1. Advice on Breaking
the Slavery:
2.) Beg God for the grace to repent. He is the one who has to give you this grace. Spend time before the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist and beg your little heart out.
3.) Confession to a faithful priest. Again and again if you have to… habits can go deeply engrained, and if you want to stop but a habit is there, stopping might be hard. Confess as much as you need to, we priests are there to forgive you and give you Jesus’ graces, the ones you need, to overcome your sin. You cannot be victorious over sin without this sacrament.
4.) Remove the causes of temptation. If there are magazines in the house, get rid of them. And if they aren’t yours, still get rid of them, you’ll do the owner a huge favor. Destroy the movies, DVD’s, tapes, etc. Buy parental controls on the computer for yourself to inhibit misuse of the internet. And if that doesn’t work, only use the internet in public places, and get rid of your modem. Yes, even if it cost you $80 bucks. Better in heaven without $80 than in hell with $80, right… so let common sense prevail here.
5.) Fast. Deprive your body of the comfort of food. This is a practice well proven over the centuries to calm the disordered passions of the flesh. If you’re not used to fasting, get into it gradually, so that you can prudently test what your body can handle, and that way you can avoid excesses. The important thing is more to fast WELL than to fast MUCH.
6.) Pray. “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” And so contemplative souls have great purity of heart. Pray especially to the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, your Guardian Angel, and obviously before the Eucharist whenever you can. The rosary is very powerful here. And not just rote prayers, though those are very good; converse with God, and taste his sweetness, and you’ll loose the taste for these sins. And never stop praying just because you sinned. Go to prayer and confess to God – you still need to confess to the Church through God’s priest, of course – and repent and promise, with humility.
7.) Get organized, like a general marching into battle. I recommend strongly that everyone who is serious about the spiritual life MAKE A PLAN. I include some tips on how to put a plan of the spiritual life here: (click here).
That should be enough to get you going, and as you make progress, good priests and a great prayer life will continue to lead you from there.
8.) Be an apostle, and help your friends and family members and whoever else to get out of it. Helping one another will multiply the strength of both. And such apostolic zeal will help you get out of yourself, which would be good for overcoming this sin.
Now, there is a lot here, I admit. Just take one piece at a time, and once that’s rather in place, move on to the next one, and so forth. Don’t try to do it all at the same time, you’ll only get overwhelmed and discouraged.
Alright, good friend, I congratulate you for your question, and I pray earnestly for your success. May God free the world from the scourge of pornography! How it turns one of the most sacred and intimate parts of marriage into a farce, and how it twists love into use. May God also spare many families who have been ravished, absolutely ravished by sins of impurity. Onward, and be not afraid!!
Virginia - editor of The Compass