“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

David Zailer is the Executive Director for Operation Integrity and author of the books Our Journey Home and When Lost Men Come Home (not for men only).

Connect with David:

Twitter: @opintegrity

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! Steve here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m on the line with David Zailer, executive director of Operation Integrity and author of Our Journey Home and When Lost Men Come Home. David, what’s the one piece of advice that you give to somebody struggling with porn addiction?

David: Well first of all I think it’s important to stop the flow. Our technology – our smartphones, our tablets, laptops – had become vodka bottles for most of us. I think it’s very important that we make our machines and make our technology safe. I personally use Covenant Eyes. I know that there’s a lot of programs out there that are set to deter us but I think it’s essential that the unbroken lead and the unbroken access to unfiltered pornography is cut off. Not to do that makes our machines – our laptops and our phones – makes it equivalent of a vodka bottle that an alcoholic is carrying in its vest pocket, promising himself he’s never going to drink it, and we all realize that’s silly. It doesn’t make sense. That man needs to get rid of that vodka bottle. I think it’s very important to people who’s struggling with porn or sex addiction – stop the free, unmitigated access. That’s the first step. If I had to say one thing, that would certainly be the starting point. Problem there, and this is also a part of that piece, is that people need to get into a group. They need to get in a relationship where they have the opportunity and the environment with which they can start talking honestly about themselves, about their struggle, and where they also can find connected with other people who are honestly sharing about their lives as well. You asked me for one thing, I gave you two, but those to me are basic fundamental non-negotiable essentials.

Steve:  Great! Yeah, and I would agree with giving those together because they really are two sides of the same coin. And that’s why I love software, like you mentioned Covenant Eyes. I know X-ray Watch does the same thing. It’s not just filtering. It’s accountability. And so the software not only helps you block the income of the inappropriate material but it also sets you up with somebody that’s going to be checking in on you and saying “oh I saw you were clicking around here. What’s going on?” It really opens that door to accountability as well.

David: I think the term accountability, especially in a cryptic culture, has become somewhat of a meaningless buzzword. Accountability starts with relationship. It starts with relationships that offer encouragement, and they had credibility. Here’s my smart phone. My board of directors gets my Covenant Eyes report. I’m not alone. I know whenever I’m accessing my email or I’m going online or anything, same thing with my tablet, same thing with my laptop, essentially my board or directors are there with me. My board of directors obviously are accountable because they’re all good dear friends of mine. I know, and I think this is the core essential about accountability, accountability if it’s just about not getting caught, you will find a way around it. The relationship behind accountability it is one of support, it’s one of encouragement. It’s like these people are not here to catch me. They’re here to support me. They’re not here to rebuke me or straighten me out. They’re here to love me and to guide me and to prevent a fall or if I do fall, to keep it from falling further. When we talk about accountability, I think those are important things to talk about, because if it’s just about getting caught, then we’re going to start manipulating and finding a way around it.

Steve: Yeah. Covering up so we don’t get caught. Thanks for sharing that, David. Tell people where they can find out more about you and your books and ministry and all that.

David: I have two books on the market. When Lost Men Come Home, not for men only. That’s the book that addresses sexual addiction and recovery from sexual and porn addiction. Amazon, any major book sellers, it’s available there. My other book’s Our Journey Home. That is one speaks to all different kinds of dynamics about addiction. It’s a 12-step big platform. It’s often used in small groups or devotional tools when they’re counseling a therapeutic application. It’s also available on Amazon and book sellers as well. People can reach me through operationintegrity.org. That’s the website. They can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

Steve:  Okay. Thanks again for your time and keep up the good work. Thanks, David.

David: Thank you, Stephen, and thank you for your great work. I’m glad to get to know you.

Steve: Yeah no problem. You too. See you.

“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.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Craig Gross is the founder and director of xxxChurch.com, and the author of multiple books including Touchy Subjects, Open, and Go Small.

Connect with Craig:

Blog: www.craiggross.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/craiggross

Twitter: @craiggross

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! Steve here from Belt of Truth Ministries, and I got Craig Gross on the line. He’s the founder of xxxChurch.com. And Craig, thanks for joining us for the One Thing series. So I’m going to ask you the same question I’m asking everybody on this series, and that’s “What’s the one piece of advice that you would give to anybody struggling with pornography or sexual addiction?”

Craig: One thing. It’s probably the most common thing that we come across. Most people have never told anybody that they struggle with this. So we found that lot of people will tell us. They’ll write into us, they’ll post a story on our website, which is all good, but I’m talking about telling somebody close to you; not a stranger, not xxxChurch, not Stephen. The first step is to find somebody close to you – your spouse, your best friend, your pastor – somebody close to you that cares enough about you to keep the conversation going. That’s going to be key, I think. It’s not going to solve all your problems but it’s going to be a great starting point. That’s why we created X3watch, not because we’re software geeks, but could we create something that would enable conversation amongst people. That’s what it’s all about. That’s my one thing.

Steve: Cool, thanks Craig.

Craig: Yeah, thanks man.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Paul Robinson is an x3groups Zone Leader and xxxChurch.com blogger.

Connect with Paul:

Blog: www.paulrobinsonwrites.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulrobinsonwrites

Twitter: @paulrobinson33

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! I’m here with Paul Robinson. He’s an x3groups Zone Leader and a blogger over at xxxChurch.com. And Paul what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to somebody struggling with pornography addiction?

Paul: That’s a really good question. I think there’s lots and lots of things you can do if you’re addicted to porn. I think it’s really probably a combination of different things, but I think the one thing, and I’m speaking a lot from experience here myself that’s really helped me, is just being able to get to the kind of the root of the issue behind addiction, something like…stuff like accountability, stuff like that is really helpful for me. But I think ultimately what really bought me to freedom was kind of understanding the stuff from my past all the way to my present where it was kind of shaping how I saw myself, how I saw other people, and ultimately why that led me to look at porn and become addicted. I think my piece of advice would be to find people who are experienced with dealing with that kind of stuff, professionals who are experts of that and really help us kind of unpack a lot of that stuff most of us deal with from day-to-day. I think that takes a lot of time, a lot of effort. It’s not an easy fix, by any means. But I think it’s one of those things that when we do it right, when we do it well enough and commit to it, a real freedom is found.

Steve: Cool! Thanks for sharing that advice. Tell people where they can find you online.

Paul: Yeah. You can find me at my blog, which is paulrobinsonwrites.com and my Twitter handle is @paulrobinson33. Those are probably the best venues to find me.

Steve: Okay. Well thanks for your time. Thanks for sharing that with the audience here and good luck with your ministry.

Paul: Yeah no problem. Thanks Stephen.

Steve: Thank you.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Michael John Cusick is the founder and president of Restoring the Soul, and author of one of my favorite books on recovery, “Surfing for God.”

Connect with Michael:

http://restoringthesoul.com

Twitter: @michaeljcusick

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MichaelJohnCusick

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! Steve Kuhn here with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m excited to have Michael John Cusick on the line. Michael’s the founder and president of Restoring the Soul and author of one of my favorite books on recovery, Surfing for God. When I was halfway done writing my book, I came across Michael’s and for a second there I thought “hey I don’t have to write my book now because Michael’s already said everything that need to be said.” It’s a great book. I highly recommend it. With that foundation set, as you can probably tell I’m pretty excited to be on the line here and to ask you the question Michael, what’s the one piece of advice that you would give to someone struggling with porn addiction?

Michael: Other than read your book because you wrote your book in your own unique voice and even though we both have a passion for the heart and getting down to the heart of the issue, your voice is an important voice in all the books that are out there, so I’m glad that you wrote it. The one piece of advice is really what this problem is not about. It’s not do this or don’t do that, but rather it’s a way of thinking about how to frame the problem. To the one thing is that struggles with lust and pornography and sexual addiction and acting out sexually, habitual sexual sin and enslavement, they’re simply not about sex. As I say that in a number of ways and I’ve said that for 20 years all over the world, I’m always surprised to how surprise guys are by that idea that it’s not about sex. Really? What that means is it’s not about the physical release or the orgasm, it’s not about the size of the woman’s body parts or how hot she is, or it’s not about the new image that you capture. It’s really about something deeper. It’s about a deep spiritual hunger. The first thing is I’d want to point guys to Proverbs 27:7 where it says…I memorized this a long time ago but I’m going to use my cheat sheet and I’ll tell you that upfront as opposed to trying not to look; “he who is full loads honey but to one who is hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet.” This has everything to do with deep hunger and desire in our heart and that desire is not unholy or bad, rather it’s just desire. It’s just is. It’s the engine that drives our heart for God. It’s what we do with that desire.

The second thing is that with that deep hunger in our heart, God created us for connection and for attachment. And when we take our desire to connect, our desire for intimacy, our desire for attention, affection, affirmation, all that good stuff, when we take that desire to something or some person or some substance or an image, like pornography, and we give our heart to it, we attach to it. And the reason for that is God made us that way. So attachments to God and all of his good gifts are things that we’re meant to experience. But when it’s something that’s not God and one of his good gifts, i.e. something that is bitter even though it tastes sweet because we’re hungry, what happens is we become attached to it and then we can’t break free. And there are emotional and psychological attachments. There are neurological attachments. And there are, as you know because you emphasize warfare a lot as I did in my book, there are spiritual attachments and strongholds. And to undo those, we don’t try to undo those attachments and satisfy that deep hunger by trying harder, but we ultimately need to learn to rest in Christ. I think both the hardest commandment in the bible to obey and the one that’s most relevant for recovery from sexual sin is Psalm 46:10, “be still and know that I’m God.” For me that’s actually the hardest commandment to obey. I’ll often ask men “what’s the hardest commandment for you to obey?” And if you’re in a conversation with guys about sexual struggle and sexual sin, it always comes up “don’t look at a woman lustfully” or it’s one of the passages in the vice list in Paul’s writings or something. And people need to think outside of the passages about sex and to this deeper hunger.

It’s not about sex. It is about a deeper hunger. It’s about attachments at the soul level where our desires get misdirected. What then it needs to become about is about learning to rest deeply in Christ where we’re actually beginning to feed our soul from the tree of life and not just at the tree of knowledge, of good and evil.

And then finally to connect with other men in community. I know that’s 4 separate things. It’s about hunger. It’s about soul attachments, that we need to learn to rest in Christ and that we need to be connected with other men in community, but those are all A, B, C, and D under the #1 thing of it’s not about sex.

Steve: I think that’s excellent advice. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Michael.

Michael: My pleasure.

Steve: Tell people where they can find out more about you and your books and ministry and all that.

Michael: My ministry website is restoringthesoul.com. It’s soul not sole. That’s a shoe repair shop; restoringthesoul.com and then michaeljohncusick.com. You can find out about our resources, our programs, etc. at either of those websites.

Steve: Okay. And we’ll be sure to have all those links in the show notes below. Thanks again for your time, Michael. Thank you for your ministry. I know your book has been very helpful in my life and I know in a lot of other lives as well. Thank you again for that and for your time.

Michael: You’re welcome. Thank you. Take care Stephen.

Steve: See you Michael.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Carl Thomas is the Outreach Pastor, X3groups Network Director, and site manager for xxxchurch.com.

Connect with Carl:

Twitter: @carl_t

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Stephen: Hey guys! This is Stephen Kuhn with Belt of Truth Ministries. I’ve got Carl Thomas on the line. Carl is the Outreach Pastor and Network Director for X3groups. Carl, I just wanted to ask your real quick, what’s the one piece of advice you would give to somebody struggling with pornography addiction?

Carl: There’s so many different things out there, so I wouldn’t say this is like the most important thing because I don’t know if there is one single important thing, but u would say that the one thing I would highly recommend is community, which is just a churchy term for having a group, having a team, having a tribe. I think that’s super important. Pornography addiction is one of those things that’s tremendously isolating. I know when I dealt with it; it was not something you want to share with people. Obviously it could get a little awkward at times. Pornography traps you into this belief that you’re all by yourself and you’re not. We run a small group recovery program online through XXXChurch. I’ve led these groups for like 2 years. Not only do I run the program but I lead a group. The change I’ve seen in some of the guys in these groups has been amazing, and I honestly think for some of those guys, that was like the missing component in their life. They had the individual accountability. They had filtering. They had all these different things. They have read the books. They’ve done the workshops. But one thing they never did was open up to a group. They just kept it all bottled up inside and maybe only shared it with like 1 or 2 really close friends. It’s something really freeing in being able to have a group or a tribe that supports you. There’s a ton of benefits a community. There’s group accountability for one versus individual accountability. It’s kind of like “I’m not just doing this for me. I’m doing it for my team,” which is not something we tell people. We don’t say “hey may, when you join our group, don’t you look at porn because you’re going to let us down.” We don’t tell them that, but it’s one of these things where people just naturally, like I’ve had guys come on and say “this week I struggled a little bit” but then what happen they develop this team mentality. The encouragement’s huge because let’s be honest – porn is one of those really shame-ridden addictions. We are always kicking all our own asses all the time. Can I say that?

Stephen: Oh yeah.

Carl: Okay. But I mean we’re always getting our teeth kicked in, whether it’s by sometimes our spouse or whatever. But honestly, some of the people that are hardest on us are ourselves. We don’t give ourselves any grace. It’s good to hear from somebody else other than your buddy who you say “you’re my buddy. What else are you going to say?” That “hey man, this doesn’t define you. You’re still a good person. You’re still okay.” This is something we got to get rid off but it doesn’t lessen who you are. That’s not your identity. And also obviously the support is huge because there’s going to be those times where you really need it. You can learn from your peers. Sometimes you’ll see guys in group, they’ll hear from somebody else like “I never really thought of that” something simple like in Twitter because they see an image and then someone else in the group says “I just got rid of Twitter and it’s been better” and they go “oh I never really thought of that.” Like really stupid, simple things, but you’d be surprise. Some people need to hear it from somebody else where they say again. You’re decompressing these things. You get a chance to just kind of be you. One of the things about porn is like, at least what we tell people, is a lot of it has to do with the fact that we’re trying to be something we’re not and we’re trying to meet people’s expectations so we get all stressed out and that drives us to use porn sometimes because we’re trying to release the stress from trying to be somebody who we’re not. But in these groups, you can just be you. In my pastor’s group, when I get a new guy come in, I tell him. I say “hey man, I know this is a group for pastors, but please do me a favor – forget you’re a freaking pastor. I don’t want to hear any pastor-y talk. I don’t want to hear any church lingo. If your day was crap…” I actually would say if your day was shit, well whatever. I said “don’t put the pastor’s spin on it. Just be real. We’re not going to judge you.” For these guys, especially pastors, that’s huge. They’re like “wow! This is the only place I know where I can just be me.

I think community is super important for all those reasons and more. It’s biblical too. Ecclesiastes 4 it says, this is a really awful paraphrase. This is not like seminary-approved by any stretch of the imagination, but it basically says the guys who falls by himself, he’s in bad shape. But the guy that has a brother has someone to pick him up. That’s huge. It’s like I’m not in this by myself, so when I have a bad day, I got brothers I can fall back on who are going to help me out of this. I’m not stranded. For me that’s huge and I think that’s something that is honestly missing for a lot of people and a lot of people’s lives because it’s like that last thing. They get the accountability, but the hardest thing for a lot of guys to do is just step out and get into a community and just say “hey man, here it is. This is who I am. This is where I am and this is where I want to be.

Stephen: That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that, Carl. Tell people where they can find you online.

Carl: X3groups is actually a part of XXXChurch Ministry, so best thing to do is go to XXXChurch.com. We have plenty of resources on there for men, women, spouses, parents, couples, everything from not only just to help with porn addiction or porn addiction recovery, but also like parenting, keeping the kids off porn, better marriages. We just released the course called Best Sex Life Now, which just help married couples find out what really great sex is supposed to look like. But X3groups, like I said that’s our small group recovery program. It’s a monthly thing. You meet every week though via video chat, kind of like right there at x3groups.com. That’s the website for that to sign up.

Stephen: Awesome. Thanks again, Carl. I appreciate your time and love what you’re doing. Keep up the good work.

Carl: Thanks man, appreciate it.

Stephen: Alright, see you later.

Carl: See you.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Russ Shaw is the host of the ASI247: Attitudes of Sexual Integrity podcast.

Connect with Russ:

Twitter:  @russshaw

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! Steve with Belt of Truth Ministries here. I’m here with Russ Shaw of the ASI247 podcast. We just got done recording an interview, and I figured I’ll let you guys kind of behind the scenes and see where the magic happens.

Russ: That’s right.

Steve: This is Russ’ basement. Right behind us is his old laptop.

Russ: Most of the podcast were made right here on this monstrosity.

Steve: Nice.

Russ: That’s right, right there.

Steve: Russ, you are my first interview on video.

Russ: Nice. I’m honored and humbled, of course.

Steve: I’ve got one question for you. If you guys have seen City Slickers, Curly has got the one thing. My question for you, Russ, is what’s your one thing, if you can share one thing with guys that are struggling with pornography addiction, what would you say?

Russ: I think the biggest thing, the one thing if I had one thing to say, and I come from a jacked up background – alcohol, drugs. I had my chemical romances before the pornography thing. Actually that was there too. I come from not the most churchy background. I guess I’ll use that term. I would say the biggest one thing when it comes to taking this thing on is – is God good? Asking that question is powerful. Is God good? Who are you? Are you a good creation? That’s something that Paul Young asked me and I think that’s powerful too, but really for me the one thing is – is God good? Because we want us to think about pornography as like God’s destroying our fun. Right? Like this is a fun thing. What’s wrong with looking at naked…desires aren’t bad. Right? Stuff like that. God created our sexual desire. God created us. He made that, but we can mess them up and the bible isn’t out to destroy all our fun. Is God good? A question that’s something that you’re going to have to intimately answer with your creator. It’s powerful. It’ll light you up. I challenge you to ask that with your life and with passion and without BS and being honest and not having the right answer about it but asking it diligently to your Creator because He is real and He is personal and He’s not distant. You don’t have to force your prayer life because the Holy Spirit is right there with you all the time, and that’s true. And I hope that helps.

Steve: Alright. Is God good? Ask yourself guys. Thanks Russ.

Russ: Thanks Steve.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Pastor Bob Beeman has been on the cutting edge of Christian music for over 40 years. Since opening Sanctuary International in 1985, his focus has been on pioneering Christian Heavy Metal as a ministry. His dedication to discipleship and mentoring have spawned countless metal ministries and festivals worldwide. Pastor Bob travels and speaks internationally, is an avid podcaster, and is the host of the popular “Pastor Bob DAILY!” on YouTube.

Pastor Bob recently published his first book, Seriously?! Letters to Myself at 21.

Connect with Pastor Bob

Home Page: http://PastorBobBeeman.com

YouTube: http://youtube.com/PastorBobBeeman

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PastorBob

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PastorBobBeeman

Instagram: http://instagram.com/PastorBobBeeman

Spotify: PastorBobBeeman

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Steve: Hey guys! Steve here from Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m standing here with Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob, I’ve got a question for you, same question I’m asking a bunch of guys, but if you could give one piece of advice to  guy that’s struggling with pornography or sexual addiction, what would you say?

Pastor Bob: That’s easy. A lot of times the advice that we give is to surround yourself with a lot of accountability. I don’t know about you Steve, but accountability has never worked perfectly for me personally. I can always find a way around it. I think the first thing that I need to do is to find out what it’s going to take for me to be honest and true to myself. And for me to say that this isn’t going to be a problem in the future is to be dishonest to me. I realized that God created me with sexual desire. It’s always going to be there. I’m always going to struggle with it. The bible tells us that it’s a gift, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, especially when it comes to porn and some of those things that there really aren’t so much sexuality and are little more addictive. I’ve always found that the thing that works for me the most, and I have to be honest I’ve never been addicted to pornography, not that it doesn’t look attractive, but the thing that helps me the most is what I call fighting the battle before the battle. If I am honest with myself and I say I realize that this is something, when I encounter it, that’s going to be difficult for me. I need to already have a battle plan in mind. And that battle plan is what am I going to do and how am I going to react? The bible says to flee those things that are not good for me and the Greek word there is run away as fast as you can. What am I going to do that’s going to give me those kinds of legs to run as fast as I can, and honestly it’s to be prepared for it and to know exactly what I need to do when the situation occurs. I think sometimes, Steve, we have this idea that when we’re finished fighting a particular battle that the battle is not going to happen anymore, that we’re going to get to this place where we just don’t struggle. And especially when we get through with struggle, we feel like “wow that’s great. That’s over.” And that’s the biggest lie that we can tell ourselves. The truth is we’re always going to struggle. It’s always going to be a difficult time, and if I don’t have a plan in place, then I’m going to fall.

Let’s talk about that plan for a minute. When I say fight the battle before the battle, I mean I need to plan for the battle when it happens, and so that what I do at that point becomes automatic. When I’m working on my computer and all of a sudden one of those pages comes up that leads to a porn site or I’m driving down the road and billboards these days, it’s amazing what you can get away with on a billboard, and those things are attractive to us sexually. What do I do when I encounter that? How do I react when that comes up on my computer? The first thing, if I program myself, is that I turn it off quickly. The second thing, if I can’t do that, I shut it down and walk away quickly. I realize that I have to have a response at the point where it’s a problem, as quickly as I can and as automatically as I can. You know Steve, for me, that’s been the greatest thing, is to fight the battle before the battle because when the battle comes, I’m ready for it and I’m ready to run with it and I’m ready to go another direction. For me that’s been very successful.

Steve: Thanks for sharing that, Pastor Bob. That’s a great advice and I appreciate you taking the time to share it with us. Thanks.

Pastor Bob: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”

Luke Norsworthy is the pastor of Venture Community Church and host of the Newsworthy with Norsworthy podcast.

Connect with Luke

Website: lukenorsworthy.com

Twitter:  @lukenorsworthy

Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.

Transcript:

Stephen: Hey guys. I’m here with Luke Norsworthy. He’s the pastor of Venture Community Church and host with The Newsworthy with Norsworthy podcast. So Luke, thanks for joining us today. I’m going to go ahead and ask you the question I’ve been asking everybody, and that’s what’s the one piece of advice you would give to someone struggling with porn addiction.

Luke: First of all thank you for having me on the show. Do you call it the show? The interview? The website?

Stephen: The web series, yeah I don’t know.

Luke: The web series, whatever this is. I appreciate the invitation. I don’t pretend to be the expert on the subject but I will give you my two cents. There was a book that came out a little while ago by an author named Charles Duhigg. He actually won a Pulitzer Price for some of the other stuff that he’s been working on, but he wrote a book entitled The Power of Habits. And his basic points is like we’re all really just this culmination of the habits that we have. And he kind of breaks down habits into three steps. First is the cue, then the behavior, and then the reward. For example, about a year ago, I kind of realize that every night I put my girls to bed, lay down on the couch, turn the TV on and then I would start eating cookies and ice cream. And that’s not like a long-term positive solution to have for what you’re going to do every night. And so I realized “okay, this is a bad habit I got stuck into.” And then as I broke it down using Duhigg’s model, so the cue is the exhaustion, the fatigue. And then the behavior comes along of ice cream and cookies and then the reward, of course, is eating the cookies and the ice cream. But the question you have to ask behind that is what’s the cue that’s sparking this behavior. What’s behind it that’s causing the behavior to take place and we obviously can figure out what the reward is.

And so I think that’s like the first step. If I’m going to give you one piece of advice for anyone struggling with abusing anything, whether it’s porn, sex, alcohol, you have to ask what’s the question behind the question. What’s the issue behind the issue? Often you’re dealing with isolation, you’re dealing with loneliness, boredom, stress, worry, fear. Whatever that is, that cue that’s sparking you to go to this behavior, you got to ask. How can I befriend that? How can I become better friends with my fear? How can I become better friends with my boredom? And start to do that. And that’s where I’d start.

In doing that, what I would want to do and this is where I think the Christian thing comes in, is start wondering what does God say about that. And I think behind all of those things is ultimately the thought that I am not accepted for this. I am not accepted to be a man who is fearful. I am not accepted to be a man who gets stressed or lonely or bored. And I think what everyone needs to hear is what Jesus heard before he did anything in His ministry, before He feeds anyone, before He walks in any water, before He raises anyone from the dead, His father tells him “this is my son, with whom I’m well pleased.” And I will start with that. Hear the voice of God that says in your boredom, in your fear, in your stress you are loved. Because this isn’t doing something good from you. It’s often coming out of a place of shame and guilt and fear. And you get in these nasty cycles and these nasty habits that can do some serious damage for you. And so I think you would start listening to what God says about you, not what those voices say.

When I was just about to get married some 13 years ago, a neighbor found out that I was just about to get married. This was an older gentleman. I think he had some, maybe some mental handicap of some sort. And so he walks over to my house and he says “hey Luke I hear you’re about to get married.” I said “yeah, I’m very excited. 2 months from now I’m getting married.” And he goes “I got you something.” He pulls out from behind his back like this old pornographic magazine and he goes “I thought this might help you.” I’m like “I appreciate the gesture but I really don’t think that’s helping you.” And I think most of us realize it’s not helping us, whatever sort of abuse that we’re doing to our sexuality. It’s undoing something that we are created to have as a pure, beautiful thing. And I think the way that you deal with that is you ask what’s the issue behind the issue, and that’s where I think you can start. And then you bring accountability and bring you maybe a counselor or someone else who can help you with that but you got to figure out what’s the issue behind the issue.

Stephen: Yeah. I think that’s wonderful advice. Thanks for sharing that with us, Luke. Tell people where they can find out more about you and your ministry.

Luke: Well my Twitter handle is @lukenorsworthy, which is also my website, lukenorsworthy.com. You can check out more stuff there. And I’m on iTunes as well. So Twitter, my website, iTunes, all that.

Stephen: Okay. Yeah guys, all the links to that stuff will be in the show notes. And definitely check out Luke’s podcast. I’ve listened to a couple of episodes now and it’s been great. Luke, thanks for joining us and good luck in your ministry.

Luke: Thanks Stephen. Appreciate it man.

Stephen: See you.