Abandoning Pornography in Four Steps

Pornography affects the mental health of producers and consumers.

It breaks identity and thus autonomy and hope, and degrades human beings and prevents them from having other interests. Constitutes a theft of identity and privacy that, unlike other thefts, cannot be returned. So, that is why it is considered a crime in many countries, which even Google prohibits, but little is done in practice to suppress it. We present 4 steps that are based on good motivation, to be free and happy again.

To watch pornography is to steal identity

Read a story about the 4 steps

What Pornography Produces in your brain, heart and soul

•  The visualization of images of sexual content permeates the brain.
•  It can end up modifying neuronal dynamics and morphology.
•  It leads easily to a behavioral addiction, in which the behavior takes control of voluntary activity, reducing autonomy, as in drug addiction, alcoholism, addiction to games, to the Internet, to risk or to compulsive spending.
•  There is no room for a moderate or healthy use of pornography, which is always dangerous.
•  The normal sexual stimuli are replaced by exaggerated and often violent stimuli, which feed the violence.

•  What sometimes begins with play, curiosity or persuasion drags, with more or less complicity of the person, towards a slope in which vice and mental illness intertwine.
•  In addition to the initial search for pleasure, there is an urgent need to act to reduce psychic anxiety or discomfort, and even pleasure is lost.
•  When you reach addiction you need more and more stimuli, and ever stronger, to produce the same level of euphoria.
•  The search turns into a desperate desire to fill the void, as if it were oxygen. What one “breathes” is a harmful product that gradually suffocates.

•  Breaking out of pornography by focusing on what’s important: God, you and others.
•  Go from what you’re doing to why you’re doing it.
•  Discover the void in your life, in your aspirations, in your challenges, and fill it healthily.
•  Delve into the centrality of love, into happiness as a goal, into the effects of pornography on the brain, the heart and interpersonal relationships, and into the world; see three videos.
•  Strengthen faith in life and its meaning, which opens the doors to faith in Life…, in a personal, intelligent, creative, merciful God.
•  Fostering hope: it is worthwhile and possible to have a good and virtuous existence, to be temperate, strong, kind and free.

•  Divide a sheet of paper into two columns.
•  Left column, note down the alarms: environmental circumstances (places and times, use of the internet) and subjective circumstances (mood and inner emotions: emptiness or lack of meaning in life, sense of loss, low self-esteem, lack of goals, loneliness, anger, fear, boredom…) that encourage the consumption of pornography.
•  Right column, write down the precautions: how to counteract every circumstance or negative emotion, find or recover meaning, turn to religion and the relationship with God; healthy and entertaining activities so as not to lose wings: sport, going out with friends, a phone call, reading a book, listening to music…; limiting the use of the Internet to certain times and places, not having social networks on the mobile phone.
•  Do not rest with the internet. To avoid isolating oneself or closing oneself in, which is the beginning of slavery.

• I have a problem;
•  I am an accomplice – probably without knowing it and without wanting it – of crimes: abuse of minors, women and men, exploitation, trafficking and enslavement of human beings for money or against their will and forever…, because stolen intimacy continues to be visible on the Internet;
•  the first thing is to change my attitude, and not be content with the fact that perhaps I am not yet an addict;
•  there is anger, anguish, frustration, impulsivity, emptiness… and sex is displacing other interests; I tend to see others as objects for my pleasure;
•  I am on the ground with my wings cut off.

•  true relationships and seek help in those who love me, because I’m not alone, and this will make me stronger;
•  the peace and the reconciliation with my past, discovering wounds to heal and forgive;
•  opportunities for having good pleasures and entertaining activities, which fulfill me and help me to breath healthy fresh air;
•  bridges with someone of trust and authority to talk to, first of all my parents if I am a minor; an expert in psychology or a doctor if I feel the chains of addiction are stronger;
•  and fostering noble friendships – sharing hobbies, caring for others, loving them – fills the needs of the soul, gives a boost in order to take flight again.

 Comprehending pornography

•  the meaning of my life as a whole, what makes me suffer and what causes me frustration;
•  why I have come to this situation, perhaps without guilt and against my will;
•  I am responsible, that is to say I can and must respond to the people I love and to society, even if that capacity is now damaged;
•  that there is something or someone worth living for, worth learning to love, worth sacrificing myself for and worth waiting for;
•  I am important and others expect something from me;
•  the light of the mind is capable of illuminating the heart to find motives and remedies; the heart in love and with a purpose gives in turn light to the mind and strength to the will; with light it is easier to fly.

•  and activating the forces of my spirit, capable of regaining control and keeping me in flight, contemplating the true, the beautiful and the good, in art, in nature, in the human being…;
•  precautionary measures so as not to return to the “artificial paradises” presented by pornography;
•  the way to going out of myself towards God and others will make me happy; to serve others who are sick, alone or experiencing some need enlarges my horizons; if I change, I can improve the world;
•  hope, that is the essential engine of change;
•  the desire to discover that God loves me more than anyone; turning frequently to the grace of God in the sacraments, such as confession and the Eucharist, and in the knowledge and dealings with Jesus Christ, ensures the fuel to continue flying.

Wenceslao Vial

Madurez psicológica y espiritual, Palabra, 2019 (4ª)