“Everyone needs to write their stronghold down on a piece of paper and give it to your accountability partner.”
My blood started to boil, and I set my jaw. Never before had I been more aware of my rights. You can’t make me do this, I thought. You can’t make me tell you anything. I looked up, conflicted, tears welling in my eyes. “Do I have to?” She seemed shocked, and nodded her head.
I looked back down at the paper. God, why this? Why couldn’t it be something else? Bible reading, prayer life, anything but the porn. I don’t need to tell anyone. I can beat that on my own.
God’s answer, inaudible, was gentle and firm, “No, you can’t.”
Failing On My Own
Confession. Accountability. Those words can make our skin crawl. The idea of telling someone our deepest darkest secrets, of admitting our most personal failures, is far less than appealing.
Every expert I listened to. Every resource I found. They all talked about accountability, and it made me angry. I did not need other people. I could do this on my own. I got myself into this; I could get myself out.
I tried the hatred route: I would go online, print off pictures, and then set them on fire. I tried the negative thinking route. I tried sheer willpower. I would just get up in the morning and tell myself today was the day. This was the day I would finally be free.
Within hours, I would realize how ineffective my methods were. Then would come the wave of guilt, feelings of worthlessness, and determination that tomorrow—tomorrow would be the day.
Eventually, I ran out of tomorrows, and just decided to live with it. I was a porn addict and just needed to accept that fact. Surely, I could love God and serve Him in spite of my porn addiction. It was not that big of a deal. It was just something I did in private. It did not affect my public life at all. I was doing well in college, had great friends—life was good.
Yes, my relationship with God was a little rocky. I often felt like my prayers were bouncing off the ceiling. I just attributed that to my immature Christianity. I needed to practice praying harder. I needed to practice serving more. My faith was just out of practice.
The Night It All Changed
Then came a women’s night at my college and the one statement that changed my life: “We know some of you struggle with pornography and masturbation, and we are going to help.”
There was recognition! For the first time, my struggle was validated. Someone else acknowledged that I—a woman—could be addicted to pornography. There was help. They offered acceptance and counsel. They offered freedom. One thing stood between my struggle and that freedom—me.
Confession is the bridge that connects the hurt with the healing. It is how brokenness becomes whole.
Why We Hate to Confess Porn
So why is it so hard? Is it because we have a hard time being truthful? No, because many of us are truthful about other things. Is it because we do not want help? No, because many of us do.
Confession is so hard because we love ourselves. In our heart of hearts, we care about how people see us. The last thing we want to be viewed as is the porn addict. That immediately lumps us in with a class of societal rubbish—serial rapists, murderers, pedophiles, adulterers, prostitutes. It is not pleasant company.
What is so hard to see from that place of secrecy is that so much of our shame is of our own making. We do not tell because we are afraid others will ultimately see us the way we see ourselves. We think there can be no way that confession leads to anything other than humiliation. We imagine forever walking around with a label, doomed to bear the condemnation for our sin for the rest of our lives.
But we are wrong.
Confession leads to grace.
Confession removes one of the last obstacles standing between us and freedom—our pride. We love ourselves, and the moment that we admit that we make mistakes, the moment we confess that we actually aren’t that lovable, that love of self dies.
You would think that a dead love of self leads to self-loathing. After all, if I do not love me, then I must hate me, right? No. A dead love of self leads to brokenness, a sense of unworthiness, a sense of helplessness, and that is exactly when grace shows up.
But confession actually paves the way for grace. Grace, not shame, comes to the humble.
Killing the Shame
Shame is a product of our secrets. Keeping my struggle a secret only made me feel isolated and, at times, inhuman. The longer I kept my secret, the more I believed I could never share it. The longer I kept silent, the darker and stronger my sin grew. The longer I kept silent, the more convinced I became that I would just have to live the rest of my life with this.
With confession came light, hope, and freedom. With confession came the death of my overly high opinion of myself. No, I did not have it all together. Yes, I had fallen. Yes, I desperately needed help. That night, I acknowledged that I desperately needed his grace.
The beautiful thing is, it came.
Pure Minds Online | Issue 28 | January 2013 | More in this issue: “My Boyfriend Loves Porn” | 10 Biblical Proverbs About Accountability | Think on These Things
What could be the difference between self-esteem and pride? I have something in mind but I have to verify it first. Thanks.
Hi Win,
I would say that negative pride is a feeling of excessive self-worth. It can also be positive, in that you are satisfied in something you have done well. Self-esteem is more of an overall assessment of yourself – your strengths and weaknesses.
I hope this helps!
Moriah
I lost myself in the rabbit hole! Down in there I wanted others to want me, to desire me, to lust me, to talk to me,.to say iam beautiful, to say it’s okay to be a sin. I realize all my craving for just one thing led me to this dark world. I became a dirty girl and for what ? Do you really think men cared about me? The way I wanted them to. No, they didn’t! They just wanted to use me!
We would talk for awhile then it was alll about sex, phone, cyber, exchange adult pics we like, watch the video, and so forth, it was good in the beginning or how it starts out, then for some odd reason it becomes dark and sick! I fall victim to it, and like it for a lil awhile then I realize hey! Feeling shame and guilt! And my mind run rabid about this! How sinned I became in the heat of the moments I am my worst enemy! I use drugs to dissovle my emotions and my pain! Which doing drugs and this , is pitiful and I been doing this! Oh oh why! I cried when I read the stuff in here
My problem seemed to escalate when everyone started running away from me, I wanted just the feeling of someone so I don’t feel lonely, but it became a crime against myself and feel used and feel more down
Also doesn’t help when you have a family that destroys you! Feels like I lost my family, and so called friends and others. Especially when your family says, this is not you , I know that this is not u (because I was born different, born this way, I am her rather or not my family wants it;, I was using my true female voice and enjoying me and myself and felt awesome, (morphing into a female more and more) till my family crushed it by saying that
Which, led me also into the rabbit hole! On top of everything else.
What did I do! Why why I cry out , so much pain and shame and guilt
I cried when I found this, thx all for sharing and this site?
The devil and his followers are so cunning. I know that confession is a key part of forgiveness and healing, yet I feel that if I can stop FIRST for a few weeks, that that small amount of will power will put enough space between me and pornography that there will be less Shame ( being able to say I quit, even if for small time) than if I were to confess that I battle pornography currently. Of course these “few weeks” never materialize and the procrastination sets in.
Hi James – I, too, cycled in and out of bouts of false confidence in my own efforts. Self help is not strong enough. The powerful light of trusting, Gospel-centered accountability is what can break the darkness and chains of addiction. I’m living proof!
Peace, Chris
This is hard for me. We were taught as a man to be attracted to women. I don’t want my son to not be attracted to women. Pornography is a lie. It is an empty feeling of satisfaction that means nothing. It doesn’t cure lonliness. It doesn’t cure emotional pain. Porn is a leech and has taken everything that I had.
As men, we ought to be attracted to women. We should never equate attraction with lust or even a desire to have sex with lust. Lust is coveting—a strong craving for something that isn’t yours to have. I can find a woman attractive, but when that attraction becomes a covetous desire, then I am lusting after her.
You are so right about how porn is a leech. What have you done to break free in the past?
I stopped myself for about a month from watching porn. I’m 20 years old boy (not a Christian) and I’m just fed up with all this. It has ruined everything, be it my focus, be it my social life and so on. Nonetheless this post helped me in tightening my fickling commitment.