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Submitted by guest writer, Phillip

If you or someone you know is struggling with an addiction to pornography, then you know that it is a vicious battle that takes an incredible emotional toll.  Continually making, then breaking, promises to yourself; feelings of guilt and defeat; inability to conquer other issues in your life.  The battle against addiction to pornography is not trivial and so should be addressed with a serious battle strategy.

Early in my own struggle with pornography, I thought that I could be self-controlled enough to resist temptation even if it stared me right in the face.  I certainly didn’t always win, but I thought it was just that I needed to be stronger and more disciplined.  The verses that I continually thought about were James 4:7

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

And 1 Corinthians 10:13

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

So when I would feel tempted while sitting at my computer, I would tell myself that I was strong enough to resist and bear the temptation.  Unfortunately, that was rarely the truth, and I found myself despondent and ashamed at my lack of self-control.

Later in life, still stuck in a series of successes and defeats against pornography, I found a different verse that changed my game plan entirely.

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. ¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”^{[b] 17}But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

 ¹⁸Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. ¹⁹Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:13-20

The whole passage contains many good reasons to break an addiction to pornography, but the verse that became my go-to is the first part of verse 18: “Flee from sexual immorality”.  At first, I glossed over this verse thinking that it was merely saying to avoid sexual immorality.  Then I realized that it is saying to actively flee and that I had missed the idea that it is God providing “a way out” as described in 1 Corinthians 10:13.  I was surprised to find that sexual immorality (pornography) is treated differently in how it should be handled than other temptation.  We are not advised to “resist” or “bear” the temptation, but rather to “flee” from it.  Although fleeing can exhibit itself in a few ways, the best way is to physically remove yourself from the temptation to a sufficient distance that you aren’t allowed to return to the temptation — turn off your computer and walk away.

Know When to Start Running

From my own experience, the times when I would transition from normal computer use immediately to extreme pornography were the exception more than the rule.  Most often, I would be tempted to look at or randomly see something that was comparatively mild and then it would escalate to a more extreme level rapidly.  Sometimes I would convince myself that fleeing (in the form of leaving my computer entirely) from something so mild was silly and that I was strong enough to keep it from progressing to the next level.  Once again, I was very often wrong.  The time to flee is always now and especially when you start internally debating if you can withstand a temptation or if something even is a temptation.

Slaves to Temptation

As a Christian, I know that those who follow Christ have been freed from slavery to sin (Romans 6:6):

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

However, during the heights of my battle with pornography I was already a Christian and yet still felt like a slave to pornography.  The truth is, I had made pornography my captor and was giving it power over me.  In Arterburn & Stoeker’s book, “Every Young Man’s Battle”, there is a really good analogy (actually the whole book is good, and I would recommend it; note that the overarching focus of the book is masturbation).  Essentially, the idea is that while we are “no longer slaves of sin”, when we are forced to control sexual temptation it is like we are facing a giant sumo wrestler and we’re just a scrawny weakling.  If we continually “feed” the monster (“Mr. Sex Drive”) then we’re facing something that we can’t beat, something that we’ve created.  Here is an excerpt (modified for our uses):

“Have you ever been channel surfing and seen two Japanese sumo wrestlers going at it inside a small ring? In a sumo wrestling match, two bloated behemoths dressed in loincloth diapers (gross!) grab each other’s arms and ram shoulders until one gets knocked out of the ring.  Well, picture your battle with [pornography] as being like a sumo match.  You’re on one side of the ring, and your overgrown, bloated opponent–known as Mr. Sex Drive–is on the other.  If you knock Mr. Sex Drive out of the ring, you don’t have to [look at pornography].  If Mr. Sex Drive knocks you out of the ring you do have to [look at pornography].
You’re standing just inside the ring, wearing that silly white thong, with your arms crossed and your gritted teeth bared.  With piercing eyes, you snarl at Mr. Sex Drive to leave you alone.  Mr. Sex Drive, bloated by a billion meals of lust and fantasy, yawns and looks at his watch.  Then, appearing quite bored, he waddles over your way.  Without bothering to lock arms with you in battle, he merely swings his huge thonged rear and sends you flying against the wall, where you dutifully sit down and [look at pornography] on the spot.”

In all of our years of looking at pornography, watching television and movies with sexual content, and thinking impure thoughts, we’ve created a giant sumo wrestler of lust.  We trained our eyes to continually look for things of that nature.  As you may have found, no amount of feeding can satisfy the Sumo!

Starving the Sumo

To paraphrase, the analogy continues to say that we get angry that God gave us this sex drive and is now forcing us to try to confront it; we keep trying to fight it to no avail.  We hope that a hormone drop will shrink the sumo down to size, or that we’ll grow spiritually and be able to defeat it, but that doesn’t happen.  Then, filled with shame, you say, “I guess it’s not God’s will that I win this battle”.  Then “turning to God with pleading eyes, you cry, ‘See God? Save me from this monster! Don’t You love me?’ 

‘Of course, I love you,’ says the Creator of the universe.  ‘Don’t you love Me?’ 

‘Lord, you know that I do!’ 

‘Then starve the sumo!’” 

When we continue to look at pornography, we are keeping the desires in us too strong for us to master.  By reducing the amount of sexual content we see and think about, we reduce these desires.  In order to stop a pornography addiction, we need to also eliminate these other sources of lust and control our day-to-day thoughts.  Most of the time, it is these other inputs that spur us to worse things later in the day.

Streaking May Not Be The Answer…

One technique that I tried over the years was to try to keep a streak alive of not looking at pornography.  This, however, didn’t work to break the addiction.  Whenever I would succumb to temptation, the following days I would have less motivation to avoid giving in because I felt that I had already failed myself.  The truth is, however, that we are never going to be perfect, and our progress is not simply measured by the length of the streak since our last incident.  If you have a time of weakness, don’t give up on yourself!

Battle Strategy

1. Flee from temptation (turn off the computer, walk away)
2. Realize you are no longer a slave to sin (Jesus has freed us!)
3. Starve the sumo (that includes television ads, movies – avert your eyes!)
4. Your streak doesn’t define you.  Don’t despair when you fail.

Our sexual desires have their roots in a good thing – attraction to your current/future spouse. God didn’t give it to us as a curse but our sinful natures have perverted them and turned them into something they were never meant to be.  With a good battle plan and the freedom that comes in Christ you can break your pornography addiction.