“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”
Shellie R. Warren is a Writer/Author/Marriage Life Coach/Doula and an all-around awesome lady. She doesn’t do social media by design, so the best way to get ahold of her is through email.
Connect with Shellie:
Email: missnosipho@gmail.com
Blog: “On Fire” Fast Movement
Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.
Transcript:
Steve: Hey guys! I’m here with Shellie R. Warren. Shellie is a writer, author, marriage life coach, doula…Shellie, you kind of do it all, don’t you?
Shellie: Kind of.
Steve: Well thanks for joining us here at Belt of Truth. I’m going to ask you the same question I’ve been asking a bunch of folks, and that’s what’s the one piece of advice you would give to someone struggling with porn addiction?
Shellie: One piece, wow! I think the greatest piece of information I would give is to admit that you have it and not feel bad that you do. When I do a lot of counseling, one of the things I tell people often is we’re all addicted to something. A lot of times we don’t want to admit that. But whether it’s social media or television or relationships or food or shopping or sex or porn, I think a lot of times we stigmatize things like being addicted to alcohol is a lot worse than being addicted to shopping. I mean it depends on your financial state versus your mental state. To me, when you have a porn addiction, I’m not looking at you as any worse or better. That’s just the thing that you’re struggling with. That will be my first piece of advice, admit that you have it. Then the second piece, I guess we’re going to go like through steps, the second piece would then admit to someone safe that you have it. And I think that’s one of the key things, someone safe. One of my favorite quotes is “complain to someone who can help you.” That’s the truth. A lot of times we end up feeling burdened or stressed or condemned, self condemned, because we go to the wrong person. We either go to someone who is not equipped to address the issue or someone who’s bailing the issue so they take their judgment out on us or someone who’s scared of the issue. So who would be safe? I guess that would be the question. Hopefully, prayerfully, your pastor’s safe. If not your pastor, someone you respect in spiritual leadership. If not that, if you know a counselor, a therapist, that’s awesome. If not that, your best friend if your best friend’s not currently going through it because you need someone who can help you out, not really someone that you’re kind of throwing up on with each other. The thirds step, I think if you’re married, with the help of whoever you talk to, you should tell your spouse as soon as possible. It’s scary to think that, but as a marriage life coach, one thing I realize is we keep forgetting that you’re supposed to be married to like your best friend. I think we’ve lost sight of that but they really are supposed to be the closest person to you. So the closest person to you should know, not so they can look down on you but so you can feel supported. And then the fourth thing I would say is pay real close attention to your triggers. I think a lot of people miss that too. So whenever I’m counseling single women or I’m public speaking to single women about how to stay sexually pure, I’m like a lot of times we’re not realistic, like when you’re ovulating you probably shouldn’t go to your boyfriend’s house at midnight. It’s not Satan. They’re what we call hormones. The same way with be with porn. As you’re facing your triggers…like I was never a porn addict but I used to watch it. People are going to be like “are you in denial? You’re an addict.” No, I’ve met addicts but I definitely knew triggers and my trigger was stress. If I’m financially stressed, if I’m emotionally stressed, I will go and look at porn so I don’t have to think about it. If you know what your triggers are, it can help to work you out because you start substituting the triggers. That was more than one piece of advice, wasn’t it Steve?
Steve: We’ll consider them all hyphenated into one mega piece of advice.
Shellie: And then I guess my fifth one and then I’ll stop there. I think the fifth piece of advice would be to take it one day at a time, and the fifth day piece could’ve been the first. I am now eight years without sex. When I started the journey, I was like “yeah we’re going to take this one day at a time.” And honestly I think that’s the only way I made it eight years, because if I had started year one and said I’m going to go eight years, there’s no way that would happen. But I think if you put so much pressure on yourself like “I’m never going to watch porn again.” You probably are. But if you say “today I’m going to do my best not to watch it.” Then you tend to make it through the day and then you realize the days are week and weeks are month, and celebrate each day too. Every day that you don’t watch it, it should be a day that you need to be celebrated. That’d be my two cents. Was that good?
Steve: That’s great. Yeah. Thanks for sharing your one/five things.
Shellie: Sorry, Stephen.
Steve: No, it’s perfect. I love it. Shelly, tell people where they can find out more about your ministry.
Shellie: I’m not on social media by design, but I do have a blog for single women who desire to be married, and it’s onfirefastmovement.blogspot.com or you can find me on XXX Church, or you can email me missnosipho@gmail.com. That’s it.
Steve: Okay. Yeah we’ll be sure to put all that in the show notes to make it easy for folks. Shellie, thanks again for your time and I really appreciate it.
Shellie: I appreciate it. Thank you, Stephen.
Steve: Okay, see you later.
Shellie: Bye.
