How God delivered me from porn and perversion

Eleven years ago today, I was at Sandburg Middle School in Glendora, California, eating lunch with six friends. We were sitting there talking when someone brought up the Kardashians. I had never heard of them so I just listened. Eventually, the conversation shifted to Kim Kardashian’s sex tape and porn. They were cracking jokes and using names and terms I had never heard of before.

My dad eventually picked me up and we arrived home. I closed my door and sat on my bed for about 10 minutes contemplating whether I should just watch a video. I went onto my Kindle Fire and searched “porn.”  To keep a long story short, I watched 13 videos that day. Over the next seven years, I viewed anywhere from half a million to a million pornos.

For full disclosure, aside from illegal content, I viewed every single genre of porn out there. It eventually got to the point where instead of sleeping six or seven hours, I slept for two or three and viewed porn and masturbated for four or five hours a night. My addiction and perversion ran incredibly deep.

Here is a summary of how God rescued me from the dark pits of pornography and perversion. But more importantly here is how God can deliver you from whatever addiction or problem you might be battling.

1.Admit you have a problem

One night, about five years in, my phone was extremely hot from watching videos. My phone died and I plugged it in. I went to the restroom and closed the door. God spoke to me and said, “Son, what are you doing?” Immediately, I began to cry uncontrollably and I became so overwhelmed with an intense wave of negative emotions. I have no clue how long I sat on the bathroom floor, but eventually, I pulled myself up, looked in the mirror, and told my reflection “You have a problem.”

My descent into further darkness and perversion immediately halted. While it may sound like a cliche, it is 100% true: “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.” I’m not saying you have to have a moment like I did in the bathroom that night, but when you tell yourself that you have a problem, your path to recovery is already beginning.

2. Take responsibility for being an addict

After I admitted that I had a problem, I had to point the finger at myself. No one else was responsible for the state that I was in. I didn’t blame the Kardashians, my friends, the porn sites, or the porn stars. I was the one who decided to walk down this twisted and dark road.

You cannot begin to recover if you blame everyone and everything else for your problem. Don’t get angry at McDonald’s for your obesity. Don’t hold a grudge against Jack Daniels for your alcoholism. Cursing at Marlboro for your cigarette addiction isn’t doing anything.

Passing the buck actually only weakens you and strengthens your addiction. When you take responsibility for where you are in life, you’ve now taken the next step to recovery.

3. Surrender the problem to God

There is nothing wrong with long and eloquent prayers. But sometimes you don’t have time for that kind of prayer. The shortest prayer in the Bible takes place in Matthew 14. Peter is walking on water and he begins to sink. The only words he can get out are: “Lord, save me.”

The only thing I could tell God in that bathroom was “God, help me.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say at that moment, but immediately something changed. I realized that the pit I had put myself in had now swallowed me and I couldn’t get out of it by myself. So I surrendered the issue to Him and He led me out of the addiction.

While I mentioned that the first step is admitting to a problem’s existence, that isn’t enough. It can be easy to say that you can handle this giant issue. But that clearly isn’t the case, because this problem wouldn’t exist if you could control it. Step aside and surrender the issue that is plaguing you to God.

4.  Fill your time with more productive things

It is true that “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” Time is always spent doing something, whether that is sleeping, walking, working or some other activity. Most of my time watching porn, I was at home in my room at night. So when those cravings spiked for me, it wasn’t enough to repeat “Don’t watch porn” over and over in my head. I had to fill that time with some activity.

So, I would aim to fill that time with journaling, researching, reading or playing some NBA 2K. While I would love to say that early on in my recovery I was reading my Bible or praying a lot, I wasn’t.

Eventually, as more time passed, I began to read and study the Bible more often and I also talked more with God and drew closer to Him.

But it is essential that you do not allow your time to be empty. You will spend that time falling back into your old habit that you are trying to escape. Find something else that you enjoy doing and do more of that.

5. Relapse, repent and reassess

I wish I could tell you that I could quit cold turkey but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Relapsing was part of the process for me. I also had to reassess the situation and after reassessing I would repent. If I relapsed, I would have to stop my moping and look at the reason why I fell back into my old habit. Was I bored? Did I spend too much time on social media and give in to the thoughts that I was thinking? Was I simply unable to fall asleep? After I analyzed the problem, I would adjust my plan. Then I would repent.

Remember, relapse isn’t the end of the world. God is not going to turn you into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife or give you hemorrhoids as He did with the Philistines. Don’t let Satan whisper lies into your ears. God doesn’t hate you. You are not going to Hell because of this specific issue. As your Heavenly Father, He loves you more than you can even imagine and He knows you better than you know yourself. The prophet Jeremiah tells us in Lamentations 3 that His mercies are new every single morning. Proverbs 24:16 teaches us as Christians to not get too down on ourselves if we mess up.

I don’t care what you are addicted to or how long you have been addicted, because God is bigger than your situation. If you are a Christian, surrendering your issue to your Heavenly Father, this not only will bring you out of your struggle, but it will bring you closer to God. If you are not a Christian and are battling an addiction, accepting Jesus as your personal Savior will be the best decision you ever make, and your battle to overcome the addiction will be far easier.