T
Trader22
Guest
***DISCLAIMER***
THE FOLLOWING WILL INCLUDE SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES, BIBLICAL TRUTH, PRAISING GOD, JESUS AND GENERAL CHRISTIAN SPEECH.
IF ANY OF THESE THINGS OFFENDS YOU OR AND ANY WAY IS BOTHERSOME FEEL FREE NOT TO COMMENT POST OR OTHERWISE PARTICIPATE IN, "MY" JOURNAL.
My battle with porn addiction started in 1978 when I was 7 or 8 years old. I grew up in a christian home and porn was not a part of it and up to that point my parents had no reason to educate me on sex. My parents hadn't had a reason to tell me I shouldn't be looking at nude pictures, to their knowledge there were none around. We had regular tv that picked up 3 to 5 channels depending on the weather and most days my friends and I rode bikes, rode skate boards, played army or played football, real average. One day my friend from across the street tells me his father has magazines with people doing odd things without clothes. I remember laughing, it just sounded ridiculous to my child's mind, I thought he was pulling my leg. Why would people be doing things naked other than taking a bath, let alone take pictures of it? Determined to prove to me it was true he told me to follow him into the basement of his house. There in a closet out of the way he opened the door and to my amazement were 5 or 6 stacks of magazines 2 to 3 feet high each, and along the walls were framed center folds just as he described. I remember feeling stunned, a kind of rush went thru my brain accompanied by a semi detached feeling. It was a little like I was seeing myself thumb thru the pages instead of actually doing it. I was immediately mesmerized, I couldn't explain it, but I was drawn to continue looking. I don't know how much time passed, but I know we looked thru several mags looking for pics to show each other and from then on a few times a week we'd find time to look at more. Finally we got careless and his mother caught us looking one day and told my mother, she was shattered. My parents grounded me for 2 weeks and told me it was wrong for me to be looking at things like that, but it was too late the fire in my mind was burning and from then on it was as if porn would find me. I Found mags hidden by others in the woods, found homemade pics on the ground in the grocery store parking lot, found a stash in my uncles closet, it was as if I had porn radar.
For the next 2 years things continued this way with porn popping up everywhere and then the school sent a notice home announcing upcoming sex ed. Now I was 10, nearing the end of 5th grade, my parents were caught off guard again, but made an effort. My dad picked up a book, at my mothers urging on his way home from work, that they planned to pre-educate me with before sex ed started. They decided they should review the material first before showing it to me, but I guess the whole thing wigged them out and they just let me go to sex ed and be surprised, kinda. Sadly by now, what they showed me in school wasn't surprising and to my mother's horror I aced the class.
In 1982 cable television came to our area and we joined up, basic package only, no movie channels. The one thing we did get that was a mistake for me was that me and my sister both got our own cable hookups in our rooms. It didn't take long and I discovered the adult channel(I won't mention its name), but even though the picture was distorted the sound wasn't and I still caught the occasional glimpse of a body part and now they were moving images. Soon after this, puberty showed up in full swing and before long I was masturbating 2 to 3 times a day, whenever I could steal a moment without interruption. I've always had a knack with computers and anything mechanical and the word had gotten around school it was possible to rig up your cable box to show movies. Armed with the possibility of finally seeing the images un-obscured, I took my box apart late one night after my parents went to bed. In less than an hour I had figured out what needed to be done and so now I had ALL the channels and no one was the wiser. Looking back I know what I did was theft, stealing signal, but my desires were strong enough, I didn't care, I took the risk. So from then on until I graduated highschool I watched all the porn I could find time to and masturbated so often I made myself sore on many occasions. Around the time I turned 18 I started to realize what I was doing wasn't just wrong in the eyes of God it was having a negative effect on me as well. Wanting to make a change I undid the modifications I had made to my cable box and gave it back to my parents as now I was contributing to the bill. I also had accumulated a stash of magazines and I burned them in our basement fireplace and confessed to God my sins and asked for forgiveness. For a while things improved but bit by bit without really noticing, the magazines started finding there way back to me. Friends would want to show me pictures, one time the mailman delivered a magazine in plastic wrap to our home that only had a car visible and my mom assumed it was mine and put it on my bed, It was porn. Soon I had another stash and the masturbation returned, followed by the guilt and conviction of my heart. Then I burned everything again and swore off once more. Over and over this pattern would repeat for years. I'd tell myself all kinds of excuses why it was ok, that I was educating myself for marriage, on and on I rode this, "Sick Cycle Carousel".
In 1995, after 3 years of dating I married my wife and had actual sex for the first time, it surpassed all my fantasies and I was sure I'd discovered heaven on earth. Prior to the wedding I once again destroyed my porno library and hoped that my commitment to my wife and the access to frequent mind blowing marital sex would quench my fire, it didn't. I don't remember the time lapse but my porno lust returned and by 1998 I'd discovered a new place to get my fix, the World Wide Web. The web changed the game entirely and now my only limitation was what I could think of to search for. Once the web took hold a new cycle emerged and I was off, at fiber optic high-speed.
I've never lost a job due to porn, I'm still married and my wife knows about my struggles but instead of belittling me or threatening to leave she's working to help me, God bless her. I've read a few books on getting away from porn and I even was involved in an online help group called, "Setting Captives Free" that I learned a lot from. The first book I read about porn and overcoming it was called, "Every man's battle", it's a christian based book and it did offer many useful ideas on how to break free from porn's grip. I've experienced as much as 4 months of freedom before, but I've yet to have the permanent success I desire. I'm educated enough now on the problem to know and understand it really isn't a sex thing or a hormone deal, its a learned behavior, a habit. In myself I've noticed I usually fall when I'm under stress, depressed or sometimes just bored. I've had filters, but sooner or later I defeat them, which saddens me.
Now I'm at a point where I understand how my body and mind works, the effects of the drugs released while viewing porn and how to, "Cut out my eye if it causes me to sin" and what the Bible meant by that. I've now thrown out or given away smart phones, tablets, PC's and ipod's in an effort to block my access to porn. I've donated, sold and deleted my expansive DVD/BluRay library and any songs that are suggestive. I joined this group because I've reached the point where I just want out and this kind of arrangement I think works with me. There's more that went on, but you get the gist. It seems clear to me that the first thing to do now that access has been diminished or eradicated, is to get control of my thought life, to take every thought captive.
THE FOLLOWING WILL INCLUDE SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES, BIBLICAL TRUTH, PRAISING GOD, JESUS AND GENERAL CHRISTIAN SPEECH.
IF ANY OF THESE THINGS OFFENDS YOU OR AND ANY WAY IS BOTHERSOME FEEL FREE NOT TO COMMENT POST OR OTHERWISE PARTICIPATE IN, "MY" JOURNAL.
My battle with porn addiction started in 1978 when I was 7 or 8 years old. I grew up in a christian home and porn was not a part of it and up to that point my parents had no reason to educate me on sex. My parents hadn't had a reason to tell me I shouldn't be looking at nude pictures, to their knowledge there were none around. We had regular tv that picked up 3 to 5 channels depending on the weather and most days my friends and I rode bikes, rode skate boards, played army or played football, real average. One day my friend from across the street tells me his father has magazines with people doing odd things without clothes. I remember laughing, it just sounded ridiculous to my child's mind, I thought he was pulling my leg. Why would people be doing things naked other than taking a bath, let alone take pictures of it? Determined to prove to me it was true he told me to follow him into the basement of his house. There in a closet out of the way he opened the door and to my amazement were 5 or 6 stacks of magazines 2 to 3 feet high each, and along the walls were framed center folds just as he described. I remember feeling stunned, a kind of rush went thru my brain accompanied by a semi detached feeling. It was a little like I was seeing myself thumb thru the pages instead of actually doing it. I was immediately mesmerized, I couldn't explain it, but I was drawn to continue looking. I don't know how much time passed, but I know we looked thru several mags looking for pics to show each other and from then on a few times a week we'd find time to look at more. Finally we got careless and his mother caught us looking one day and told my mother, she was shattered. My parents grounded me for 2 weeks and told me it was wrong for me to be looking at things like that, but it was too late the fire in my mind was burning and from then on it was as if porn would find me. I Found mags hidden by others in the woods, found homemade pics on the ground in the grocery store parking lot, found a stash in my uncles closet, it was as if I had porn radar.
For the next 2 years things continued this way with porn popping up everywhere and then the school sent a notice home announcing upcoming sex ed. Now I was 10, nearing the end of 5th grade, my parents were caught off guard again, but made an effort. My dad picked up a book, at my mothers urging on his way home from work, that they planned to pre-educate me with before sex ed started. They decided they should review the material first before showing it to me, but I guess the whole thing wigged them out and they just let me go to sex ed and be surprised, kinda. Sadly by now, what they showed me in school wasn't surprising and to my mother's horror I aced the class.
In 1982 cable television came to our area and we joined up, basic package only, no movie channels. The one thing we did get that was a mistake for me was that me and my sister both got our own cable hookups in our rooms. It didn't take long and I discovered the adult channel(I won't mention its name), but even though the picture was distorted the sound wasn't and I still caught the occasional glimpse of a body part and now they were moving images. Soon after this, puberty showed up in full swing and before long I was masturbating 2 to 3 times a day, whenever I could steal a moment without interruption. I've always had a knack with computers and anything mechanical and the word had gotten around school it was possible to rig up your cable box to show movies. Armed with the possibility of finally seeing the images un-obscured, I took my box apart late one night after my parents went to bed. In less than an hour I had figured out what needed to be done and so now I had ALL the channels and no one was the wiser. Looking back I know what I did was theft, stealing signal, but my desires were strong enough, I didn't care, I took the risk. So from then on until I graduated highschool I watched all the porn I could find time to and masturbated so often I made myself sore on many occasions. Around the time I turned 18 I started to realize what I was doing wasn't just wrong in the eyes of God it was having a negative effect on me as well. Wanting to make a change I undid the modifications I had made to my cable box and gave it back to my parents as now I was contributing to the bill. I also had accumulated a stash of magazines and I burned them in our basement fireplace and confessed to God my sins and asked for forgiveness. For a while things improved but bit by bit without really noticing, the magazines started finding there way back to me. Friends would want to show me pictures, one time the mailman delivered a magazine in plastic wrap to our home that only had a car visible and my mom assumed it was mine and put it on my bed, It was porn. Soon I had another stash and the masturbation returned, followed by the guilt and conviction of my heart. Then I burned everything again and swore off once more. Over and over this pattern would repeat for years. I'd tell myself all kinds of excuses why it was ok, that I was educating myself for marriage, on and on I rode this, "Sick Cycle Carousel".
In 1995, after 3 years of dating I married my wife and had actual sex for the first time, it surpassed all my fantasies and I was sure I'd discovered heaven on earth. Prior to the wedding I once again destroyed my porno library and hoped that my commitment to my wife and the access to frequent mind blowing marital sex would quench my fire, it didn't. I don't remember the time lapse but my porno lust returned and by 1998 I'd discovered a new place to get my fix, the World Wide Web. The web changed the game entirely and now my only limitation was what I could think of to search for. Once the web took hold a new cycle emerged and I was off, at fiber optic high-speed.
I've never lost a job due to porn, I'm still married and my wife knows about my struggles but instead of belittling me or threatening to leave she's working to help me, God bless her. I've read a few books on getting away from porn and I even was involved in an online help group called, "Setting Captives Free" that I learned a lot from. The first book I read about porn and overcoming it was called, "Every man's battle", it's a christian based book and it did offer many useful ideas on how to break free from porn's grip. I've experienced as much as 4 months of freedom before, but I've yet to have the permanent success I desire. I'm educated enough now on the problem to know and understand it really isn't a sex thing or a hormone deal, its a learned behavior, a habit. In myself I've noticed I usually fall when I'm under stress, depressed or sometimes just bored. I've had filters, but sooner or later I defeat them, which saddens me.
Now I'm at a point where I understand how my body and mind works, the effects of the drugs released while viewing porn and how to, "Cut out my eye if it causes me to sin" and what the Bible meant by that. I've now thrown out or given away smart phones, tablets, PC's and ipod's in an effort to block my access to porn. I've donated, sold and deleted my expansive DVD/BluRay library and any songs that are suggestive. I joined this group because I've reached the point where I just want out and this kind of arrangement I think works with me. There's more that went on, but you get the gist. It seems clear to me that the first thing to do now that access has been diminished or eradicated, is to get control of my thought life, to take every thought captive.
;D 8)