I'm addicted to pornography

Nickname/Alias: Want the Sin away

Subject: My addiction.

Message: I have an addiction to pornography. I’ve asked God to help me have the strength not to do it, but every time I feel lonely or sad I always go back to doing the same old things. What makes it worse is I’m a pastors kid and and if my parents find out it will be worse than it already is for me. How do I stop? How can I stop letting the dirty pictures invade my thoughts? Please help.

Response:
Want the Sin Away, you are going to have to reach deep inside your heart and mind, and lean on God’s strength more than you’ve ever thought you needed to before. Pulling yourself away from the addiction of pornography will likely be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. The tricky thing with porn is that even if you never watch another scene again, you cannot erase the images of what you have already seen. I know you know that, that’s why you have asked for help to “stop letting the dirty pictures invade my thoughts”.

The good news is, you…want…out. A true and real desire to be free of the hold it has on you is the first step to being released from its chokehold. Your next step is to call upon God, accept his offer to stand by you every step of the rest of your journey, and pull from His strength until you feel it taking over. Don’t just ask Him for strength – take it! He has already offered it to you, you just need to make it yours and use it.

Then you need to do everything in your power, and His, to change the routines and environments in your life that feed into and facilitate the addiction. Make yourself very aware of the triggers that send you in search of porn. Analyze those triggers and ask yourself “why is this triggering me?” Recognizing why you are being triggered can help keep you away from situations that cause you pain. When you feel yourself being triggered, force yourself to walk away from your porn access point and cope with it in another way. Do you like to write? Draw? Paint? Sing? Run? Hike? Read? Find a creative way to take your mind away from those images and focus it on something else that gives you joy. It will take a while for this to become second nature, but when it does, you’ll feel free.

Work to keep yourself in other people’s company. Try not to let yourself be alone when you’re feeling sad or lonely. Find fulfillment in your friendships and family, build on them and strengthen them. When you have a strong support network, your need to turn to porn for comfort will lessen greatly. Find a meaningful way to be of service to your community. Helping others often takes our minds off of our own pain and is a healthy outlet for the energy it builds up inside us.

You know what porn has done and is doing to you personally, so I won’t elaborate on what it does to the minds (and sex life) of those that watch it. The truly sinister side of porn is that it directly feeds and fuels the sex trafficking industry. I work with survivors of human trafficking, and porn features prominently in every story I’ve heard from them. And even those on the top levels of the porn world, even those that are being paid for what they do, are being forced to do things they did not sign up for. Watching porn allows and gives reason for the abuse to continue. Work hard to pull yourself out of this. Work hard to for you, and for those trapped in a horrific world they cannot escape. Your decision to walk away from porn saves not only you, but it’s also a small step towards crumbling the human trafficking industry.