I have been doing some interesting reading about people who struggle with impulse control and have a porn addiction. There are certain impulses or feelings that God has designed into our bodies to help us stay alive and live a healthy life. When we have not nourished our bodies, we instinctively feel hunger. When we get tired, we instinctively go to sleep and if we have not had enough water, we sense we are thirsty and we drink.
We can all agree that eating, sleeping, and drinking are basic to sustaining our life. So, what do we do with the desire or the impulse to have sex? Obviously, one does not need to have sex in order to stay alive despite what our culture is telling us. However, with porn omnipresent and available at any time in almost any place and for free it can be consumed anytime we feel an impulse to have a sexual experience.
The problem with these instincts is that they are essential to living life but if they go unchecked or get out of balance they can be very dangerous to our health. Food is a good thing but when the slice of the pie becomes the whole pie there can be problems. People who have no impulse control over the desire to eat…because eating is easy and is a way of comforting you or relieving stress…can become morbidly obese.
Impulse control is something we all need to develop in the area of our sexual temptations. When one has become addicted to the chemicals released in our brains when we see something sexual or have a memory pop into our brain or even see just a sensual image online or even a person in the church if we have not nurtured self-control then our desires can cause us to do things that can ruin our lives.
To use an extreme example, consider the young man who murdered 8 people in the massage parlor killings. Did you know that the killer professed to be a Christian, had been baptized twice in a church, and worked with the youth in that church? The news focused mainly on it being a hate crime…which it may have been but he himself said it was not racially motivated but because he wanted to destroy them because of the sexual temptation they caused in his life.
When we have given ourselves over to our sexual impulses over and over again for years or even decades, we can begin to lose impulse control and feel that we are being controlled by our sexual desires which become demands. Things can go from once a month to once a week to once a day to multiple times a day. A quick fix can become hours of bingeing on porn and you begin to lose sleep and become ineffective in your work and in your marriage or life.
Now there are a number of ways someone can get help with this. A Christian Counselor trained in sex addiction therapy can help. However, long-term treatment can be expensive.
Finding a church with a sex addiction ministry is very hard to find plus you run the risk of going and being discovered and labeled a sex addict. Not good especially if you are the pastor!!!
Take it from someone who struggled and lost the battle to my own sexual addiction for over eight years and all the while serving as a Senior Pastor in two fairly large churches. After being discovered, coming clean with my wife and family, leaving the ministry, and working on my own sexual addiction for 5,690 days (0ver 15 and ½ years) I have learned in my own life and by helping thousands of other Christian men what you need to begin to find freedom.
First, you need to be honest with yourself and God. Things are out of control…out of your control. Through years of satisfying your sexual desires through porn and masturbation, you have programmed your mind and developed strong neurological pathways so that just a thought, an image, or a person can arouse your system and you feel you must find a release.
Somehow you must develop a system that will cause you to make the right choices early in the temptation process so that you remain sexually sober. Sure, you can make more promises to God that you have never been able to keep. You have no self-control; your braking system is shot, and you feel the powerful desires of lust that have ignited into a raging fire you cannot put out, so you gladly give in. You have been playing with fire and you are astonished at how easy it is to give in.
It is time you admit this to yourself and to God who, by the way, is not waiting to clobber you but has been waiting to help you…because He still and always will love you.
Second, you need to be honest with others. You need to find a group of others who are in the same battle and begin to learn from them what has been helping them. The great thing about the internet and live streaming meetings that everyone around the world is using this for work it can be used to put you in touch with other men struggling with this problem.
There are also 12 Step Groups like SA – Sexaholics Anonymous in your area that can be of help. However, I caution you that the 12 Step groups though originally based on Christian beliefs have moved away from stressing Christianity and a Christian approach to recovery.
Third, you need to join a team of other believers who struggle with this as well. In the fall of 2017, I started 2 Online Support Teams. A few years before that I wrote the 180 Recovery Program and filmed me teaching it to a group of over 100 men at my church. Today we have 15 Online Support Teams meeting every week being led by me and others I have trained. And I strongly believe this is the answer for you.
You will be joining a team of men who have no idea who you are and do not need to know. You can find one that works with your schedule and attend from almost anywhere you can get a WIFI signal or just call in with your mobile phone whether smart or dumb.
And lastly…cost will not be a factor. Yes, we have a price for the videos and monthly to join the team…but I will not let anyone not get the help they need because of the price. You simply tell me what you can honestly afford and that is your price.
Sit in on any of our OSTs and just ask the men there if they are being helped. I guarantee you almost every one of them will say that since joining the OST and working the 180 Recovery Program they are regaining self-control and growing into a stronger Christian man by doing what we tell them to do.
How do strong weekly accountability and effective daily support sound to you in a context of Christian brotherhood and a program that has a proven track record for over 12 years that is biblical and Christ-centered? Sound too good to be true? It is not. It is working for others. And it can work for you too.
BTW if you want to just purchase the 25 videos of the 180 Recovery Program and workbook to begin to work on it yourself just email me and negotiate your price!