Finding Joy

My dad had joy. I never really did until I quit porn. Yeah, I have 500 days but I found quitting to be impossible for a long time. One thing that helped me was to learn the habit of turning from smut. Better yet, watching something that is clean in the first place. Here are some ideas:

Momremade has updated its information about less risky shows. They list clean shows on Netflix like:

• NCIS series (violence)
  
  
• Heartland
  
  
• Sweet Magnolias
  
  
• Anne of Green Gables
  
  
• Gilmore Girls
  
  
• Fuller House
  
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  
  
• Sister, Sister
  
  
• Crash Landing On You
  
  
• Madam Secretary
  
  
• The West Wing
  
  
• Nailed It!
  
  
• Pawn Stars
  
  
• Free Reign

As well as shows on Amazon like:

• Making It
  
  
• Psych
  
  
• Green Acres
  
  
• Cedar Cove
  
  
• Andy Griffith
  
  
• Monk
  
  
• Heartland
  
  
• River Monsters
  
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  
  
• Myth Busters
  
  
• The Astronauts Wives Club
  
  
• MacGyver
  
  
• White Collar
  
  
• Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
  
  
• Little Men
  
  
• The Young Riders
  
  
• Murder, She Wrote
  
  
• 7th Heaven
  
  
• Last Man Standing
  
  
• Mercy Street
  
  
• The Middle
  
  
• Dr. Thorne
  
  
• Home Improvement
  
  
• Leverage
  
  
• Planet Earth
  
  
• Signed, Sealed, Delivered
  
  
• Chopped
  
  
• The Wonder Years
  
  
• Malcolm In The Middle
  
  
• JAG
  
  
• Jamestown
  
  
• Chesapeake Shores
  
  
• Touched By An Angel
  
  
• Duck Dynasty
  
  
• North and South

They have other recommendations as well. My thanks to Momremade for all her hard work.

Lastly, consider always trying to stay away from smut every time you turn on the TV, every time you start a show, and every time a scene changes. It helps.

I have been writing at the Christian group for 500 days now. But, I thought that this article might be helpful for everyone.

 

1. To quit an addiction and find joy, we decide to do new activities and then we do them. They are not for fun, play, pleasure, or profit. It is wise to treat them like work or some great difficult goal.
   
   
2. Example: I decide my new activity is playing the piano. First I set a goal: 30 minutes per day. # 2 Decide exactly when you will do it: 6:30 PM. # 3 Say 10 times daily why you need to do this activity: “I need to play the piano so that I stop being a slave to ______.” # 4 Pray, “Father take away this lust, and show me how playing the piano will help me.”
   
   
3. Spiritual goals are important. But after that, your activity goals should sometimes be the next most important. But what about family? It is a balance, a juggling game that you need to play until you get healthy. One solution to the family question is to work out with them. Do a hobby with them.
   
   
4. New activities are not great fun if you are really addicted. Addiction uses up all our fun and leaves us dark and empty. So keep this in mind. The exact same activities that you don't love in week one of quitting seem a lot better in week 4 after you have been clean for a month and are in a good place with God.
   
   
5. Someday, some of your new activities will become positive addictions. I lift weights every day. I play either the piano or bass guitar virtually every day. I write articles about addiction every day and I do many other things every day.
   
   
6. Secondly, I want to try to explain how life gets better after we quit. With addiction we move from fun event (maybe) to fun event. Trying to find answers, fun, thrills. With freedom, we start to find increasing joy, and answers. With addiction, we watch TV always searching frantically for thrills. With freedom, we start to enjoy clean TV and we start to find contentment. With addiction, there are no answers. With freedom plus God, we start to find a purpose for living. With addiction, we sometimes struggle with family and people. With freedom we learn how important it is to live in love.
   
   
7. Activities are key. They will change your life if you make it a priority to do them daily.
8. When you find the right activities, your success story might still be going after 1000 days.

 

Last night I watched a baseball game. The announcer was telling a story about how he encouraged a player who had struck out, grounded out, and basically helped the Cubs lose the game. He told him to not worry about the past, to keep his head up, and to keep up the quality at-bats because the hits will come again.

There are three groups of people fighting porn/lust. The first group is people who are studying Nofap, taking notes, studying those notes, taking time in prayer, reconnecting with God, and basically going all-out in their war toward freedom. The second group is people who are reading Nofap, thinking about it, trying a little, and strongly considering ways to quit. The third group is people who badly want to quit.

Now, one would think that a lot of people would quit from group 3, people who badly want to quit. Nope, not many at all. One would also think that a lot of people would quit from group 2, (people who are starting to change). A few more, but really, not many at all. The truth is, that almost all the people who quit come from a group just like group one.

Group one people will consistently do the things recommended at this site. They will make up their own top ten list of things they need to do to quit, and they will try to do those things every day. And if they don't like tips 4 and 6, they will do them anyways because THEY ARE GOING TO QUIT THEIR HABIT NO MATTER WHAT.

What makes a great major league baseball player? Talent? It helps, but there are a million talented kids in the minor leagues. A great baseball player is someone who has some talent and who strikes out and keeps trying. They ground out, and try even harder. They fly out, and go back to their notes and rework their technique some more. They fail and fail and fail and never stop working.

A great baseball player is someone who keeps changing until they can make it to the major leagues. Someone who always works and never quits. Here is one of my fav prayers in an article from the Christian group:

“Father, help me to do whatever it takes to quit this habit.”

Lastly, joining group one will be one of the best decisions you ever made.

 

Anger Sinks Us
What should we do when someone starts an argument with us? Once we have stated our case for what we believe we should "allow" them to have their opinion. We show them respect for their opinion.
Don't allow them to continue to try to prove their point with you if you are in complete disagreement. Don't keep trying to convince them when you are in complete disagreement.
Focus on staying calm.
It is amazing how arguments die when no one gets mad. When one person shows respect for the other person.
Third, what if you really need to convince them of the truth? The best way to do that is to stay calm, truly listen to them, and softly explain the facts. If they insist on arguing, stay quiet and pray to increase in love. This method allows you a future opening to talk to them again when they might be more open to the truth.
However, when we escalate the fight, temptation will overwhelm us. We know how that ends.
Finally, pray to have love and respect for others when you disagree with them. Fighting often leads to falling. Instead, fight the urge to fight.
This article was based loosely on an article I wrote for the Christian group.

 

Think long-term not short-term

www.verywellmind.com/ said the following:

Delaying gratification involves putting off short-term desires in favor of long-term rewards. Researchers have found that the ability to delay gratification is important not only for attaining goals but also for well-being and overall success in life.

The "Hot-and-Cool" System
Based on his research, Walter Mischel proposed what he referred to as a "hot-and-cool" system to explain the ability to delay gratification. The hot system refers to the part of our willpower that is emotional, impulsive, and urges us to act upon our desires. When this system takes over, we may give in to our momentary desires and act rashly without considering the potential long-term effects.8

The cool system is the part of our willpower that is rational, thoughtful, and enables us to consider the consequences of our actions in order to resist our impulses. The cool system helps us look for ways to distract us from our urges and find more appropriate ways to deal with our desires.

Recap
The ability to delay gratification is linked to a number of benefits including better goal attainment and positive life outcomes. Finding ways to distract yourself from temptation can help you strengthen your ability to delay gratification.”

A great habit to work on is to think in a slow, cool, rational way.

Key Point: Never let short-term bad decisions ruin your week and month. Say: I will have self-control and have a great week and a great month.

Consider Praying: “Father, show me the consequences of my decisions.

Consider Praying: “Father, help me to think long-term with my decisions.”

You probably have more self-control than you think. The problem is, we get tired or frustrated and in that condition, we think in a poor manner. But, if you are a Christian, you can get a lot of assistance. Simply develop the habit of studying scripture when temptation arises. This habit invites the Holy Spirit to give us direct assistance with our decisions.

 

Having 500-plus days is way easier when we develop the habit of thinking about other things. Furthermore, important things are much more profitable than baseball. Please note. This article is only about Spiritual things. If that sounds good keep reading. Doing things exactly like this is a huge part of my success over P.

We need good things to think about. Here is a list of Biblical gifts that we can consider today.

Love: Thinking about (then practicing) treating others with love helps us quit

Shepherding: looking out for the spiritual welfare of others

Service/Helps: helping those in need of practical assistance

Mercy: The person with this gift shows acts of compassion

Giving: People with this gift will give freely and with joy to further His kingdom

Hospitality: Making people feel welcome, appreciated, and wanted

Knowledge: teaching and discipleship. The ability to learn, know and explain God’s Word

Discernment: being able to recognize the truth about a situation

Wisdom: understanding how to advise others

Point #1 we should consider thinking and praying about these types of things instead of worldly pleasures. #2 This is not a complete list, consider doing a Google search on Spiritual gifts to get a bunch more ideas. #3 When you find something that you think you can do, start to pray about it several times per day. #4 There are spiritual gifts “tests” online that might give you some ideas.

Finally, God created someone very special when he created you. Your job is to find out more about that.

 

Viacharacter.org noted: “Prudence means being careful about your choices, stopping and thinking before acting. It is a strength of restraint. When you are prudent, you are not taking unnecessary risks, and not saying or doing things that you might later regret. If you are high in prudence, you are able to consider the long-term consequences of your actions.”

#1 Being careful. What do you keep feeding into your phone? A-I will spit back out what you keep clicking on. I am a YouTube watcher. I try to never click on things like bikini girls or, sexy movie stars because if I do, YouTube will keep recommending them to me.

#2 Stopping and thinking before acting. Wrong acting gives darkness for the week and maybe the month. Wrong acting gives unknown destruction, but there will be some. Wrong acting steals your chance at joy, purpose, peace and many other things. Consider having a few “Stop and think,” notes in places where you often are.

#3 Strength of restraint. Try saying 100 times daily for the next two days:
“I can stop. I will stop.”

Simply repeating it increases our restraint and determination.

#4 Long-term consequences. Doing things God's way causes great long-term consequences. Sometimes the Christian group can give you ideas on how to do that. Doing lustful things involves short-term fun and disastrous long-term consequences. Consider which one leads to a great life.

Finally, consider making habits that involve prudence. It is a wise decision.

 

Stress leads to porn. Then porn often leads to relationship issues, destruction, and more stress. Consider praying: “Father, remind me to turn to You when I have stress.” Consider praying this often if stress is often a trigger for you.

Matthew 11:28-30 ESV
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

When stress is crushing you, read and pray over this every hour.

Matthew 6:34 ESV
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Consider praying: “Father, help me to not be overwhelmed. I give control of my emotions to You. I will spend time with You and with Your Word.”

Philippians 4:6 ESV
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Pray about your stress. Spend 90% of your prayers on asking for Jesus to help you through your stress. Spend 10% asking for Him to take it away.

John 14:27 ESV
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

When stress is crushing you, read and pray over this every hour.

Psalm 55:22 ESV
Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

Consider memorizing this verse.

James 1:12 ESV
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.”

When stress causes us to give up... we know all about the bad results. When we dig into these verses we will start down a road toward blessing and success.

 

Psalm 119:37
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.

Turning instantly from looking at lustful things is a key to freedom. Turning instantly from thinking about anything that leads to addiction is vital. Turning instantly from negative emotions is a key to change.

Pray: “Father, take away my spirit of lust and help me to turn from worthless things.”

Secondly, negative emotions lead back to addiction. So we must identify what emotion leads us back to addiction and fight it aggressively.

Anger leads to addiction: Pray: Father, take away my spirit of anger and fill me with a Spirit of love.” I have prayed this prayer a zillion times. It really helped. Anger increases Satan's control, and that leads to...

Pray: “Father, help me to repent instantly from anger.”

Thirdly, bitterness. Life has taken a left turn and we let bitterness take control. They said or did the wrong thing. If we choose to stay bitter we ruin our life. Staying bitter is the exact opposite of creating your own Garden of Eden. Fight bitterness as if it will steal your joy (it will).

Pray: “Father, help me to forgive and forget.”

Pray: “Father, take away my spirit of bitterness and fill me with Your love.”

Fourthly, hopelessness. The Bible encourages us to always hope. The reason for this is that sometimes we can only see what we see. And when it is bad we lose hope.
Pray: “Father, help me to always hope.”

Finally, we look at the second half of the verse, “and give me life in your ways. Give me “life” means starting to live in God's joy, glory, presence, and love. If you want to see a sharp increase in these, pray this prayer often: “Father, show me Your ways and help me to do Your will.”

Pray often, turn from lust always, and succeed.

 

Every day work on some quitting addiction techniques. If you are too tired to even think... you need to work on something even more. Exhaustion is a top reason for struggling. If you are too frustrated to keep up the self-discipline – ditto, frustration causes falls.

People who make it 400-500 days have a bunch of go-to methods that they use “No matter what.” They now have the habit of “Working on something every day in every situation.”

Michael Jordan was a talented basketball player. But he was the greatest because every day he would work on something. As a freshman in HS, he could run and jump, but couldn't shoot. So every day he worked on shooting. As a rookie in the NBA, he could shoot and dunk but he was skinny. As a Bulls fan, it was shocking to see how rapidly he got strong so nobody could knock him out of the playoffs anymore.

There was one reason and one reason alone that the Bulls went to 6 championships and won all six. It was because “every day” Jordan worked on something (and inspired others to do the same).

Patriots coach Bill Belichick is famous for his saying “No days off.” In the quitting addiction realm that might mean praising the Lord when you are exhausted. It might mean putting on a great Christian video from someone like Lauren Daigle when you are frustrated to give the Holy Spirit a chance to calm you down. It certainly means praying “Father, help me to turn from lust,” before you start a movie or a TV show, and praying it again if a scene starts to look risky.

Note: I give a ton of ideas about what to work on in the Christian group. Most are spiritual but some are normal activities.

Challenge: “Be willing to work on something every day.”

 

To quit for good we study quitting articles at this site for 20-30 minutes each day. But if you want to quit rapidly you need to read, reread, and almost memorize the key articles that you need for quitting. I don't know which articles you need to study, but you need to know exactly which articles you need.

Consider starting by scanning the titles of articles over the past 15 months. I have hundreds of old articles in the Christian group. Write down the titles or copy and paste the link of titles to see which ones are great for your situation so that you can later scan the articles. When you do find articles that are perfect for you, decide how often you should read the article over the next ten days.

For example, you never watch TV, but when life crushes you, you turn to P. To solve this problem or any similar to it... find the right articles, and study them until you can develop new habits on how to react when life stinks.

Reading them is merely the start. Step two is taking that information to construct a plan so that you can make a new habit so that you can overcome the opening. Step three may be praying about your new habits, and developing a system to remind yourself of exactly when and how you want to change.

The point is that we need to solve the 1-3 main triggers that lead us back to lust. Once you have figured out which articles help you solve them, it is better to read, reread, and study those articles over and over than it is to find new ones. Study, think, and pray over them until you have a plan in your head on how to fight back 24 hours a day. Continue to study them until you have “new habits.”

When you have a complete plan for all your triggers, the triggers start to lose their power.

 

"Clean TV shows are helpful."

 

We are more aware of what we want, rather than what is actually going on. It is a very rare person who says: Today I will look at porn. “Porn will ruin my week, my relationship with God for the week, it will cause a bunch of darkness, and destruction, it will kill my purpose, it will kill my chance at joy.”

How can we learn to “know” what is going on? By memorizing the above sentence.

Second, when we are quitting with a short-term goal like, “14 days,” we may be able motivate ourselves with simple goals like avoiding destruction as well as other things. But, if we want to quit for good we need to have goals that really have teeth. Goals like having joy and purpose. I linked these two goals together because they go together. Biblical Paul had fullness of joy (10 out of 10) in a large part because he had fullness of purpose.

This is challenging because finding purpose is sometimes tough. But the good news is that step one to finding purpose is making a commitment to finding purpose. Step two to finding purpose is to go to war with sins that are keeping us from finding our purpose. Therefore, when we go to war with lust along with a commitment to purpose we will start to see glimpses of this joy as we start to progress.

Then we focus on these glimpses of joy and ask ourselves: Would fullness of joy be even greater?

Years ago I would read about Biblical joy and I rarely experienced any of it. Now that I am doing things God's way and seeking purpose, I have a lot of joy. My life is way better now.

Consider setting (and praying about) a goal of joy and purpose. It is a huge key to quitting.

“The pursuit of purity is not about the suppression of lust, but about the reorientation of one’s life to a larger goal.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

When we overindulge to increase pleasure what we are always doing is what I call “Selling our pleasure backwards”. An extreme example of selling pleasure backward is the heroin addict. A heroin addict will tell you in the early stages of addiction how great this drug makes them feel. They get high and have pleasure for 3 or 6 hours per day. But when we fast forward 18-24 months we find a person whose pleasure has diminished from hours to minutes or maybe even to seconds. Their only joy is the first few minutes or seconds of their new high. And after this limited pleasure quickly fades they remember again the wreckage that their life has become.

A more common example is one who parties their head off in High school or college, then graduates and parties for the next few years with hardly a break. What was new and exciting in school is now the norm. There is nothing new about getting smashed now. What is new now is the cautionary tale you feel obligated to add to your stories. It now goes like this; I got smashed out of my mind last Tuesday. We were all over town, we even saw Harry our old buddy who moved away but is back visiting. I was so late to work I thought for sure I would get fired this time.

Now instead of partying, you are just killing pain because of problems. The short time of pleasure you now get when you start drinking for the day has been partially or completely overrun by the problems the addiction has created.

The point of this article is that most people can never increase the amount of pleasure that they can have in their lives for a month by going back to an addiction. If you have been clean for a while you can go back to your addiction, have a binge and have pleasure. But you are simply stealing pleasure from the future and selling it backward. The extra pleasure you are stealing now will be stolen back from you later with interest. The interest you will pay is a decreased amount of pleasure later and an increase in the amount of pain and damage you will have.

Key Point #1 Never sell pleasure backward. Realize that you will not gain extra pleasure by going back to your addiction. When you are tempted by your addiction you can calmly and correctly tell yourself; if I give in to this temptation I will not get more pleasure, I will just move the pleasure around and that will come with a severe price.

Instead, find other ways to enjoy life that will help you beat your addiction. Learning how to pray can bring you great joy. Read the Bible, and read Christian books that can help you find your purpose. Read Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. It could change your life. Today make it your goal to replace your addiction pleasure (which comes with pain) with the pleasure of trying to help the people around you and by trying to bring them joy.

I want to recommend two activities for you. First, make a list of other pleasurable activities which you do less because of your addiction. Refer to this list when you are tempted and do one of the activities instead of the addictive behavior.

Next, say to yourself every morning and every evening “I can’t increase my pleasure this month by going back to my addiction”.

 

Yesterday my wife was around a 4-year-old girl who said: “I am not allowed to see my dad anymore because he did something bad. But everybody has bad in their life and it is okay. We just have to decide to be happy. Sometimes when tears come, you just have to push them back.”

That 4-year-old is going to do okay. Most of us have something bad happen, then we fall. Self-pity may be one of satan's top 10 tricks. Discouragement is a habit that will keep you falling for as long as you allow it to control you.

If this is an issue, do an internet search on overcoming discouragement to get ideas on how to fight it.

Pray: “Father, take away my spirit of discouragement, and help me to decide to be happy.”

Pray: “Father, take away my spirit of discouragement, and fill me with Your toughness.”

If this issue controls you it will be impossible to pray these prayers too often.

Bad things happen and we allow ourselves to get “Dark.” We let God's light dim out and we allow satan a perfect opening. That was our habit. But our new habit is to attack with prayer and to search to find out what God wants out of our situation. Our new habit is to fight back with the light of God shining fully on us. An impossible rotten day, but still... a day where God's light can shine brighter than ever. If we fight to let it shine.

 

My 30-day challenge is unique. Yes, we want to stay free for 30 days, but the challenge is really just as much about a massive increase in one quitting skill over the next 30 days. What is your #1 trigger? My #1 trigger was “Life runs me over, and now I have an excuse to run back to my habit.”

The challenge is to memorize 3 solutions that you can use to fight against your #1 trigger over the 30 days.

Second, to have written down 3 places where you “know” you can go to get 3 more solutions to fight that trigger.

Here is an example of what I did memorize for my trigger:

Life still runs me over, and I still “start” to spiral downward, but now when that happens I always have the habit of “Praising the Lord.” Here is the thing, you will get more help from the Lord if you praise the Lord.

Today, consider writing down 3 things that you will memorize to fight your #1 trigger. Then start to compile articles and Bible chapters or verses that are candidates for the 3 things that you can “find” when your trigger happens again. At the end of 30 days, you might have 8-12 candidates for your 3 go-to articles.

If you have 3 solutions memorized and 3 go-to solutions available in 30 days... you will have discovered a great thing.

 

To change your thinking, pick a daily prayer to pray often when you have time.

Consider praying: "Father, show me how wrong thoughts poison my life."

Consider praying: “Father, take away my lust and help me to turn from worthless things.”

“Father, help me to always raise the standards in turning from lust.”

“Father, show me what my life can be like if I run instantly from lust.”

Always pray each prayer with sincerity and a strong desire to change.

The above is a partial list from my article "Praying about new Thoughts" that I wrote for the Christian group.

What you do is 51% of quitting. What you stop doing is only 49%. Because, if you don't replace the bad stuff with good stuff... you will always have a vacuum (empty space) in your life that needs filling.

 

Things go wrong again, but we keep trying. Biblical David failed, but he kept trying. Joseph was thrown into a pit, and he kept trying. Many have had challenges with their quitting lately, but they are determined to keep trying.

Today, consider writing down 3 reasons why you are going to quit. We need to focus more on these reasons. Today, consider writing down 3 disadvantages to slipping. Determine to think twice as much about these disadvantages as you think about the (very short term with destruction added) pleasures of lust.

Today, consider repeating often: I can quit. Consider praying:

“Father, give me the faith to believe that I can quit.”

The Bible says, “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”

People with strong values quit more often. For example, Jonny spends 10 minutes each day studying increasing in love and praying about it. But… he still falls every fourth day. But Jonny keeps trying to increase in love every day. He is obeying the Bible by valuing increasing in love. While he does need to work on quitting more… right now it’s not clicking, but he is moving into the group of people who quit more often.

Second, people who hang around with people who don’t have addictions quit more often. We can watch how they live, and what they do. I was a fairly decent softball player with a batting average of .500. Then I started hanging out with a former baseball player who had a great shot at being a pro baseball player. He told me how to change my swing. With my new swing, I batted .800.

Not only can people who don’t have addictions help you, they can inspire you. I find it very inspiring to hang out with people who aren’t dragged into the mud emotionally by their addiction all the time. They make me want to be like them.

Finally, keep trying to have expert notes at your fingertips regarding the best way for you to quit. Consider taking notes on articles, and highlighting notes for review every day. Get the information you need in front of you every day. It will pay off.