each and every one of us. He created us to be courageous, happy and loving people who have the power to choose joy over anger and selflessness over selfishness. His vision for each of us is achievable if only we seek to fill our hearts with His love and crowd out everything else.

PS from 4 decades in a demanding stressful business, I offer this - it is never as bad as it first seems. God will see you through it.

 

I think we are talking about slightly different things. When I speak of emotions/feelings, I am talking about the automatic neurobiological response that our brain and body make to situations that tie in with our story/history and/or trauma. The lower part of your brain responds automatically to these stimulii. There's no willpower involved, no choice, because the thinking part of the brain is not involved. When you experience a given emotion (fear, anger, anxiety), I am convinced these reactions are amoral. The lower, non-thinking part of the brain takes over in these cases, and the thinking part of the brain can become inaccessible. This is part of the explanation of what leads to addiction: due to external stimulii (argument with the wife, pressure at work, being bored, a sense of worthlessness, whatever), I experience an uncomfortable emotion: depression, anxiety, stress. That response is automatic. Now the question becomes: what will you do with that emotion? There are, of course, sinful responses to the emotion (heading to PMO), or healthy responses to the emotion (take a walk and pray, lay down for a short rest to calm yourself, etc.). The emotion itself, though, is initially automatic, natural, and uncontrollable. Becoming aware of your automatic, emotional responses, and then learning to control those emotions and bring yourself to a state of stability, is called "affect regulation." This is brain science. As you gradually learn to regulate your affections, the physical composition of your brain actually changes: neurological connections are developed between the thinking and non-thinking parts of the brain, and gradually, over time, one becomes more capable of regulating his emotions. Then, when you experience an uncomfortable emotion, and you find yourself tempted to regulate that emotion by heading to PMO, you start to find healthy, godly, connectional ways to return to a stable emotional state. As I've been tracking myself for the last month or so with this understanding, I have found that every time I have relapsed, it's because I'm in an uncomfortable emotional state. My response to that emotional state has certainly been trained over the years, and my brain thinks heading to PMO is the most sure-fire way of finding relief from the emotion. For example, you get in an argument with your wife--some people automatically find that they clam up and want to get away from the situation, well that's because their emotional state has become disregulated and they can't control their emotions anymore in the situation. It's an automatic response to the automatic uncomfortable emotions that happen as a result of the argument. Part of the way forward is to be curious about your emotions: "why am I anxious right now? why am I sad?" This will begin to uncover themes or ideas that developed as a result of your story, your history, or your trauma--these are not always easy to figure out, but there are reasons why your body has these automatic emotional responses. For example, I was incessantly bullied as a child for 8 years. In group settings, I am always uncomfortable about how people will perceive me. I experience uncomfortable emotions of anxiety and so on, feel I am unworthy to be present with these people, have a fear of rejection. Why? My body/brain had been trained: "say the wrong thing, you'll be pummeled by your peers; getting beat up is always on the table; so be quiet, don't draw attention to yourself, deflect comments, be self-deprecating (part of the bullying was because I was a smart kid)." To this day, I automatically respond to group settings with this sort of thinking. I have no confidence and my emotional response wells up from a default belief of rejection, from the trauma of the bullying. Learning your story, learning why you respond with certain emotions to certain situations/stimulii, is the path to reintegration and healing. And gradually, one learns to regulate those uncomfortable emotions so you no longer need porn.