12 Common Patterns in Those Finding Lasting Healing from Porn Addiction
An even shorter, 23-page abridged version of preliminary results from our ongoing long-term study.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
The word “addiction” often invokes the image of a drunk lying in the gutter or a junkie shooting up. But there are hundreds of compulsive-addictive behaviors in a society full of dopamine-spiking things to eat, drink, see, and experience. The universal sign is a surprising difficulty at leaving even a destructive habit behind:
“I kept telling myself that the next birthday, new year, or life event would be enough for me to put it all behind me.”...“No matter how hard I tried, nothing worked. It didn’t seem to matter how much I hated it. Something about it just kept drawing me back.”... “You pray a thousand times to have this burden taken from me, but I just could not get rid of it.”...“I felt desperate to free myself but helpless to do so.”
Similar comments come from those facing a wide variety of compulsive-addictive patterns, ranging from substance to behavioral struggles. In this chapter, we’ll focus on people that are talking about their struggle to find lasting freedom from sexual compulsivity and pornography use.
We’ve been gathering stories of people no longer grappling with this problem—who have somehow found deep and enduring freedom from sexual compulsivity. What better place to look for clarity about lasting healing than the experiences of people who have actually found it?
We wanted to know what went into this healing. Although they still had challenging days, each person was clearly in a different place than before. “I’m not foolish enough to think I’m ever completely safe,” Tony said, “yet I finally have hope that I can stay out of the mire in which I previously stayed.”
More in-depth reports have been published separately (56 page and 114 page versions). Here, we offer a few brief illustrations of key themes that stood out from those who have found more sustainable healing and freedom:
1. Humility and ownership of what’s been happening (and what needs to happen)
2. Regaining or maintaining hope in the possibility of lasting freedom
3. Embracing a new source of confidence and power
4. Embracing a new source of comfort, love, and connection
5. Seeing identity and self differently
6. Gaining new education and fresh perspectives
7. Openness, honesty, vulnerability, and accountability
8. Healing the deeper pain that can drive relief-seeking
9. Learning to mindfully work with thoughts, sensations, triggers, and urges
10. Scaffolding daily life with custom-designed structure & boundaries
11. Heroic grit, resilience, patience, and persistence
12. Getting outside of yourself through service
From analysis across other forms of addiction, we submit these patterns have relevance and applicability to other compulsive habits, including chemical dependency.
1. Humility and ownership of what’s been happening (and what needs to happen)
“To me, I just thought it was a bad habit. I never thought of it as an addiction,” admitted Stephen and Larry, until arriving at an awareness of how “out of control” it was.
“I told myself it was just a harmless habit, that I could end it if I wanted or needed to end it, but I was deceiving myself,” said Neal, with Jessica adding, “the more I tried to find my way out, the more lost I became.”
“Victory comes when saying, Lord, I cannot overcome this Goliath in my life. I cannot,” James said. “The Goliath is too big, he’s too great.” That’s when Christ “comes in there, and He slays him on our behalf. That is the only hope of victory.”
This is really hurting me. “I didn’t think it was wrong,” Chantel admitted, with Matt adding, “I justified in my mind that it wasn’t cheating,” before something “opened my eyes to the destruction in my life.”
This awareness can happen privately through difficult moments, like Neal reported: “eventually, my wife walked in on me. My self-deception ended and I admitted that I really had a problem.” One woman described her realization: “I had been giving my heart to something very evil” that was hurting him and others.
Owning the healing process. Stephen described letting his wife shoulder the burden of his recovery, as she said “I have got to help my husband deal with this problem.” He later took his own responsibility saying, “Never give the impression” to a partner “that their behavior or their body shape or their sexuality in the bedroom or whatever is responsible for a man betraying the relationship.” He then added: “Some will. But that is an excuse and not the truth.”
2. Regaining or maintaining hope in the possibility of lasting freedom
It’s easy for those feeling stuck to give up hope. “After 50+ years, I didn’t think anything would work, I was too far gone,” Larry said. “I had made too many mistakes, told too many lies.” After being introduced to the 12-steps, he said, “For the first time in a long time, I had this thing called hope.”
“The devil always made me think I was stuck in this sin and could not overcome it,” Dave said, with Matt describing feeling “lighter” when he started reaching for God “to lead me and heal me, there was a weight lifted off my shoulders. Like there was hope.”
This hope can grow after signs of real improvement. After finally facing urges and triggers “without giving in,” Vinny said “with each little success, my hope and confidence increased.” Jessica described the “joy that came” after experiencing her first “porn-free break”—feeling like “I can do it!” “Wow, I don’t have these urges any more,” another remembers realizing. “It felt so good.’”
Throughout many people’s stories, they would turn to offer encouragement to others. One man who had been walking in freedom for three and half years, said “my marriage and relationship with God has never been better. I’m experiencing truly what God intended for marriage to feel like.” Then he added, “If you are currently struggling in this area, this can be your story.”
“I know that this journey towards freedom isn’t easy,” Taylor shared by way of encouragement, “but I truly believe that freedom is possible for every single one of [us]! Don’t give up on yourself, keep fighting, and rest in the knowledge that Jesus loves you and cares more about your freedom than you do.”
3. Embracing a new source of confidence and power
Gaining faith prompted some to finally realize what porn was doing to them: “It was after I decided to become a Christian in my senior year of High School,” Thomas said, “when I realized I should get rid of pornography in my life. Not because Jesus gets angry if I look at porn, like some kind of angry jerk boss.”
“Jesus is basically the opposite of that. He cares deeply for me and wants what's best for me. He is fighting on your behalf.” Mark described feeling numb after struggling for so long, “All I wanted to do was quench my impure sexual thirst, and it became a daily routine for me.” Yet after experiencing some poignant regret, he said, “one spring day I decided to do something I hadn’t done in a long time.” He turned back to God.
“Without experiencing a spiritual awakening,” Vinny remarked, “we go throughout life pursuing money, fame, power, and respect in an attempt to find happiness,” which is why in his experience something like this is “critical for lasting transformation.” Many stories reflect a new prioritization of spiritual matters, with one woman saying, “if you want true freedom, you have to care for your spirit and soul first.”
A unique source of support. “The good news is, Jesus can set us free from this,” one woman said. “If you feel humiliated and shameful for things of the past,” another said, “just know God is very merciful and as you come to him, you are literally born again.”
“Ultimately, only God can set you free,” Taylor insisted, adding: “Porn is not my savior. Jesus is my savior.”
"I can say that as I began to focus on my relationship with Allah, and my Muslim faith,” Abdul said, “my recovery efforts seemed magnified and accelerated."
As Vinny observed, a “spiritual walk” is “accessible” to everyone—regaining confidence in a “power greater than one’s self.”
“Ultimately, you will have to find a new master,” shares Nick Stumbo, a pastor who found lasting freedom, describing what happens to those who “willingly chose to put their lives under the authority of another”—“contenting yourself in Him” and “trusting God beyond your own logic.”
“Have you come to that place with God?” he asks. “Until you reach this point, you will struggle mightily to be free of lust, pornography—susceptible to the lies that maybe that route has more promise, more life.”
“To truly heal,” another described needing to “put God back into the center of [his] life,” which Nick says “leads to a level of faith where ‘the doors of freedom begin to open wide.’”
“The power to overcome does not lie within you alone,” Jackson reiterated. “I spent more than a decade trying to overcome this on my own. Every time, I failed. Not until I reached the brink of destruction did I truly do what it really takes to overcome. I put my fate in God’s hands.”
Patience in a deeper seeking. Rather than a “quick” or “magic” process, Ken pointed out it “usually doesn’t work that way. It wasn't like I just cried out to the Lord once and I was free.”
“Any relationship requires time and attention,” another said, with Nick describing the impact of “reading His Word regularly, gathering weekly with other believers to hear and embrace truth, and submitting our will to Him daily through prayer.” Chantel noticed how many stories of lasting freedom from pornography involved fasting and prayer, which prompted her to do more of the same.
Austin described how his prayers became more meaningful—making it “a very intentional thing—to be real with Jesus,” saying, “I’m not going to put on a religious show.”
A desperation and passion. Ken described the impact of “crying out to God” and “believing God wanted to, was willing, and He was able to set me free”—describing a kind of earnestness that says, “‘I have to be delivered; I have to be set free.’” He then reflected on the ancient story of “I must touch the hem of His garment to be made whole,” saying, “I'm not going to stop until that happens.”
“That's the desperation we need to find freedom,” he continued, “not a hopelessness” or a casual “maybe God might answer my prayer,” but an urgency that “I have to be delivered, I have to be set free” and believing that “God wants to do it.”
4. Embracing a new source of comfort, love, and connection
People who find lasting freedom often speak of coming to understand what porn use had been doing for them: “Porn can become our safe place, and when we need something whether it's love, affirmation, or peace, we run to it.” Another said, “Anytime I felt lacking, pornography was always there to buoy me up again.”
“Pornography is not my problem, pornography is my solution,” writes Matt Dobschuetz. Jessica described feeling repulsed by her first taste of pornography, while admitting, “Something drew me in,” namely, “these women were being accepted.”
Matt reflected on “a porn star with sparkling eyes whose gaze would always make me feel seen,” even while remarking on the “ridiculous premises” of films that “invited me into a fantasy of feminine intimacy, where I was the object of adoration, where I was wanted.”
Deep emotional patterns and needs. It was Henri Nouwen who taught that sexual brokenness “reveals to us our enormous yearning for communion, the desires of our body to be touched, embraced, and safely held”—which “belong to the deepest longings of our heart.”
“I had patterns of behavior that were more powerful,” Nick said, than his ability to work them away. “I couldn’t ‘want’ the change bad enough to make it happen.”
One man described a significant “Aha” moment when he realized his struggle had “a lot less to do with pornography and more to do with my emotions, my feelings, how I process those”—suggesting: “There really is strength and power in identifying what void am I trying to fill when I do that?”
Seeing the truth about your heart. “Yeah, I was desperate” to change, Josh said, “but the truth was, I wanted it, I wanted pornography—even though it was destroying my life.”
It’s only “natural to pursue what we love,” he added. “The thing that was driving me in life was my desire for sexual pleasure—it was what I loved, thought about and consumed.”
John Bevier recollects asking in prayer, “God, you delivered my friend—I’ve been crying out. Why haven’t you delivered me?” The answer, “Because you still like it.” This prompted him to ask, “how can God deliver me from something I like and desire?”
“It is a heart issue,” James said, “The reason I was going to pornography was that I was selfish.” Joshua agreed, “We are willing to get pleasure at the expense of others and use them as objects, not treating them as the human beings they are.”
“Don’t let this make you feel bad, but let it stir you to action,” he said. “You do not watch porn because ‘you’re a man’ or ‘you’re a woman’ or because you’re hopelessly addicted. You watch porn because you desire porn more than anything else” (at least in those moments).
Whatever it takes. “When you're serious about changing unwanted behaviors,” Vinny said, “you have a mindset that says, ‘I will do whatever it takes to change’—a kind of “unconditional willingness” he contrasted with a “mindset of “conditional change,” aka, “I'll do anything to change so long as it doesn't involve [fill in the blank]"
“In my early years before I got really serious about my own recovery, I placed all kinds of conditions on my commitment to change.”
Rather than fears about what others would think or financial consequences, he describes coming to a deeper “Why?”, saying, “I don’t want to be a slave anymore. I want freedom to choose the direction of my life. I want to become the best man I can be and will never discover this with porn in my life. I want to discover real intimacy with my wife.”
Intimacy that beats porn. One man spoke of feeling in prayer that he wasn’t really seeking a relationship with God: “James, you want to stop the sin, the pain—you don’t want a greater relationship to me. You don’t want to be close to me.”
“When the battle changed from ‘try to stop looking at porn’—to ‘try to know God better,’ suddenly victory was mine.” At that point, he said, “Jesus was really able to begin doing some massive work in my life.”
“When I fell in love with Jesus, there was something that immediately, instinctively I knew “this is it—this is going to be the thing that carries me.” Austin recalled, “I’m going to have victory. That thing I was always seeking for—that void I was seeking inside, that I was trying to fill with love from other sources, now is filled with the love from Jesus.”
God first. “Now Jesus was my desire—Jesus was what I was going after now,” one said. “I don’t want anything else to be first anymore.”
“Every time you want to give into lust, it’s because you want to fill something in you that is empty,” Dave said, adding, “God is the only one who can give you true satisfaction. He is living bread and water.”
“I had to first give my life to God,” Chantel said, “ you want him to be your one and only and you don’t want anything to come between him and the relationship you are building with him.”
Austin compared this to people falling in love. “I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine. And out of that, there comes this commitment of, ‘I’m going to live this way.’”
When “you start wanting him more than anything else… when you put the word of God in your heart and make it the focus of your life,” John said, “you come into a place where you’re going to be easily delivered.”
He then quoted another pastor as saying, “Make God your habit, and he’ll break your habit. Make God your addiction and you’ll break your addiction.”
“I wouldn't trade the freedom that comes with loving God and loving my wife for anything,” Colby said.
What falling over and over can teach. “I’d ask God for forgiveness, and then went and did it over and over and over,” Dave said. “But he forgave me all those times.”
“One day, I decided that if I looked at porn, I wasn’t going to beat myself up about it,” Thomas said. “I would pick up and move on. I would trust this Christian message.”
“While we were yet (still) sinners” Paul taught, “God wanted to prove his love for us, and sent Christ to die.” This paraphrased text deeply moved one man and became a turning point, as he felt love “despite everything I had done, the darkness I had lived in.”
“You would not believe how fast porn faded from my life after years of addiction when I changed my outlook,” Thomas said. “Instead of letting the old tapes play in my head of, ‘I’m a piece of crap who can’t stop looking at smut,’ I went with, ‘I screwed up today, but God still loves me, and I’m gonna try to let that change me tomorrow, but if I don’t, God will still love me tomorrow too.’”
“When I got rid of the part of the cycle where I beat myself up, the cycle broke down,” Thomas said, encouraging: “I believe that God made you, I believe that God knows everything about you, and I believe in the midst of that, God chooses to love you; and nothing can change that fact.”
Moving beyond a fearful relationship. “Fear will always keep you a slave. It lacks the power to set you free,” John said, describing how he changed to pray, “God, I want to know You… I want to walk intimately with You. Keep me from doing anything that hurts Your heart. I didn’t want to hurt the heart of the ones I loved—neither God, nor my beautiful wife.”
As that became his primary concern, he said, it was a “game-changer” for freedom now spanning a decade. “Getting free became about something so much more. When I saw how much God loved me, it pained me greatly that I would ever do anything to hurt Him.”
Pursuing God, instead of freedom. “As long as you pursue freedom from pornography,” James suggested, “you’ll never find freedom—freedom doesn’t come from looking something in the eyes and saying, “I better overcome that. It comes from finding that which is more beautiful.”
I can’t stand against lust. I can’t stand against all the thousands of billboards and all the wicked ads, and all the perverted sexual Facebook pictures, unless I’m standing and abiding and trusting in Him alone for my joy, for my satisfaction.
“I wanted to be free of pornography, to be free of masturbation so badly. I wanted to get it out of my life,” he said. “I was pursuing freedom instead of pursuing Christ.
“Come unto Me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, I will give you rest.” It’s not “Come unto 60 days of freedom from pornography, and then you’ll have rest.”
“Focus on Christ, then you will have freedom from pornography. I guarantee it.”
When I wake up in the morning, I’m not thinking, “Well, how can I have freedom today, and then pat myself on the back and feel good at the end of the day?” No, I’m waking up and I’m saying, “Where are you at, Lord? Satisfy me. I want to behold the beauty of the Lord.”
5. Seeing identity and self differently
Many describe the impact of coming to see their own identity more completely. Matt said, “Finding true freedom is not just quitting a bad habit, it’s about discovering the real you.”
Nick described praying, “Lord, help me see myself the way You see me, and help me to become who You already know I am.”
Seeing uncomfortable realities. After asking a similar question, Josh describes coming to see more clearly how he had been “judgmental, hold[ing] grudges” and “not as nice as [you] think you are.”
But when the “truth comes, it sets you free,” he said. So, “I didn’t fight it—I accepted it.”
Vinny described taking “full responsibility” for his struggle, while also realizing that he had “great intrinsic worth and value that has nothing to do with addiction.”
“We are not pieces of crap. We are not Evil. We are not freaks of nature. We are simply human beings with issues.”
Not who I am. Thomas recalls a time when he was struggling to overcome, “I basically stopped fighting and just accepted that the addiction was part of who I am” and therefore, “I couldn’t expect to behave any differently.”
“Every time I gave in to my addiction, it reinforced this idea and wrapped me tighter and tighter into my destructive behavior. It was my destiny.”
Vinny said that this view of self makes healing and freedom almost impossible. “You know you’re experiencing change when you're able to start seeing yourself outside of your behaviors,” adding, “We are NOT our addiction.”
“I understood what it meant to have worth, true worth, not a sexual worth,” Jessica said. “I realized that my body, with all of [its] quirks and inconsistencies, was fashioned exactly the way he planned” and “my life was knit together and measured out to fulfill a purpose.”
“My ultimate value is in him,” Austin said. “I’m loved by him and I’m his child. He made me on purpose and I don’t need to look anywhere else for that value.”
Becoming what we love. “We are all in the process of becoming,” A.W. Tozer writes. “We have already moved from what we were to what we are, and we are now moving toward what we shall be. We are becoming what we love.”
“What do we love?” Matt asked. “If we no longer are going to porn, where is our focus? What do we value?”
Jon said he was “becoming the type of man that does not look at porn,” instead of primarily “practicing behaviors that keep me from looking at porn.”
This was and is this man’s singular “breakthrough,” with Matt reporting, “I’m a different person than I was when I was looking at porn every day.”
6. Gaining new education and fresh perspectives
Some kind of learning process seems to be a near universal part of people’s healing and recovery journeys. Roger spoke of having made “a bunch of self-discoveries” during his recovery process, thanks to a number of support organizations, online lectures, and spiritual readings. Jorge described the discovery of the Fortify app as “the start of my real recovery”—saying, “I learned so much from the training and was encouraged by the forums that I wasn't alone! I went on a 7-month streak.”
Another man described a “steep and rapid growth curve” in his recovery journey, with every week bringing some kind of “revelation about myself, about my past patterns, and about what needed to change in my heart.”
Renewing and rewiring thought. “Belief in God alone cannot immediately reverse an addiction,” Nick said, “We have to rewire our thinking.” When pleading for the desire for porn to be taken away, Eric felt encouraged to “renew my mind” (Romans 12:2). But “I had no clue how to do that,” he said. After being stuck in what he called a “death grip” for 15 years, he said a “transformation occurred as [he] changed the way [he] thought.”
Roger described “reviewing my belief system” and reported having “successfully washed away some of the faulty core beliefs I had.” And Timothy described working “so that I do not even think pornographically.”
Understand the biological bondage. “We are not merely making a poor moral choice when we choose to indulge in sexual sin,” Brett said. “A powerful chemical neurotransmitter called dopamine, or the ‘gotta have it’ molecule, is released in our brains when we view porn or act out sexually.” He then added, “Sexual addiction is not just a moral problem; it is also a brain problem.”
Nick described the impact of being “shown how brain science complemented a foundation of biblical truth to create lasting change in my thoughts and actions.”
Deeper learning about patterns and influences. “There are roots for everything we do,” Taylor said, “so by walking through the healing process, whether it’s going to counseling, talking to a mentor, or having your own private times with Jesus, He will expose and heal those roots.”
“If a tree represented our life, what would they find? If someone were to cut our trunk and look at the roots underneath, which are our beliefs, world-views, traumas, or childhood, are the roots living or dying?”
Vinny likewise described “working more on preventing my unwanted behaviors by dealing with the underlying issues instead of waiting until I was in a crisis and then trying to resist acting out.”
Education is not enough. Matt warned those who “want to think ourselves into the right action,” cautioning that “our relationship with porn has been honed over years of repeated involvement. We have conditioned ourselves by returning to it, over and over.”
For that reason, he encouraged attention, beyond learning alone, to action steps crucial for healing. “Any useful knowledge we acquire is quickly overridden by our own desire and cravings,” with a “big difference between being aware of a problem and deciding to change.”
That’s why the AA Big Book famously says “self-knowledge availed us nothing.” As Matt then put it, “our knowledge alone cannot change us” and “we won’t be able to think our way out of this.” To those presuming that if they “find the right article or idea,” they’ll “do the right thing,” he gently suggests they may be trying to find “a less painful way to quit,” namely, “one that doesn’t involve giving up things we like, looking bad, or asking for help.”
Someone’s precious daughter. Tony described a moment when he “saw through the façade [and] illusion” in a video he was watching. “It was only a second. A glimpse.” But it was enough to realize that “porn is an act—a lie.” John likewise described the impact of realizing that woman he “used to look at is made in the image and likeness of God—she’s some daddy’s little girl, she’s precious to God,” admitting,
When that revelation hit my heart, I could no longer look at a girl as a piece of meat, or as something for pleasure for me. I now saw her as crowned with “glory and honor” and “made in the likeness of God.”
“When I was bound to pornography, I didn’t have God’s heart for women,” he said. But “when we truly get this in the heart, we’re totally set free.” Another man likewise said, “Now I’m free. And it’s just beautiful, because I’m not lusting anymore. Because I see the worth that is in women.”
“Think for a moment about the reality that these are real people, many with tormented pasts and very painful childhoods, who have had that pain exploited,” Joshua said, underscoring the reality of “how the porn industry many times takes people who are vulnerable (abused), and sometimes even homeless or runaways, and exploits them,” with additional pain “once they are inside the industry.”
Many of these women in videos, he realized, were “hurting, desperate, in need of help and protection.”
The gravity of this thought impacted him—“I had figuratively been preying on homeless and desperate women when I watched porn… That revelation startled me.”
I started only then to see the women as human beings,” he said, “with souls, broken childhoods, people who were helpless and should have been cared for, but instead, were being taken advantage of. How would I feel about taking advantage of a girl who had been victimized over and over again by either family, friends, or strangers? Did I think it was hot to exploit a girl who was a runaway because she couldn’t cope with molestation or a broken family or was forced to sell her body to feed her children?”
“The mask fell off. The women were no longer objects. They were real women with sometimes torturous pasts and vulnerable pain on those videos. I could excuse any statistic because they were just numbers to me.”
Joshua then described his transformation “when faced with the reality that these women are wounded, hurting, and need to be cared for, that they were once children playing with toys and had dreams of being something other than abused.” And he said, “With my ignorance lifted, I could not go back. Not only did I see the consequences of my actions and the reality of what I had been doing, but I was truly disgusted by it. I could not go back to my old ways.”
“That knowledge changed me. From that moment forward, my addiction was only a few months away from being completely washed away.”
Joshua then shared how powerful it had been for him to “pray for the men and women who are being abused.” Pray for the “healing of their bodies, restoration of their broken hearts, rest from the pain and shame of their abuse, and encouragement to leave their situation.” He continued, “Even pray for those who are hurting them, that they, too, will change.”
Seeing true love and intimacy. Dave recollects coming to see more clearly “the false concept of love” that essentially defined “love as what porn is,” and keeps hinting that “everyone is having sex with everyone else.”
Even the women who were being mistreated, Jessica said, “looked happy.” They “looked like they liked it.” Since she “wanted to be happy like them,” she drew the conclusion that “true happiness was found in sex.”
“That’s not real love,” another said—realizing the “world has switched it up” in a distorted way and “our generation is getting brainwashed more and more.”
Vinny described the power of coming to see and appreciate a “whole person as opposed to narrowly focusing on body parts,” emphasizing the value of seeing “sexual thoughts and urges” as a “normal, healthy part of life and how harnessing and directing those urges is the key.”
Educating the heart. “It’s not truth that will keep us from deception,” John pointed out, “it’s the love of truth. When you want that in the innermost parts of your heart more than you want anything else.”
“All these things that I had heard in the church before, I saw with new eyes. I heard with new ears. The word had life in it for the first time. What was always taught to us became so personal and real.”
“The word of God needs to go from our minds to our hearts,” John summarized. “How that happens is through meditating on the word of God day and night, God said—you begin to mull, ponder, speak to yourself, ‘how does this scripture apply to me’—and as you continue, it somehow goes from your head to your heart.”
“It used to be I had a desire for pornography—I could be enticed,” he said. But “once the word gets into your heart, the deep places of our heart, they can threaten your life—to kill you—and you won’t change, because it’s so deep in here.”
John then described how pornography “flashed before me” since that time—like in Europe,” but “when I see that now, I’m repulsed by that.” Compared to a time when that “used to be like a magnet that would draw [him] in,” he said, “I don’t have any desire for it.”
7. Openness, honesty, vulnerability and accountability
Many find power in sharing more openly with trusted people saying, “I could not defeat this completely on my own.”; “Becoming accountable to other trustworthy men was key for me.”
Jack spoke of the value of “finding someone you trust who’s not going to judge you but will help you make a change and ask you the difficult questions.”
David said it took him “a lot of courage to call by name what was happening in my life.”
“Were they taken aback?” Jackson said about people he shared with. “Yes. Did they reject me? Not even for a moment. The people who love you will stand by you and help you get free.”
Barret said, “I shared everything with him and he just hugged me and told me he loved me. This was not what I expected.”
Confession as a ‘starting place for healing. Mark had an “amazing feeling” from his experience confessing—feeling “set free” from what was “keeping me in chains.” What he didn’t realize is that he would need to “come back hundreds upon hundreds of times” before he witnessed that “the grip of pornography and all its attachments started to loosen its hold on me.” Rather than avoiding further confession, he resolved to “make the time that I fell from grace to the time I received the Lord’s forgiveness as short as possible.”
Although “a long litany of confessions” didn’t lead to the change he hoped, Nick said, “I fully believe that confession was—and is—the right thing to do” and “the beginning of our healing.”
“Confession breaks the barriers we place between us and God, and between ourselves and others,” he added, suggesting that a “decision to get real about the places we have worked so hard to hide” and help people “finally experience the kind of community that does transform us.”
“We all sit in a room and long to be truly known, but instead we stay covered up [and] when we open up our lives, we also give others permission to do the same.”
Pastor Nick decided to confess his own struggle with pornography to his congregation despite being warned that people would leave. “My experience was the exact opposite,” with a positive rippling effect that came with his humble admission of struggle, alongside a witness that “God has brought truth, transformation and freedom.”
“Couples who had been struggling in silent pain were able to find grace and hope through safe groups. Women who felt as if they were in bondage because of a husband’s issues found their voice and grew in emotional maturity. Our church came alive like never before.”
A new life of openness and accountability. “I avoided telling people about my problem. I hid it from my wife. I tried to figure it out in secret,” Matt said, admitting he had “tried everything” except showing people what was actually happening. “I desperately did not want to come forward and get honest about it. I just wanted to stop,” Stephen agreed.
That continued secrecy can even be part of what reinforces the pattern. Neal added, “Secrecy seems to be not only part of my sense of embarrassment,” but also “fuels the excitement.” Yet, “at its core,” beneath the pleasure, “we are relying on ourselves to meet our own needs.” Furthermore, many people said, “Put it behind you”—reinforcing the “idea that I could do it on my own,” which is “so common” in those seeking freedom.
“Hiding is hard, but confessing sounds infinitely more challenging and messy, Nick added. “You worry they will think you’re disgusting,” Dave remembered. “But if you really want to overcome lust, you will open up to whomever can help you.” Jessica admitted, “for me it was worth far more to keep face and keep the acceptance than it was to risk” others responses.
That’s how she felt, at least until one evening “one of [her] youth leaders admitted that she too, had been living a lie” and “was coming forward that night to confess that and place her faith in Christ.” Jessica was sure she would be condemned and judged—and was dumbfounded to see how she was “met with overwhelming joy and acceptance”—including people coming forward to congratulate her. “They were happy for her. They were rejoicing. I sat beside [this leader] completely stunned.”
Jason described sharing his struggle generically, just “enough”—resisting sharing fully what he was facing: “I always believed in God—but didn’t trust him with everything. Thought that this thing was too dirty, too dark to share with anybody.” Vinny said, “You may not be ready to share everything with a spouse or partner. But you are at least being totally straight and honest with yourself.”
Nick calls this a “life of confession,” reflected in “an ongoing decision to be real about who we were.” Matt described finally sharing a breath of fresh air, “I had been so painfully alone in my struggle. I didn’t even know what it meant to be in community.”
Men helping men, women helping women. While any connection is good, Joshua emphasized how “important” it was “to get involved with men or women who have overcome porn in the past.” One man shared gratitude for “those men that walked with me over those years of recovery.” Another said “Just the act of being in a group and talking to guys who felt very similarly” was helpful. Another said, “It brought a lot of healing and hope—helped me feel it was possible.”
Colby described “building each other up with a sense of brotherhood” with other men “who knew everything about me” as central to successfully “walking in freedom for five years.” Likewise, describing his recovery group as “authentic, vulnerable and true,” Phil said, “We know the good, the bad, and the ugly of each other. There are tears, there is tons of laughter, there is learning and growth.”
“This little group of men is my rock,” he continued. “When I first started recovery I felt that only other gay men would be able to understand and could tolerate my situation.” But they “all know my story and love me for who I am and they are not same sex attracted like I am.”
“I can be true to myself and my God, be honest and open in the right settings, and I can find the intimacy I’ve craved all of my life through good wholesome friendship.”
Jorge found “live conversations with other guys in real time” and “being seen, and being there for others,” as a “cornerstone” of his healing—“the regularity, the honesty and safety, the acceptance, and the acknowledgement that it is a journey.”
It takes many repetitions of turning up defeated and feeling sure you're a failure and to be met with warmth, understanding and encouragement to get back up, to start to unwork the old beliefs and lies that have long been held ("No-one will love you if they know what you've done," etc).
“Having a couple of people who love and care for you even knowing about ‘your junk’ is so freeing!” Eric said, including people who can “ask you those tough questions” and not be “afraid to step on our toes in a loving way.” He said he is “still in an accountability relationship—and will be [for] the rest of [his] life.”
Brett called this being “relational with your pain,” describing the biblical idea of “weeping with those who weep” and “rejoicing with those who rejoice” (Romans 12:15) as a “learned skill for many of us, and it takes practice” to “let others into your pain, celebrations, joy.”
More than confession and disclosure of mistakes and weakness, Matt says this includes “making commitments in front of another human being.” That means someone else knows what you are “actively committed to doing to stay porn free rather than just a passive commitment to not do a behavior.” Chantel advised, “Surround yourself with a community who understands that you want to quit—a community that wants to help you quit.”
Many opportunities for connection and support. It was not uncommon to hear people describe various places of connection and accountability: regular group meetings, individual calls with others working recovery, taking a teletherapy session, visiting with a spiritual mentor, and letting a supportive friend be aware of your online activities through online technology—like Covenant Eyes.
“Don’t be afraid to ask someone in your church,” Eric said, “even someone who’s older than you. Don’t be afraid to ask them to help you, meet with you weekly, talk over the phone.”
Jackson described two different bishops having “a profound impact on me through example and the times we spent talking together.”
Jessica described the “great deal of patience” shown by friends and mentors during her recovery, who “listened to my tearful stories of failure and pulled me out of the pit of self-loathing I would throw myself into.” There was also more openness with spouses, which led one man to be “able to rebuild the trust” that had been threatened. “She now walks with me as a partner and encourager in my fight for purity.” Another admitted, “Having a secret eats at you so much,” recollecting times when he was “trying to have fun, but really can’t because you’ve wronged her.”
“Because of the trauma caused by my destructive behaviors to others and myself,” Stephen said, “I needed a qualified therapist to help me sort things out.” Yet Chris cautioned “the landscape is kind of all over the map” in terms of therapist perspectives on porn. Stephen said candidly: “If we find a therapist who says it's okay to do porn masturbation” or who “doesn't understand the importance [of] spiritual connection that's required in recovery, then we probably haven't found the right therapist.”
Neal noted one good therapist who helped him “understand what I'm dealing with” while giving him “hope that recovery is possible” and “affirming that God is aware of me,” while helping him use his “agency in a positive way to move forward.”
8. Healing the deeper pain that can drive relief-seeking
“We all have hurts in our lives,” Eric said. “There are roots (deep reasons) for everything we do, and it all starts when we're children,” one woman said. “The way your parents treated you, the way your friends or past boyfriends/girlfriends talked to you, it all plays a part.”
People spoke of the power of having “discovered” and “uncover[ing] wounds of my past.” Colby said, “I didn't realize how intertwined life traumas and sexual actions were, and how they were connected.” Brett described the impact of asking himself, “Where have I been wounded and how do those wounds affect me today? Have you been hurt by abuse? Divorce? High school? If we don’t identify these wounds, we’ll end up treating the symptoms rather than the root problems.”
One man described sharing for the first time a secret he had held for 15 years of being taken advantage of sexually as a teenager—describing revealing the truth as “a truly terrifying moment, but one that so needed to happen, to help bring freedom and healing to my very being.”
“Some people can process their pain relationally with others,” Brett said. “But many of us can’t do that. We don’t know how.”
New trust and deeper relief. This involves finding a deeper healing for those wounds than porn can ever provide: “Most of the time there’s a wounding in our heart,” Eric said, “and a lot of times we’re medicating that wound in our heart with pornography.”
“If we allow God to come into those dark, hidden, and hurting places,” Taylor said,“God can first heal us” and then teach us “to come to Him instead.”
Nick spoke of becoming “the kind of people who are trustworthy,” while suggesting that true freedom is the result of “learning to trust again” in your own relationships, rather than “simply convincing others to trust you.”
“At the root of trust is the idea that no matter what happens we can depend on someone being there for us. That person is consistent in their love and care for us, so much so that they always have our best interests in mind.”
The unique impact of intimacy trauma. “One of the largest reasons that a person becomes addicted to pornography,” Nolan said, “is that they had a very damaging experience with intimacy and love sometime in either their distant or recent past. Although it’s important to not rush, healthy forgiveness can make a tremendous difference—especially when considering the cost of “hold[ing] onto major bitterness or unforgiveness towards someone for something they did to us.”
After even trained professionals failed to make a difference, Nolan admitted, “because humans had hurt me my entire life, I couldn't trust humans.” But “a simple cat who can at first seem aloof” made a huge difference, since that animal “didn't abandon me in the darkest moments of my soul when I really, really needed someone (or something) to love me despite all of the flaws.”
“Once someone is able to truly feel real intimacy again, the urges to watch pornography start to disappear quite quickly, at least in my experience,” he said.
9. Learning to mindfully work with thoughts, sensations, triggers and urges
David described growing in his “awareness of internal emotions and external triggers making me vulnerable” and that “knowing how the body responds during addictive thinking” had “made a huge difference in creating new and healthy patterns.”
Watching thoughts. Dave described previously thinking anytime he got an alluring thought, “I always thought I was helpless,” leading him to believe, “I can’t overcome it, so I might as well do it.”
Over time, he came to learn “that thought is not my thought… Nice try, devil. But you don’t [get] me this time.” He began experimenting, “All of a sudden, you lay down your phone and put on praise [worship] songs.” That left the dark energy “bewildered” (what is he doing? He always did this before)” and “shivering” (my tactic is over—I can’t control him anymore).”
Seeing craving more clearly. “Craving is not something that happens to you,” Matt said. “It’s something you actively do.” Rather than simply arising from “external sources like women and sexy TV shows,” this man described craving as a “habit that came from within,” starting with thoughts like “porn or a porn behavior would feel good right now,” which usher that person towards “their own version of Miller Time.”
“Sexual triggers start to have less power over you because you know what to do with them,” Vinny said. “I remember during my heavy addiction years, whenever I would try to resist,” there was always a thought in the background, “You might as well give in to your urge because eventually you're going to do it anyway.”
“Living as a free man, do the urges to view porn magically stop?” So you “never again feel the desire to watch porn?” Dan asks and then answers: “No, while the urges do decrease, as long as you are a functioning human male, the urges to watch porn will continue to surface.” So if not stopping any urge to watch porn, “What is freedom then? Freedom is knowing how to process those urges in a healthy, effective way.”
The difference is not whether you will have those urges. The difference is how you handle them. And the good news is, this is a skill that can be learned.
“I learned to successfully surf the urges,” Roger said. “When the urges come, you’re not concerned. You know exactly how to handle it. You’ve developed the skill to process the urge. You have a clear plan that works. And as time goes on, you get better and better at it. The more urges you process, the more you develop that skill (just like any skill!).”
Watchfulness for triggers. “Think about when you’re most triggered, whether it's a certain time of day, or after a certain situation,” Taylor counseled. “It could be when you’re stressed, bored, frustrated, and instead of scrolling on your phone or watching TV, use that time to talk to Jesus or declare the word of God over yourself.” Chris likewise related how important it is to “process” difficult feelings after noticing them. For him, this meant: “make a call or go to your knees.”
Vinny suggested, “As we become aware of things that drive our setbacks, we must prepare a plan or strategy that reduces or eliminates that trigger.” And you can “start to recognize when your sexual energy is heightened and you begin to refocus and redirect it to healthy outlets like physical exercise, improving relationships, being productive at work, pursuing interests and hobbies and many more.”
10. Scaffolding daily life with custom-designed structure & boundaries
In addition to whatever internal changes of mind and heart are taking place, it’s common to see people putting in place a system of discipline involving specific behavioral boundaries and established patterns to guide wise choices. For many, a significant part of healing was embracing or establishing some kind of a “plan of action” or “gameplan.”
This isn’t always intuitive, with Nick recalling how he “prayed for deliverance. I believed, and expected, that God could come in a moment and erase my desires, setting me free from this battle.” But it wasn’t until Nick was introduced to a program of healing that helped him create a “plan of action” in collaboration with his wife, that freedom started to come. Eric described a “gameplan I could look at on paper” that he could “practically do to move towards freedom,” which made him feel like he was “finally moving forward.”
The structure of a formal program. From personal plans to online programs, to in-person faith ministries, to the 12-steps itself, formalized programs were helpful guides for some to support recovery and nurture growth. “Thoroughly structured” plans and programs like Fortify and Freedom Fight which are “well rounded and comprehensive” and look broadly across lifestyle were mentioned as especially helpful.
These men saw these programs as potentially tools in God’s hands—“a huge blessing and weapon in my fight for sexual purity,” said Logan, with David adding, “God has used Freedom Fight to transform my walk with Him.”
Creating a safe sanctuary & avoiding confrontation. “When we’re constantly living in an environment that’s unsafe, it creates anxiety in us,” Matt said—which itself can be an “emotional trigger.” This man then suggested, “do everything you can to create safety in your home and in other areas you can control in your world”—trusting this safety will “lead to a calmer mind.”
Whatever bold declarations and crippling consequences there were in the past, “in the moment of decision, however, that brokenness from the last time [I used porn] didn’t seem real and didn’t seem to matter.” In his experience, Joshua said, “The desire to watch pornography will always win” since it is “such a powerful desire and feels so immediate,” he said he would “always give in each time the battle beg[an] tipping, even the slightest, in that direction.” He quotes the ancient Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu: “If your opponent is more powerful than you, avoid a confrontation.”
As reported in Ted Roberts’ Seven Pillars of Freedom workbook, two MIT researchers concluded in a study that “Men’s self-control when sexually aroused doesn’t come from willpower but from avoiding situations in which one will become aroused and lose control.”
“This single thought changed my whole approach to lust and pornography” Nick said. “You and I were not made to have the willpower to avoid sexual sin when aroused. Do you hear that? You cannot become ‘tough enough’ to avoid pornography when you’re sitting at the computer alone, your heart rate is up, your inhibitions are down, and beautiful women are one click away. The victory is found in not being in that chair in that moment!”
This man elaborated, “I had always believed if I was just stronger in that moment of intense temptation, I could be victorious. I have learned that the secret is to not be in that intense moment of temptation!” As a result, Nick noted, “I have learned boundaries. I have adopted limits.”
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. “Wherever the places are that you are most vulnerable,” one man said, “make a plan to make it more difficult to watch porn in those places.” To illustrate, Nick said, “Putting off hard work became a means for porn to get in, so I have boundaries about how I work and study.”
This man has also “chosen to limit my use of the Internet, TV viewing and cell phone use, in order to be free to do what God has called me to do.” This includes not having internet on his phone, referring to his friend who said “If your iPhone causes you to sin, pluck it out!”
“What limits do you need to willingly live under?” he asked, before suggesting that “purity is not a process of making better choices in the face of extreme temptation, but in avoiding the situation that creates extreme temptation for you. Boundaries are the only way to get there!”
“I continuously take steps to separate myself from opportunities to make dumb choices,” Thomas said, while Stephen admitted, “I didn't know what it meant to put boundaries and bottom lines in place and honestly abide by them.”
Watching triggers. “What feelings or emotions most often trigger you? What are the most common thoughts or beliefs that go through your head that lead to craving? And what in your environment makes it easy to use porn?”
“Whether it’s our bedtime habits, our phones, our computers, our smart TVs, our streaming subscriptions, our social media—if porn is always a click away for us, it’s hard to change our habits. We’re like the recently recovered alcoholic who still has a fridge stocked with beer.”
“I eliminated as many triggers as I could,” Roger said. “I went through the materials I consumed [on] YouTube and I unfollowed the channels that were questionable to my value system… I deleted [certain phone] numbers… I purified the content in all of my social accounts.”
“I do not read the news feed, I use Facebook and twitter only for strictly assigned tasks, I enter Instagram twice a year literally for a minute or two, I do not watch stories, I do not consume short videos, I nearly do not watch YouTube.”
Mark cleared away “pornographic triggers in his life—like R-rated and PG-13 movies and certain magazines.” He kept away from “television unless I was in the company of others,” which contributed to several early “periods of freedom from lust.”
Stepping back from certain lifestyles. Chantel wanted to “stop welcoming the lustful spirit upon me” and influencing her struggle, so she stopped “dressing indecently.”
“Having Godly standards for sexuality these days is very difficult, especially in our college setting,” Logan acknowledged, before describing how he found strength from Christ to do that. “I began to protect myself from sex the best I knew how,” Jessica said. “I asked my roommates to stop talking about it. I stayed away from the young men for a while and did my best to focus on developing my relationship with Christ.”
“Lust is toxic for me,” another man said,” realizing that “any pursuit of lust has a negative emotional and spiritual effect on me.” One man explained his decision to also stop masturbating, “When two neurons fire together they wire together. If I was going to leave porn behind then I had to leave masturbation behind as well.”
Active, positive commitments. “To break a habit,” Craig Perra says,” you have to make a habit—reflecting what Matt calls “an active commitment to improve the areas that directly contribute to your porn habit.” This man described how his recovery began to resemble more of a “personal development plan for a growth-minded, healthy person”—something that reflects, “more of who you are becoming in your life, not just the behaviors you are avoiding.”
It’s common for plans to be as passive as “I have this filtered, and I have this cut off, and I don’t do this, and I don’t do that.” This kind of a “laundry list” of rigid rules has “no energy to it,” Matt suggests. “We can’t recover with just porn-avoiding strategies. Recovery is active. We need something to replace not only that time with, but the identity we relate to.”
This can include simple, strategic steps like Matt’s commitment to “go to bed with my wife each night.”
Roger described how he “replaced my bad behavior with good behavior. I started running, roller-skating and scrapbooking. I connected with people more, and I practiced cautiousness when alone.”
Rather than just the addictive patterns itself directly changing, the rest of life changed too—both as a protection, and as another way to signal a heart truly committed. “The year after my life was different,” said Eva, after making a new commitment to healing—“there was a process my life had to go through.”
Joshua encouraged: “Go into public places and your neighborhoods; engage in the world around you. We live in a real world with real adventure. Don’t just stay inside your home all weekend—take a walk under the stars.”
Establishing an escape hatch. Establish “places away from technology, in the early days especially, to go when you are feeling the urge,” Joshua said. “Don’t stop to rationalize or it will be too late.”
Do this when “even a hint of the desire” comes, and reinforce this by writing on a piece of paper: “When I am tempted to watch porn I will leave,” demonstrating that you have “already decided before” that you won’t “linger.”
Timothy got in the practice of walking “away from what I was doing,” and another described “Fleeing temptation when it arrives” by “infusing that challenging moment with something uplifting—“always put on a worship song—set yourself in the presence of God.”
“The desire for porn is quick, nearly impulsive,” Joshua elaborated. “You have to be just as impulsive at saying no to your temptation.”
11. Heroic grit, resilience, patience and persistence
“It's human nature,” Vinny remarked, “especially when we're struggling with addiction, to want everything ‘right now.’” While still appreciating people’s “sense of urgency about wanting to change,” “one of the signs that you are changing is that you have a sense of patience in your recovery process”—recognizing that “when it comes to real, lasting change there are no ‘quick fixes’ and being “willing to be patient and keep moving down your own personal path of change for as long as it takes.”
“Too often, we see Impact Suite members who drop out because they ‘couldn't wait for change.’ They wanted it right now, in their way, on their terms.”
That patience is especially important during times where natural motivation, connection and inspiration recedes—or when withdrawal effects emerge.
Without the numbing agents, there is more life to feel as well. In his first year of sobriety, Chris was surprised that “I still had problems. I thought it was going to be heavenly that everything would go great, but it didn't, but I realized, well, I no longer have my drug of choice to medicate with in a numb out. And that's why I'm forced now to feel what I'm feeling, to process what I'm feeling.”
Once people “stop all the self-protecting schemes,” Nick said, “pain is the inevitable consequence.” Josh described coming to understand these stretching moments a chance to further purify and refine his heart, even though they “send me for a loop” and are “not fun.”
Daily replenishing. These men and women spoke of a need for ongoing, regular realignment with their higher commitments and aspirations to God—being aware, in Josh’s words, when he “put Jesus on the shelf” and came to seek “all my pleasure” elsewhere.
One man described the added peace and joy that came from “a daily exercise to put on the full armor of God and to fill my life with things that invite the Holy Ghost.” A woman described a practice of “seeking Him morning and night, reading your bible, singing to Him, loving on Him, and letting Him love all over you.”
“Through my struggles, Heavenly Father was preparing me and my family to receive greater joy and healing,” said one man, with Josh adding, “he’s going to get me where he wants to get me. Hands of the potter are always on—always shaping, forming.”
There’s also a sustaining power to simple practices like daily gratitude—“Being thankful for the little things,” Josh added.
Keenly interested. Vinny described consistently engaging in the “daily routines” and “daily self-cares” that bring about real change. He described the importance of “staying keenly interested, on a daily basis, in your recovery”—which he defines as “the aggressive pursuit of a great and happy life.”
Roger came to see his recovery as a matter of life and death—both in securing his freedom and retaining it. “I know that if I do not want to destroy my body and die spiritually, I have to comply with my new life rules.” Stephen likewise spoke of the need to have “a willing heart to live in recovery. This must be my true desire. I must choose to be fully committed to the work of recovery with a humble attitude.”
Not giving up after a relapse. When people find themselves “going back into the ditch,” one man reminds, “That is not the end of the world.”
“I still slipped. I still fell. But I’d learned that it was a journey and not a light switch,” Tony said, adding that “a fall does not negate all of the progress that went before it.”
“It's really remarkable to me that I felt God's love through this entire journey,” Chris said. Even when he fell, it was like “get back up, you can do this,” expressing, “And I hope everyone who struggles with some form of addiction gets that feeling.”
“The truth is we will fall. We all do. But he's there lovingly, lifting us up and helping us. Back on that path to grab hold and to go a few more steps forward.” He added, “There's no well, sorry you reach your quota, your limit is up.”
Staying with it. After a profound moment of learning, Mark said “I wish I could tell you that this is all it took for the scales to fall from my eyes.” Likewise after a sweet moment of relief in confessing, he said “I wish I could tell you that I walked out and never looked back.” But, “as is the case with many of us, we don’t always learn the lesson the first time we hear it.”
Others shared similar language after what they thought were major turning points. After a profoundly sweet moment of inspiration, Jessica reflected:
I would love to be able to say that the next morning I woke up and had no recollection of the previous four years of addiction. I can’t. The next morning, I still had the same flesh I had the day before. My body still craved that high. I had been in it so long that I felt sometimes I ran on autopilot. My mind would say, ‘I’m not going to do that today,’ but my feet would walk into the computer room and I would fall again.
However arduous, the length of the recovery process often taught someone profound lessons about who he or she was and what was most important in life. “As I reflect back on those days,” Mark said, “I am reminded of how gentle and patient God is with each one of his children,” while choosing to “reveal only what we can handle at the time.”
12. Getting outside of yourself through service
One individual referred to Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill W, who knew that he could not stay sober if he wasn't “working with other alcoholics.” He added, “I have felt that in my own life, I will not be sober if I wasn't committed to working with other people because that work with other people gives me strength, gives me hope, I need that strength.”
Living for others. Nick was struck to see more clearly the “depth of my addiction to self and to feeling good,” something that he realized his “whole life was centered around.” Now looking back, he can see how he put his “wants and needs above those of everyone else.”
“Our journey toward freedom” must become “one of serving and loving others” where we “remove ourselves from the center.” Compared with “little boys” who “do what feels good, want it right now, and make life all about them,” Nick continued, “grown men” have “learned to wait, do what is right” and “care about others.”
Mark recounted how his “vocation as a husband and father” of four children helped him “stay pure,” since he needed “all the graces he could receive” to be the father he needed to be for “my four pure gifts from God.”
“You will never experience ultimate and lasting freedom until this journey ceases to be about you and becomes all about others around you” Nick suggested. “This is rebirth,” he said—“a new heaven, a new earth, and a new us!”
Reaching for others seeking freedom. Several individuals run groups for others in the Church or facilitate a 12-step program supporting others in recovery. “Once those chains are broken, you want to help everyone else find it,” Eric said. “I began to make progress as I began to focus on others,” with Jackson adding: “I found in my heart a special place for those less fortunate than myself. As I helped them with their struggles, I found the power to face mine.”
Others described “becoming more involved at my church” and helping family, with one man relating how he has been able to serve and love his wife more.
Since one of the limitations of our methodology is not being able to ask everyone the same questions, it’s worth pointing out here that there are at least three areas that figured prominently in our statistical analysis of healing and recovery from pornography addiction that didn’t show up as frequently in these recovery narratives:
The ‘big three’ of nutrition, physical activity and sleep rest. Compared with those who hadn’t found freedom from pornography, a significantly greater percentage of people (between 21 and 29% more) told us, “I get pretty good sleep that leaves me mostly rested” and “I regularly eat healthy foods,” with more modest differences showing up in, “I’m physically active and exercise when I can” and “I regularly have a chance to get outside and get some direct sunlight.”
The ‘other big three’ of mental diet, mental activity, and mental rest. Some other significant differences were evidence between freedom-finders and those still struggling in “I pay attention to what kind of news and entertainment media I take into my mind” (30 point spread), and “I limit media that makes me mad, sad or fearful” (12 points), along with 24 and 36 point differences in “I regularly meditate, do yoga or experience stillness and silence in other ways (like art) to help my mind rest,” and “I manage my stress quite well.”
Reducing dependence in other areas. There was an especially significant 47 point difference between people with or without lasting freedom from pornography in “I have experienced healing from other compulsive patterns in my life (e.g., substance, media, spending),” and a smaller 10 and13 points difference in “I’ve reduced dependence on alcohol or other recreational substances,” and “I’ve tapered back on antidepressants, antianxiety drugs or other prescribed medication that was affecting my emotions.”
Closing reflections. It’s been common in this project to pause in awe at what we’re seeing—the beauty and marvel of it all. These stories of people who have found lasting healing and freedom are not fairy tales, however. And it’s important to again appreciate the realities of what this looks like.
The nature of true freedom. True freedom and healing doesn’t mean you are no longer drawn to what you’ve left behind:
“There are landmines all around me and every step counts,” James said. “But I tell you, I am not what I used to be. For 21 years my master was the computer” but he said God is “my Master” now. “I can’t believe it!”
“I wish I could tell you that it doesn’t bother me anymore,” Jessica said. But “there are mornings I wake up and my body wants to relive its glory days.” Till the next life, she’s accepted “there will never be a time when my body completely forgets the thrills it once knew.” But she added, “I spend those moments basking in my Savior. In the grace that covers me. In the truth that sets me free.” And in that place, “that thrill is overpowered by the joy that comes.”
Parting encouragement. Throughout people’s stories, they share many touching words of direct encouragement to those reading. We close with a few more:
“God is shaping you,” Dave said, “and the beautiful thing about it,that thing that you suffered through all these years, that will be your testimony.”
“If you’ve been trying to get free for a while and feel like you’ve been spinning your wheels, I’d encourage you to really examine your motivation,” John said, “Start praying differently. Begin crying out to know God intimately. Ask Him for a deep sorrow over things that grieve His heart. Make it about genuine love for God and others rather than fear of personal loss. When you do, you’ll find the power to walk out what you couldn’t walk out before. Remember, love never fails.”
Joshua encourages people to “never surrender” in this pursuit for freedom.
We say the same: Never surrender. Stay hopeful. Keep believing. Keep connecting. Keep learning. And keep getting up! We’ll be rooting for you.