How do you stop watching porn–from a completely practical standpoint?
So often the approach to getting someone to stop watching porn is to tell them how bad porn is–and I definitely thinks there’s a role for letting people know about the negative effects of porn. But just knowing that this is bad for you doesn’t necessarily stop the habit. Unless it’s paired with a more practical strategy, it can actually build shame.
Recently my daughter Katie made a video about how to stop watching porn, and I thought I’d use it as a jumping off point for discussion. Here she is:
Here’s what I like about the video: it’s practical, and it doesn’t assume that the person watching porn is male. In her demographic, a lot of porn users are female. We need to stop talking about porn as if it’s a male problem, and we need to realize that porn is a humanity problem.
So here are 3 practical to-do steps she talks about with how to quit porn:
- Recognize WHEN you’re more likely to use porn
- Do what you can to avoid those situations
- Keep electronics out of your bedroom
She also has some super important points about talking to God about it and dealing with shame, but I really want to talk practical for a moment.
I’ve never been addicted to internet porn, but I have had to quit an addiction. I know this isn’t to the same level, and I don’t mean to minimize or belittle someone who is trying to quit something much worse. But I had a real issue with Diet Pepsi. I had to drink one every day at 11:00. I yearned for Diet Pepsi. But I don’t drink them at all anymore. I quit about 2 years ago after reading some books from one of the Ultimate Healthy Living Ebook Bundles.
But here’s the thing: what I realized was that I needed to recognize that everyday at 11:00 I would yearn for a Diet Pepsi, and if I didn’t have another plan in place for when 11:00 came around, I would fall.
If you don’t have a plan, you create a vacuum. And then you’re just going to fall back into the same patterns. It’s like the parable from Matthew 12:43-45: If someone gets rid of all the evil spirits, and sweeps their house clean, then one day those spirits will come back and say, “hey, look! It’s totally empty! I’m going to move back in and bring a ton of my buddies!”
The moral: It’s great to get rid of bad stuff, but unless you also FILL IT with good stuff (like Jesus), the change won’t last. You’re only going to make it worse.
So if you watch porn, think about this: what triggers the porn use? Stress? Boredom? Being alone? Have a plan for what to do when that hits. That can help avoid those moments when you’re drawn to it.
Now I haven’t had time to write a super long post this morning–I was busy yesterday with my book launch, and we’re packing to leave for Colorado next week where we’re recording for Focus on the Family.
But I did want to bring this up, and I think it’s a great opportunity for discussion. How do you stop a bad habit? How do you avoid that “vacuum”? And how should we deal with the fact that porn is not just a male problem anymore? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
Thanks for this timely article. As a pastor whose ministry is working with men’s groups and the issues that they confront in life I can affirm that porn is a monstrous problem lurking in the secret places of peoples’ thoughts and actions. It is a terrible threat to spiritual wellness and healthy relationships and families. It is NOT the victimless crime that is often portrayed. And it is promoted so heavily that it is difficult to avoid brushing up against advertisements and other media material which stimulates wayward tendencies and lures the unsuspecting novice as well as the seasoned addict into the trap that it is. Thanks for emphasizing this national blot and holding it up to the light of truth. My prayer is that your article will touch many hearts and set them on a path toward purity.
My main trigger is a sex-starved marriage. I have very little problem with resisting temptations the days after we have sex. When temptations become difficult to resist, I try to turn to my favorite hobbies to occupy my time and mind.
For me it was a catch 22 situation. My marriage became sex starved because of my porn use, my wife never felt loved or that she was enough. I also could go for extended periods of time without using porn if my wife was keeping me satisfied. I had to come to the place to let God fill up my needs and not expect my wife to be perfect for me. A woman will never feel cherished when her husband is finding another outlet. She knows that you are finding another outlet and it’s not her. My favorite new hobby is becoming a follower of Christ and seeking Him not just seeking my own pleasure.
That’s wonderful!
It’s true that being satisfied makes it easier to avoid temptation, that the cooperation of our spouse can ease the tension. Sexual frustration is a real thing. But should or spouses be at the beck and call of our whims, drives and desires? Should our spouses take the place of pornography by becoming as ready and willing to satisfy us as pornography? That sounds like objectifying to me.
This isn’t our spouse’s problem, though often times or spouses need to recover because of us. It is not acceptable to break another person to satisfy our selfish desires. We must admit that we may very well have no one else God to help us avoid temptation. And God is not likely to satisfy our lusts, nor excuse us to do the same for ourselves. Pornography has made us unworthy of our spouses. That’s on us. Be grateful you still have your spouse at all. Grateful enough to feel bad when you want to use them.
According to my Bible, my wife is God’s (only) provision for my sexual need, and therefore, it is not objectifying her. She loves me, so she is always happy to meet that need as with all the others I have (for food, company, love, etc.)
Of course, good sex should communicate love.
From a man trapped in a now 33 year sexless marriage to a wife (and Church) who could care less, thank God every day! Maybe even right “after”, aloud and with her present maybe too.
This issue is probably what will send me to hell. And I do not know what else to do or try. I haven’t ever been unfaithful “physically”, but the mental part is tough when days become weeks. Then months. And on and on unless I bring up abandonment. Again. Just enough grudging, duty sex to say that it isn’t “none”? That isn’t love.
Tired of even asking. Gave up hoping for some sort of normal sex life years ago.
About 3 months later, sometimes 6, but has been longer she might have need of me if I don’t press before then. And probably stupidly, I always make sure she goes first. And usually multiples to boot. Before myself, like I am “supposed” to. Then gets mad at me after because I didn’t “get this over with”?
The burning need.
The sleepless nights. The useless prayers.
The resentment.
And then the hatred.
What am I supposed to “learn” from this ordeal?
I read on another similar blog that married sex is supposed to be some sort of “earthly example” of how heaven is supposed to be or some such. Who in their right mind would want an ETERNITY of this?
I am struggling every miserable day with this question. For 33 years now. Grudging, lay there duty sex is not love.
But useless Church would have ZERO problem demonizing someone caught drowning their frustration in porn.
Gnostic idiots.
Lately I have been looking forward to the “’til death do us part” part. God have mercy on me.
Marriage isn’t living.
I also appreciate the fact that she doesn’t make porn use sound like a male issue. I’m not sure churches in general really realize that yet. When I’ve heard porn mentioned in a church setting it’s always something like, “Young men, you need to be careful what you’re looking at.” Maybe it hasn’t always been the case, but girls and women need the same warning!
I love the practicality of this post and the hope it offers.
Good stuff.
We all gotta keep shining lights on this cancer..
Its such a widespread addiction..
Peace
R
One thing that helped me was seeing the people as God’s creation, lost, abused, abusive, and needing Him. It broke me to see them as HUMANS and I found myself praying for them rather than getting aroused by them.
I am thankful that we as Christians are finally addressing the issue. I have been married for over 20 years and have struggled with porn since my early teen years. I have felt dirty and condemned in my sin and have tried to stop hundreds of times. Before my wife and I married we were both very open about our past struggles. She expected that because she was providing an outlet for sex that I would no longer struggle with porn. I also hoped that she would be enough. As any two humans living in a close relationship realize we are never able to fulfill all the longings or expectations that we place on the other. The only true way to be satisfied is to be submitted to God and let Him fill us up daily. My heart longed to be a Godly man for my wife and children and when I failed in that area porn was often an outlet. My wife ultimately became aware of the issue early on and then felt like she wasn’t enough for me when in fact she could never be enough and that only my relationship with Christ could fill that vacuum. We have been to many marriage seminars and also had Christian counseling several times. I have even shared my addiction with several pastors in my church. We recently met with a counselor on a cruise after we had reached a low point again. On that cruise, God placed many people in our path that had all had similar struggles and the result was a meeting with this counselor. She helped us both realize that we had not ever gotten to the root of the problem which for me was never loving myself. I had been bullied early on and often as a child. I also had a teacher in elementary school that was touching boys inappropriately. The shame of the act coupled with never feeling like I fit in or was enough caused me to look for an outlet. The devil took these destructive situations and caused me to become addicted to another shameful habit. This the ugly cycle of sin. I have learned that all sin keeps us apart from God but, that there is no sin that is greater than another. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells me that ” no temptation has overtaken me except what is common to man. But God is faithful that He will not let me be tempted beyond what I can bear. But when [not if] I am tempted He will also provide a way of escape so that I can endure.” We as Christians saved by grace not works need to realize that we are never being tempted by a new sin that God hasn’t already seen. The lies of the devil only try to tell us this to condemn us and keep us bound in that sin.
Such a great comment! I think finding the root of the problem is so key, and for so many people the root honestly is some form of brokenness (not just sin or something). The brokenness leads to sin. And until we address the brokenness, it will be very hard to break the power of the sin. So true!
Thankyou for the great practical tips. I especially like the ‘plan what to do instead’ idea, and I didn’t even know about the parable of the empty house, but it makes a lot of sense! This is something I can definitely apply in my life, even though I am not ‘addicted’ to ‘porn’, I have a similar issue with ‘happily ever after’ – it’s like instead of ‘perfect sexual connection’, my issue is with ‘perfect emotional connection’. This is in part due to ‘fairy tales, chick flicks, chick lit’ etc. I have in the past fallen into the comparison trap, and it has not been pretty! However, I am slowly learning to replace negative thought with positive ones, have stopped reading sappy romance novels (and now read christian blogs instead!) and am working on plans to stop myself from having contact with people or situations that leave me thinking ‘what if…?’
This has been a major struggle for me in the past, and has put massive strain on my marriage, but I am hoping (praying) that that’s changing now.
That’s really interesting, Eliza! How great that you’re taking proactive steps now to stop the thought patterns. That’s wonderful! That’s a lot of what I talk about in 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage, too. I wish you all the best!
I am thankful and glad that you are speaking out against porn! However, and I understand that you did caveat your comment, but I just want to point out that drinking a daily Diet Pepsi, no matter how deeply ritualized, is. not. addiction.
Addiction to porn, alcohol, drugs – those things literally ruin marriages, people, relationships and lives. They cause depression, physical health consequences, suicide, and death.
I have no doubt that breaking your habit was incredibly hard! But I also doubt that your habit of drinking Diet Pepsi threatened to ruin your marriage or your life.
While I take responsibility that it was my choice to start looking at porn, I started because of a spouse who refused sex. It was 100% up to her if and when we had sex. Many times I asked and her answer was “Is sex all you ever think about?” and she would walk away and do whatever was next on her never ending “list”. I felt like a dog begging for a bone. The more sex-starved I got, the more I turned to porn to satisfy the basic need of sexual release. While our sexual relationship has gotten much better and sex is more frequent, because her need for sex is low and she does not frequently realize my need for sex (“I just don’t think about it”), I am virtually always the requester and she the grantor, therefore, she is still in total control of if and when. To this day she has no knowledge of my porn use and I am still trying to break the habit. She has no real realization of what years of sexual refusal has done to my attitude about women and sex, and the constant anger and sadness that I have because we cannot have a fully open and carefree sexual relationship. I have talked to many other men who are in the exact same position, this is not an isolated situation. Women simply do not realize how important sex is to a man, both physically and psychologically. Want your husband to stay away from porn? Be generous with your sexual relationship.
Preach, brother, preach to the “preachers”!
My husband has an addiction to porn that he will freely admit to anyone. He does not see anything wrong with watching it and says that my problem with it is due to the way I was raised, and that it is just my family. I’m at the end of my rope with this and don’t know what to do. I have been battling this with him for 11 years. We have been married for 12.
I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My mother and sisters made it plain that they hated my father. (He had some fairly large faults.) I was the only other male in the family, and often heard that I was “just like my father”. So I grew up thinking that women don’t really like men. My mother was also puritanical, so I grew up thinking that women don’t really like sex, either. Therefore, I thought that sex was nasty and bad, and that we just about had to trick or force women to have sex. Not a healthy viewpoint.
I have been married nearly 40 years. My wife seems to enjoy sex and feels loved when we have sex, but my programming remains the same. When we have sex/make love, I always feel afterwards that I have been nasty to her and used her badly. So I always apologise. Several times. I feel guilty that I have treated the woman I love in a sexual way.
Therefore, taking care of my own physical needs while watching porn seems to be a way of stopping myself from treating her in that disgusting way – having sex with her. It’s like I’m being good to her by not making her deal with my sexual needs.
The whole thing ends up making porn seem the lesser of two evils.
I don’t know how to break this.
I was addicted to hardcore porn since age of 13. I decided to give up porn completely after the negative side effects were very obvious.
At age of 24 I found porn addiction recovery website which changed my world. I felt relieved that I wasn’t the only one struggling and I felt very hopeful about my future and recovery. It’s called gaveupporn.com and I recommend it to you if you struggle with porn. The guy that was helping me is called Max.
Because of my addiction to porn, I lost my girlfriend of 5 years, I started taking drugs, performed poorly at work, visited prostitutes and failed final year of University.
After 2 year battle I finally could say that I’m porn free. I still work on it though as I am a human and I have my bad days. I relapse once in 90 days on average, compared to 6 times a day. If I knew how to find a girl with whom I can have sex and not be lonely then I don’t think I’d even relapse and I’d be 100% healed.
I am nineteen and I believe my addiction comes from being alone. I know that I am still young but I feel very far behind girls my age. I have never had a boyfriend or a first kiss. I originally stumbled across pornography out of curiosity but from years of watching I feel that it is taking a toll on my spiritual well being. I have a good month and then I feel as if I’m on a rollercoaster back to watching. I know that God is merciful and will forgive if I ask and repent, but I feel a strain my connection with God because of the despicable acts that I watch. Thank you for this article, it caused me to reflect and pinpoint my feelings when I am most tempted and I pray that this will help me in the future.
I am currently 17 years old and i think I’ve been struggling with my addiction since i was about 12 or so. I feel like it started from some sexual abuse when i was younger. My mother didn’t have much money so she’d leave me with church friends and their children while she was at work. I remember being touched in places and kissed by a brother and sister or two brothers. As I’m remembering it now I feel disgusted but that’s what happened. They made me think it was just a ‘kissing game’ and everyone did it, but I think deep down I knew that wasn’t true. I literally got caught doing inappropriate things with a good childhood friend of mine (I knew I never wanted to be in that situation again).Then that stopped and i got another babysitter. I remember this one night she was asleep on the couch and i was falling asleep but this show on HBO popped up on the TV. It had naked women having sex with one another as like a business. I couldn’t believe it but i also couldn’t stop watching it. That was my first exposure to it. It first started off as just me watching it, I didn’t even know how to masturbate but then i learned and it seems that i can’t stop now.
I understand what trigger it: stress (from school) , insecurities, hatred, anger, annoyance, loneliness.
It’s so difficult to quite because in today’s generation (as was said in the video) pornography is all around us. ‘
I pray that God will give me the strength to resist temptation and become stronger because I really do want to be a better christian and person. I don’t want to feel like this anymore…it sucks.
If I’m lucky enough to become a wife someday I hope that this issue will be far past me and with my spouse as well. Hopefully we can talk about it with each other because i feel that pornography is an issue more than ever in todays world and the fact that more and more people struggle with it scares me. The fact that it is so easy to get access to stops people from actually forming real connections with others. It not only ruins relationships but stops them from happening.
Thank you again.
Oh, Anonymous, I wish I could give you a hug in real life and tell you that it’s okay! So many girls struggle with this, too, just like so many boys do, and when you get hooked when you’re young, it’s really very different than an adult deliberately turning to it for the first time. Like you said, you had some very bad experiences that scarred you.
I hope some of the pointers in this post help you, but I also want you to know that you are not alone. You can defeat this. Many, many have before you. May God be with you!