Don't look, don't touch and don't think about it

I relapsed yesterday because of having to wait for something and during that time urges hit me. Felt bad about it, gotta start over again

 

It is good to have plans set when temptation hits. I usually go to prayer with the standards “Our Father”, and “Hail Mary” over and over until it passes. Then change whatever I was going that may have brought it on.

However, if you are anything like me, I feel like crap for several days after a relapse. Then it takes me several days to get my life back in order. So as was stated above, remember how bad you feel after and how great it is when continuing the good fight.

 

Absolutely agree. That's the thing I'll be focusing on now, having things to do when I have to wait or don't have anything to do. I had to wait for a call because the company I had to call opened half an hour later and instead of using my time wisely I decided to scroll about on my phone which eventually led to urges and me relapsing ugh. I'll try remembering how awful I felt relapsing next time I get urges!

 

I'm not quite familiar with the ''hail Mary'' prayer. Which prayer is that? Thanks for the tips though, I'll make sure to be more careful next time.

For me I usually feel crap for one day, the next day I simply decide to believe God forgave me for my sins and start over again. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but it's the method that best works for me. If I just continue my day as if nothing happened after relapse, I get very complacent, and like you said I won't have the feeling that what I did is really bad. So I allow myself to feel bad for a certain amount of time. But when the day passes and a new day starts I also don't want to continue feeling bad, because I also think it's important to trust and believe that Jesus indeed died for our sins and we can start anew. Thus I love this bible verse

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

 

The Hail Mary prayed with the Rosary:

Hail Mary, Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.

 

This is from day 11 of 21 days to quitting completely. Tell yourself this daily, memorize it!

 

I think you can take this one step further and practice repentance. Confess your sin to the Lord, admit your guilt, and ask for forgiveness on the basis of Christ's work alone. If you believe by faith that he will forgive you, then your sins are forgiven you.

 

I understand! We all have different triggers/situations that tries to bring us down. This weekend for whatever reason has been particularly difficult for me! So far I have maintained my purity by prayers, scriptures, and especially reminding myself how horrible I will feel if I relapse. Also, it was extremely important to me because I needed to receive Jesus through the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

However, at this particular moment, I so want to look at internet porn sites! I know, even a little peek will be my downfall. So, in the name of Jesus, and prayers from Mary and Joseph I will overcome!

Need to pray, pray, pray!

 

Yeah I definitely try, but fail. As far as I understand repentance is turning away from sin. I don't feel like I am doing that, I just keep on going back into sin and relapsing, this weekend twice again. So of course it gives me questions, is it because I don't take this seriously enough? and if it is how can I make this more serious. Is it because I don't truly believe Jesus can heal me from my sins? and if so, how do I start truly believing. etc etc

As far as I see the only answer to these questions is to keep on reading my bible, keep on praying, and believe and trust that someday God will grant me the genuine will to quit P and genuine will to believe that Jesus is willing to not only forgive my sins but also heal them.

 

I'll pray that you won't fall and keep your streak going. keep your eyes on God!

 

I think it is important to probe into *why* you keep going back to PMO. What are you looking for there? What are you hoping to find? What need to you believe is being met there that cannot be met anywhere else? What lie are you believing about God's insufficiency to provide for you?

 

On the topic of repentance, here's a definition: "Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience." You're right that repentance certainly involves a turning away from sin. But this is a sincere "endeavor" after new obedience. But at the same time, you have to realize that sinless perfection is impossible in this life. Nevertheless, we strive towards it. I understand your frustration, though. I have been there many times. Still, we need to go to the Lord asking forgiveness, again and again (Matthew 18:22).

What @Tao Jones recommends is exactly what you need to do. I keep recommending two resources that have helped me come to understand the "why" of my porn addiction: Unwanted by Jay Stringer and this podcast: https://adamyoungcounseling.com/ I'm sure there are other great resources that help work through the same ideas.

I just thought of this, but doing this work of coming to figure out the "why" is actually a part of repentance. It is part of the "turning." It is a part of the "renewing your mind" of Romans 12:2. How can one fully depart from this sin without deeply understanding the cause, the reason why porn of all things, and this specific sort of porn, is so alluring? There is lust, yes, but it's not just lust. Without doing this work, freedom does not seem possible to me.

 

I would love to answer that but I really don't know. Intellectually I realise very well that P gives me absolutely nothing. Even the short term pleasure that I used to experience when in the moment, is gone. (I suppose this is because now I am much more conscious of the fact that I sin when watching P), and yet I just keep on going back. Usually in times of boredom or stress. But even when I do I know very well P will only make me feel worse after boredom and more stressed after stress even before watching it.

I think for me the main problem is that I've always relied on my feelings. I'm a big feeling person, if I feel like doing something I can be very hard working and motivated to do stuff. I'm very blessed that God made me into a person that genuinely enjoys doing a lot of stuff in work/study, so I never really had too much problems dealing with things I didn't like or wasn't motivated for. Of course this is nice and all, but that also meant that when my brain felt like watching P there was almost to no resistance trying to flee away. Even now when I intellectually know P gives me nothing, I'll still watch P when my brain gives me that ''I feel like watching P'' moment.

 

Great reply thanks. I'll look into the podcast you send me, maybe it helps me understanding better what my reason for relapsing over and over again is.

On the topic of sinless perfection, I understand this is not possible haha, but it's always been quite difficult to understand. From how I've understood repentance, if someone would truly repent each time he/she sinned. This person would not sin the same sin again. This doesn't make him sinless, since there are millions of ways we can sin, but it means that this person will turn away from that particular sin, and the next time he/she sins he will turn away from that sin after true repentance etc, etc. I know this sounds all very idealistic, but that's how I always viewed true repentance. Would love to hear if you guys have a total different understanding to this than I have

 

Just a couple of notes on the resources I suggested. Unwanted and the podcast cover a lot of similar ground, but Unwanted is primarily focused on how it all connects to porn addiction. But the podcast in general seems to cover a lot more ground and in greater depth than the book. They work well together. Yes, I'd recommend starting with the podcast, and then going to the book. Listen to the first 20 or so episodes in order, then start skipping around. The first 20 or so episodes are pretty foundational. As I said before, I bet there are other great resources out there, but these are the ones the Lord has led me to that I've found most helpful.

To give you a taste of some of this. This is something that took me a while to become convinced of, to be honest, when I first read about this I thought it was silly. Some guys' porn addiction focuses on younger women, smaller body types, that sort of thing (this is my taste in porn). Other guys' porn addiction focuses on older women, women in positions of authority--I can't even imagine ever developing an interest in this, it has no appeal to me whatsoever. Why? Why do these differences in porn addiction exist? There are very clear, obvious, developed patterns in people's "taste" in porn as a result of their upbringing and early life experience that leads to one sort of addiction vs another. We are all unique, sure. But in a sense, we're not all that unique. This sin has developed patterns and that book Unwanted goes into these patterns and why they exist the way they do. It really is a remarkable thing when you understand it.

Anyone who does not repent of his sin cannot be saved. Faith in Christ and repentance are the two essential conditions for salvation--they are two sides of the same coin. Your definition of repentance is so restrictive as to keep everyone outside the kingdom of God. "If you truly repent of a sin, it means you'd never commit it again." If this is your definition of repentance, no one can be saved. You do not understand how pervasive your sin is. Yes, God calls us to strive against our sin and to aim for perfect obedience in this life. That is the target. But perfect obedience in general is impossible, and perfect obedience in any aspect of our lives is also impossible. Sin is not merely our disobedience, but also rooted in our very hearts. Our hearts are evil, so every action of our hearts is evil to some degree or another. Yes, real progress in obedience and sanctification is possible as the Spirit applies Christ's death and resurrection to us, but never perfect in any aspect of our lives/hearts. Perfect obedience is not possible for anyone in this life (our Lord Jesus excepted, of course!) until we put off our remaining corruption through death.

Just to be clear, this is the (historic) Protestant view of things. The Roman Catholic view is quite different. The holiness/Pentecostal view is also different. My understanding is that you are Protestant, which is why I've spun this out for you. I hope it helps.

 

Learning to distrust and control the emotions is an essential skill for a maturing disciple, I think. Note that I am not saying to *discount* emotions. I think that is an equally unhelpful error. but we mustn't rely on our emotions to communicate reality to us. They are very bad at that.