What Everyone Forgets to do When Trying to Fight Porn — My Personal Experience

I had struggled for six years to overcome porn. Each year I would set a goal on New Year's Day that I would overcome porn for good during that year, and yet, each year I failed at this goal.

I had very limited success. Sometimes I managed to avoid porn for a few weeks, maybe a few months, and other times only a few days. A relapse would always be right around the corner and the feeling of defeat haunted me over all those years.

You may find that your experience is very similar to mine. No matter what you do it almost always seems that your efforts will be futile and that relapse is inevitable. You would feel helpless against porn and would want to overcome it but the urge to overcome is not as strong enough as the urge to indulge in your desires. It takes a little reflection to see what’s going on in your mind throughout this whole process. Let me show you what I mean.

Over the six years of my own battle, I picked up on what was going on but was never able to pinpoint it precisely. One day I would set the goal to never succumb to porn and would have a lot of motivation to do this. I would avoid all areas and places that I know would trigger my urges. I would make an effort to keep myself busy, not glance at a woman who I would find attractive, and stay away from social media as much as possible. I would go to the gym more often and would feel incredible. Overall, it would seem as if I were winning, and the feeling would be incredible. However, a defeat is in the making and everything I worked for would fall apart.

One night while I am going to bed, an image of someone flashed through my thoughts, or a sexual desire of mine entered my mind. I would think about it and imagine it and continue with my life the next day not thinking anything of it. The next night it would happen again, and I would lower my defenses a little and entertain my desires through my imagination. One night at a time, I was moving closer and closer to my relapse until finally the thoughts that crept up on me at night were so strong that I would act on them.

This analogy is very familiar to many of us. Usually this is how a desire to conquer your urges turns into an eventual relapse. The reason this happens and the reason why you relapse all comes down to your thoughts. You may have avoided everything you can see, hear, or touch but you succumb to porn through yourself. The very first sexual thought you have had at night blossoms into a poisonous garden, and you walked right into it.

There is a quote in the Bible that sheds some light on what’s happening, and it states, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” In the context of overcoming porn, this quote means that whatever you think you become. Take for example someone who wishes to become more fit. They imagine themselves in a better body and constantly think about their desire to be healthier and stronger. These thoughts eventually become so strong that they are moved into action and go to the gym and work towards their goals. The same is the case with someone struggling with porn. A relapse occurs when they have a single thought about their sexual desire. If that thought is not cut out then it grows and eventually leads you to a relapse. You are what you think. It may seem easy to think that to overcome porn you can just not think about it, and you’ll be on your way to conquering it, but that is far from the truth. Overcoming your thoughts is the way to beat porn but it does not happen overnight, and you’ll need to wage a war against yourself if you want to win.

Most people I have spoken to try different methods of fighting porn, but a relapse was always around the corner. The reason many people fail is that they neglect strict control of their thoughts. This neglect creeps up on us as we are unaware, but by noticing its signs you can cut it at the root.

Stay tuned as I write more on this topic and much more on personal development. My hopes are to write a step-by-step book on overcoming porn backed by proven and tested methods and by psychological behavioral reasoning.