I have not arrived by any means, but I do love to write, and I do want to share some of the lessons I have learned in the road to recovery. I am not where I want to be, but Praise the Lord, I am not where I used to be.    All sex outside of marriage is sin and makes us a slave to it, so the solution to all of it is to fall in love with JESUS and bring your sins into the light and find a group of folks who will love you through the painful and long road to recovery.

Now as men, we like to fix things, so I hope that isn’t how this comes across. These are good summaries I feel and they reinforce the recovery in my mind, so I am really wanting to be a blessing and not just run my mouth through the keys.

I would say I learned some key lessons in the journey toward purity and there are parallels whether you struggle with porn or same sex attraction or adultery or fornication.

The forbidden fruit creates many jams.  I found my dad’s porn collection in 3rd grade and I was an addict with ever-escalating fantasy and corruption and perversion until God saved me at age 26 in 2001.  I wasn’t 100% delivered as I have relapsed far too often on this road, but learned lessons along the way.

One lesson might be this — monsters live in the dark. IF I had deep fantasies about something crazy that no one could comprehend, the desires would intensify the more isolated and alone I got.

I saw a secular study that noticed that active homosexual men who didn’t have any Christian influence and no reason or desire to repent of their ways experienced very little homosexual behavior when they were around straight heterosexual manly men, say in a college or a military setting. The idea was that this satisfied their need for male affirmation, etc and even from a secular study, they could conclude that homosexuality was more than just this sexual attraction.

I remember my porn usage when I was lost dropped dramatically the first few weeks I was in college – I was socially connected to people the first few weeks.  Then my roommates started drinking heavily and barked like dogs deep into the morning and I had early courses in pharmacy and they were taking courses like racketball, and soon I was feeling the rejection and moved out to a quiet room with 2 guys who kept to themselves.  And the porn returned quickly as I was now isolated and didn’t have a group to connect to.

The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection.

Biblically I am understanding things like this — When Adam SAW Eve, he immediately recognized OTHER, he saw her as a help mate. He didn’t see that in monkeys or apes or a giraffe or a tiger or a buffalo or any other animal. And let’s imagine Steve in the Garden too, Adam being right from the creator and complete apart from Eve, he wouldn’t see anything he needed in Steve either. EVE was a natural fit for him.

If he was instead addicted to porn, Eve would have been intimidating to him, and he would have been afraid of intimacy.  The fantasy and the picture would be more familiar to him and more appealing.   If he did fall for her, and give up the porn temporarily, it would still return later in marriage when things fell apart and it was less fearful to go back to the magazines than to relate to a real live woman.

So how does a same sex attraction happen?    You can be addicted to porn and / or have struggles with sexual identity.  It’s a mix of things but I believe whatever BEHAVIOR comes out of the WOUND is not the issue – it is the healing of that wound and bringing it to JESUS and to others- but part of it I think is we have that deep father wound, we rejected our father’s masculinity (or it was neglected) or don’t feel emotionally connected, we don’t feel we measure up as men, so either we try to fill it with porn or we can fill it with same sex fantasy or actual behavior — if we don’t measure up as men, we can see a real man (in our eyes) and that gives that OTHER feeling to us — now if you add abuse or porn where the forbidden stirs us (and in porn what seems boring is the normal missionary position MF sex) and then when we orgasm brain chemicals like Oxytocin cause us to bind to whatever we are focused on at (as it’s desinged to BIND husband and wife) and DOPAMINE causes pleasure and the brain wants whatever caused that to want more.

Porn and masturbation hijack our sexual chemistry and the forbidden seems to make those memories of fantasy stronger than when we are with our wives, which can reinforce the addictions.  It takes the brain a long time to renew the mind, so over time of not reaching back to bad behavior as well as learning how to deal with the problems in life that used to bring us back to the addictions PLUS learning how to replace your old identity with the new one – holding every thought captive – will be part of what will transform the mind, and heart, and then the behavior will follow.

Part of fixing things seems to bring this into the light — that does mean starting here meaning if you struggle with some forbidden sexual behavior send me a message and I will connect you to the right recovery group.  It would be I think helpful if you are a man for example, and you have any sexual struggles to get in a men’s group either on zoom or in a church where you can find acceptance for YOU and people who will love you when you mess up and LOVE you THROUGH the recovery process – it can be ugly because the bad sexual behavior, forbidden fantasy, Porn and Masturbation, etc will mask the pain and when we embrace recovery it can be ugly and the pain will seem crazy.

There are good resources here, I found a good website the other day called BlazingGRACE ministry, I like Pure Desire and the Conquer series for Porn addiction, I listen to the Pure Desire Podcast, and I like PureLife Ministry.   For same-sex issues, Living Hope Ministry is excellent.  None will have 100% of what we need and that keeps us looking to Jesus, but recovery seems to happen in commnuity, so it is also good to find a good bible preaching church PLUS some live weekly recovery group even if it’s on zoom, and guys you can call when tempted that  you can be honest with.

It is important to cut off any possible ties to the past – destroy phone numbers, change email addresses if needed, change your phone number if possible. ZERO contact with anyone who you were with sexually of either sex.  If Facebook, or other social media are  a source of temptation, cancel your account.  Cancel the cable, give your spouse the passwords for your internet.   Get an internet filter on your devices, like Covenant Eyes.

At some point when you start seeing victory and start to be in position to be the man God wants you to be, there will be a need to do a full disclosure to your pastor and to your wife – but that isn’t right now what you need to worry about. There are tools how to do that, but the key is intimacy and honesty and the idea is wives know something is off but they don’t know the details. I have seen some recovery men recommend after 6 months of sobriety then just tell your wives everything in one full disclosure.

You reading this began a very life-changing decision by reaching out and searching for this topic.  I say congrats. This is the beginning and this is not going to be easy, but you are walking in the light of being a real man of God and that takes courage and faith and it will be a real battle as the enemey sees someone who now is going to be a threat.

I am excited to see where God takes you.

After listening to a Podcast, I have found that 3 areas in my life – being passive-aggressive, isolation, and procrastination are really the ways sex addicts (which really beyond porn- same sex attraction and adultery are just sex addictions lived out differently but they are very similar) and very true in my own life- often live life. And the more those 3 areas get addressed and we replace them with biblical responses —

replacing isolation with community, a church community, real intimacy with our wives and children, not hiding from God because of Shame and embarrassment

replacing passive-aggressive holding in resentments and instead of having a thankful attitude and a forgiving spirit and being assertive with our needs and wants and establishing needed boundaries,

and tackling things that come up, having those hard conversations, facing the things we don’t want to face, dealing with stresses and finances and having hard conversations with our wives etc.

All that will engrain our identity as men. And learning who God says we are —

I am crucified with Christ.
I am a CHILD of God.
I am a NEW CREATURE.
I am bought with a price.
I am walking in the spirit and not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh.
I am born again.
I have the fruit of the spirit, love meekness selfcontrol.
I am not going to be tempted beyond what I can bear.
I am putting on the LORD JESUS Christ.
God understands my struggles.
I can trust JESUS with all my troubles.
God cares,
God is good all the time.
God is working on me.
I am the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
JESUS is the living water.

When I am stressed or angry or temped, I can deep breathe and think about the promises of God and I can know that He cares and I don’t have to act on the temptations.

When I call members of my group with problems and the stresses, I am understood and still loved and I don’t have to act out to deal with life.

I can be satisfied with my wife, with myself, and with JESUS.

And so you too can be too.

Praying for YOU, whatever you are struggling with.