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holdsworth
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Posted: Sun Jun 29th, 2008 12:12 pm |
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Hi people.
Its been a while!.
I wanted to ask you guitarist63 about managing to stay free from the porn. I ask because, well I am not there..I am still in the cycle of seeking 'soft' images when loneliness and habit and stress etc come top play. It has been there so,so long I simply don't know how to live 'free'. I am being completely honest here as anything else serves no purpose.
It is still where I go when the chips are down and the habit is still in play. I struggle to trust Jesus as being close and real but I continue to pray to him and ask for help despite this. I think a fear of stepping out from the illussional comfort and living life without that 'lustful private' place goes very deep and one I am finding very difficult to let go of it.
It seems the world is falling apart around us right now and I want to be a man of integrity while I am here.
Holdsworth
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holdsworth
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Posted: Mon Jun 30th, 2008 12:40 am |
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something weird going on with the previous message posting I did, anyway it seems to have appeared now.
Last edited on Mon Jun 30th, 2008 12:42 am by holdsworth
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guitarist63
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Posted: Mon Jun 30th, 2008 12:51 am |
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Hi Holdsworth
It's very curious because just before I got on here I was thinking of you and when I saw your post on the accountability thread it was very cheering.
I don't stop getting the occasional temptation to go and look at pornography but I quickly ignore it. I don't know how it would be if I lost my home, or got into some other personal crisis. In my experience, the worst offences of pornography occurred when everything materially speaking was going wrong and I was attending church nominally with these unresolved problems (of no job, or insufficient working hours to generate adequate income, stressful housing situation, isolation).
Since 2003, I have had a very stable home life with not a great deal of stress. The neighbours are generally very agreeable and life where I am is like another world to the place I was over five years ago. I did, however, continue to suffer unemployment in the past five years. I volunteered from 2003 to make up for no paid work and continued that until 2006 when I was diagnosed with a disability considered to make me unlikely to hold down work in future. With continued unemployment, I do get stressed from time to time. The pornography continued to be a problem until 2006 and then a couple of isolated looks in 2007. After that there haven't been any looks. I've been very strict not to look at images that might even be considered to be not pornography. This is because I know that it can start again with an apparently innocuous photo or other image (painting for e.g.). I don't give myself the chance of even looking at images that most would regard as non-pornographic.
It may be that when things get rough again for me, I might go back there but I hope not. It won't solve anything for me.
Since I moved to where I am (over five years now) I have been much more sociable and I think this has been a key to getting free of pornography. Contacts have developed into non-sexual friendships. I can't speak for your own situation, not knowing what circle of friends you may have. Everybody is different and I suppose each must react differently.
I'll say prayers for you but I don't know what else to advise. All the best.
Last edited on Mon Jun 30th, 2008 09:37 pm by guitarist63
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holdsworth
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Posted: Mon Jun 30th, 2008 09:26 am |
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Thanks Guitarist for your reply - and for your prayers!
Its encouraging for me to hear how you have remained free from the thing that I have not, It gives me hope.
What you said also I think reminds everyone here just how alert we really have to be regarding temptation. Recently I found myself justifying things saying to myself' hey this image of a woman is not anywhere near being soft porn, but My reaction to her beauty was still full on lust. This was perhaps to say to myself, "this is O.K because she is clothed and different image last week or a few days ago would not have been".
It is the same if I meet and attractive lady or see someone on the street. There is this natural mans feelings of finding her attractive but there is also that 'empty space' that I can wrongly try and fill with the feelings of lust.
My current struggle is due to the fact that I have contiuned to meet my own needs rather than trusting that those things can be met in a deeper way by better things.
I know some very good people but do tend to hold them at arms length at times, but again I must remember 'no man is an island'
Holdsworth
Last edited on Mon Jun 30th, 2008 09:27 am by holdsworth
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Man
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Posted: Mon Jun 30th, 2008 11:42 am |
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Holdsworth, I must say it is so familiar.
I am extremely much alone and go around on the street and my body reacts quite often. Struggle to see if that is wrong or not..
Is it just like freezing when it is cold, just pysical reactions or is it something that I can control? Control where I look, how I react?
Thanks..
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May the Lord bless you all!
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guitarist63
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Posted: Mon Jun 30th, 2008 09:58 pm |
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Holdsworth, glad to be of any help.
I am reminded of a line from scripture that says we should "flee immorality" (1 Corinthians 6, verse 18). I am not addressing this to you in particular but for anybody, myself included, who has been hooked on porn, it seems to me that fleeing it (cutting off any likely leads into temptation, avoiding situations where the object of lust is presented, etc.) is the best thing to do.
Perhaps a parallel might be drawn with someone who has been addicted to alcohol. Someone who is determined not to be an alcoholic again who decides to abstain from all alcohol, rather than risk getting hooked again by the odd drink. That is not to say that an odd drink would have that effect but it's a sensible thing to do.
Last edited on Mon Jun 30th, 2008 10:14 pm by guitarist63
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love&hate
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Posted: Tue Jul 1st, 2008 04:48 am |
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Joseph still stands out as quite an example. He was a young man with horomones a raging and had been treated very unfairly in life. Sold into slavery and deported into strange land far away from his family. Being the Godly believer that he is instead of being overly discouraged he still trusted God and did his best at his tasks to please his master.
In time he did very well and was given full run of the house. And then a very beautiful woman made not just one but multiple advances over the course of days, weeks or even months? She was his masters wife alright but really, he deserved sex with her did he not? After the way he had been treated did he not deserve some feminine affection? He was a young man with strong desires and she was perhaps not given enough attention at home by a very busy husband.... it was the perfect recipee for an affair.
Not only did Joseph not accept these advances... he ran away into the opposite direction with so much force that his clothes were torn... still in her hand!
Not that is an example. I have never been treated as poorly as Joseph and never had an attractive woman want me so bad that she would grab on to my clothes like that. But yet i look how long at a woman on the street today? Second glances yet too? Where do i think i am going with that behaviour?
Jopseph resisted because his heart was in the right place to being with, pleasing God was #1, anything else came after. If i stay on top of the hill with my eyes looking up i am fine, start looking at the wrong things and i slip and slide and for me i don't stop until i am deep in the pit. And then it is a long way up.
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Man
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Posted: Tue Jul 1st, 2008 08:52 am |
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Hi guys, must confess my body reacts extremely much when I am interacting with other people.. i.e. on the tube, in the bus, my body can react even if I don't look at them, it can be only the presence of certain human-beings..
I have not experienced such things before.. Maybe it has got something to do with abstaining from self-sex? Not sure.. I am single..
Thanks guys, good to see that there is life is in here again..
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May the Lord bless you all!
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Jay1954
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Posted: Tue Jul 1st, 2008 12:30 pm |
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Thanks for sharing your struggles, I am fighting same temptations every day
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guitarist63
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Posted: Tue Jul 1st, 2008 10:21 pm |
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Welcome Jay1954
I succumbed again to m on 1 July. 6th day since last
I must have said all I can say about ways and means of stopping so I won't repeat myself.
Last edited on Tue Jul 1st, 2008 10:22 pm by guitarist63
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confessorj
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 01:17 am |
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Love&Amp thanks for the encouragement. I started to feel very comfortable in my animosity toward porn, and unfortunately I started to slack in my prayers thinking that I was "cured". Of course I was wrong, and I succumbed multiple times recently. I need to keep on praying long after I think that I am "cured", just like I have to take medicine long after the cold symptoms stop.
I am still praying for all of you.
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Jay1954
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 12:01 pm |
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Thanks for your comments and prayers, I sometimes think I won the battle over porn, but I always seem to slip, and the Lord has been gracious but I always seem to get chastised by Him. It is hard to pray when you have a desire to look at porn., but I want to fight against it.
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Man
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Posted: Wed Jul 2nd, 2008 02:29 pm |
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Jay1954: Keep on fighting
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May the Lord bless you all!
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Guitarist_John
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Posted: Fri Jul 4th, 2008 10:44 am |
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Hello all! The reason I've been unable to post here is because I've had alot going on the past several weeks, but now I'm finally at our Zenica home, getting ready to move. As far as lust goes, I have been doing fairly well, praise the Lord.
However, an event happened either this past Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember which. I had let lustful thoughts captivate me, and I fell to the urges and retreated to a secluded place and began to indulge, but I pulled myself out because of conviction. A little later, fearing that I would give in again and indulge with mental fantasies at the same time, I decided that I would masturbate but shove all fantasies out the door.
So, I did. I did the deed, and tried as hard as I could to not entertain lustful thoughts in my mind, and I think I succeeded. This was probably the first time I ever masturbated without running lust through my mind, and this was in a way an experimental defense.
Sure enough, after the deed was done, the lust was gone, and...I felt free in a way. Now, this may only be for me, but the feeling that I get after I masturbate, after the fleshly pleasure subsides, (and after I repent) I am left with this light emptiness, and...it just feels great. It's like a feeling of freedom, cause the weight of lust is gone, but then, in a few hours, it returns. This is just something I've noticed about myself.
Anyways, back to the story, I believe that the MB'ing without lusting is still a sin. A few hours later, I began getting lustful urges to indulge again, just because it felt good, so now its pretty obvious to me that MB'ing without lusting does not 'ease the burden' for very long, in fact, I think it just makes the lustful feelings stronger than usual. By God's grace I resisted, and since then I've been alright.
Last edited on Fri Jul 4th, 2008 10:47 am by Guitarist_John
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"In the world you will have trouble, but I leave you my peace that where I am there you may also be." - Jesus
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Jay1954
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Posted: Fri Jul 4th, 2008 12:26 pm |
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I know what you are going through, I tried the same thing but it is fighting the flesh with the flesh, and I wish it would work but never seems to.
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guitarist63
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Posted: Fri Jul 4th, 2008 11:56 pm |
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Hello
I m'd because of a lot of stress early Friday after midnight. In my experience lust can be a lust for the pleasure - the basic sensations - and need not be fuelled by any imagery. This does not make it any less lust. It is lust for the pleasure. In my case, most of the time, I am able to set it out of my mind (m'ing) until I experience some build up of tension and then I'll be tempted to relieve that. What I don't do generally is to do it when it's physically comfortable - for the sake of it (or for the pleasure) - which I have noticed in other postings is happening with others struggling with this. I'm not excusing it. I want to be 100% free of it. That is my aim.
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Guitarist_John
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Posted: Sat Jul 5th, 2008 10:24 am |
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Unfortunately, today I gave in to temptation. I was rather tired this morning, and didn't want to get up, and sure enough the lustful thoughts began presenting themselves, and I began entertaining them thinking "I'll just do this a little bit, then I'll stop, after all, I haven't done this in a long time." It is such a silly lie, and yet I believed it, and gave in completely and indulged.
I probably don't need to say anymore, since I've already said it many times before, but I'll keep on striving for purity and hatred for sin and lust.
I agree with you G63, about it being a sin even if there isnt any imagery. I've had urges to do it simply for the pleasure of it, and not the imagery.
I'm not forlorn about this, since it has been a long time since the last time I had Mb'd with imagery, or Mb'd for that matter (excepting what happened earlier this week) so there's hope, there's always been hope. For you, and for me and for all of us. I'll keep praying that we'll come to hate sin and lust, and live in the fear of the Lord.
____________________
"In the world you will have trouble, but I leave you my peace that where I am there you may also be." - Jesus
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guitarist63
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Posted: Sat Jul 5th, 2008 07:32 pm |
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Guitarist_John
Too bad that you did it again today but good that you have begun to ween off the visual stimulus of the "m"
I am doing all right today. Busy.
As I see it, I'm not prepared to give up the pleasurable habit but only to slow down the frequency of it. I need to give it up. There is a cost involved (I deprive myself of all sexual pleasure for perhaps a lifetime) and it must be that deep down I am not ready yet to let go of it. It is very hard to get over the discomfort period (I have seen enough evidence of that in posters here and on other Christian forums) and to continue the abstinence until it becomes more than just abstinence. It becomes true freedom in the sense that one is set free and will never return to it.
I have to keep on trying. I don't want to give up.
Last edited on Sat Jul 5th, 2008 07:38 pm by guitarist63
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Man
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Posted: Sat Jul 5th, 2008 09:02 pm |
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Hi guys. I am single.
Maybe it would be a great victory for some if they manage to feel sexual feelings for someone at the opposite sex if they struggle with same sex attraction...
but maybe not for everyone. I don't know what the final goal here is. I am quite much alone and attractive women can very easily take a part in my inner heart when seing them on the street, on the tube. I just changed my place to not be able to see out on the street or at least to make it more difficult..
I don't know where to go: With no lust? That the body should not react at all when seeing beautiful women?
Do all men have it like this?
I might not be so interested in explanations, but maybe build-up-things..
someone who know this subject and might have found solutions.. so maybe I can pick some of it that might be helpful to me.. what I want
I might too easily think I must receive evrything that is said.. It might be a good training for me to leave what I don't wanna have..?
Thanks
Last edited on Sat Jul 5th, 2008 09:06 pm by Man
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May the Lord bless you all!
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holdsworth
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Posted: Mon Jul 7th, 2008 02:51 pm |
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Today:
I am frustrated
I am tense
I am anxious
I feel like a failure
I am over thrown with temptations mentally
I am drawn to go and act on lustful thoughts
...........I have had enough of this trying all the time to resist and to deal with this stuff.
I am just gonna keep crying out to Jesus because I cannot think of any other place to go that might help.
Its difficult. As you all know
Holdsworth
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