Is religion a must?

Religion worshiping yourself

 

You do not really need religion to succeed. I think what religion does is that it creates a feeling that something outside yourself is pushing you forward. If you do not believe in any religion then accountability is probably key. You will need to feel committed. You will also need to believe strongly that nofap will create a better life for you. A good way is to read about the science backing nofap, or read tons of success stories. I am not particularly religious, but I believe in nofap. If you havent already, check this out:

 

Without God, I probably wouldn't be able to be where I am today in terms of my recovery from PMO. So trusting in God works for me.

 

Sounds like a recipe for being an asshole.



In answer to the OP's question.
I don't know if you need to worship a divine being? However, a set of morals and beliefs would be helpful. Better yet the set of morals and beliefs that have been a part of western culture for thousands of years that have been discarded would be helpful.

If you think you're just some evolved ape and that nothing you do matters that probably isn't great motivation. If you believe all the popular culture bullshit such as masturbation and porn aren't harmful that will not be helpful in stopping PMO.

It's been known for a long time that lasciviousness, letting your sex drive get out of control is harmful and destructive. It's been known that masturbation is harmful and shameful. It's known that a life in pursuit of pleasure will lead to misery and rob you of any real joy.

I don't know how you will start a relationship with a divine being in order to stop PMO. That would probably help, but may be hard to do? I don't know? However, you can choose to believe in the old values and beliefs often associated with religion that they are beneficial and live your life according to them. I don't know if I would call that "religious" as many people who claim to be religious don't follow those values or even believe them

 

Well said. Very inciteful.

 

@Themadfapper you wrote a great post but could you not curse please? As a Christian, we need to be moral in everything we do.

 

Atheist to atheist of course not. Based on you're own morals and changing your habits you can do anything. Addiction is all mental and can be changed through lifestyle change.

 

Idk if you mean im an asshole (I probably am) or you become an asshole. If you mean you become an asshole, Worshiping yourself doesn't mean your a piece of shit to everyone, Just means that you yourself i first priority and you help yourself first. I think that actually being nice to people is the fucking golden rule (I grow up in a family who yell all the time)

 

I didn't mean you're an asshole and I don't recall you every posting anything assholeish. I might be a bit of an asshole, and I certainly, say things that offend and often that are misinterpreted in a way that offends.

I meant that worshiping one's self, deifying one's self would likely lead to some pretty bad behavior.

 

Yes it is so important to us, you are living with your self but we feeling our God help in everything. Who don't believe there is a God created us? And it is one God definitely look for him and you will find him not condition to see him but you will find his power pushing you to the success way

 

lmfao

 

I think the realization for me was that I, in my own strength, can't make myself be right/living right in everything. I didn't believe in God until I was 20. If you're interested in my story, I can tell you in PM, as that's not the purpose of this thread. But, basically there was an overnight change somewhere deep in my heart, and literally when I woke up I was just full of energy and happiness, like a huge weight was lifted off of me. It was like, before I was a slave to my desires, that whenever I heard "do this" I did it without being able to protest. And overnight all of the sudden I realized that I had the power to say no, to defeat and overcome and have freedom.

I had tried many systems of making rules for myself. I remember when I installed my first P filter-I was so elated and felt such a freedom for one day. And then I discovered that there were many loopholes. I started writing down when I M'd, thinking it would motivate me to be pure, and I would last 2-3 days at best. I tried other websites and reading books about the terrible effects on men's brains- and still I could not control it. That's because sin is a slavery that leads to death. I could not defeat it on my own, I needed the one who was perfect, who made me clean, who defeated sin- to be the object of all my worship and desires.

Granted that was 6 years ago now, but I have grown in alot of other areas since that point. The dialogue with PMO changed from something I hated about myself that I did, and was ashamed of it, and having no real power over it- to it being a sin against God, that God wanted to work out of me because it was separating me from him. So basically changed from me worshiping myself (I choose what's right for me, I decide what to do with my life) with PMO, to worshiping God (he says what's right for me, what to do with my life) and still struggling with PMO. The paradigm shifted. Now I was working out of it.

God willing, with a desire to please him, with NoFap, accountability partners, and a desire to get married soon...God will grant me the repentance and by his spirit, strengthen me in the inner man.

Since that time, He really has done a miraculous work. I was at PMO every day, several times a day, I would look forward to it after work, I would think about it and plan out the things I would lookup..the thoughts just kept coming nonstop, etc..today, the last time I looked at a P video was two months ago, and before that it was about once every 2-3 weeks. Right now my main struggle is MO.

 

I tried to use religion to help with my porn problems a few years back. It didn't work for me, probably because deep down, I didn't believe it. I know a lot of people here have talked about how their faith helped them out, and I think that's great. But here's the thing to remember: Whatever approach you take, you have to believe in it 100%. Porn is a difficult addiction to beat, and if you don't believe 100% in what you're doing, you probably won't succeed.

By the way, you don't have to be religious to use spiritual practices. I'm an atheist, but I meditate every night. I don't use it as a way of getting closer to God or Buddha or whatever, I just see it as a way of quieting and getting greater control of my mind. I also find it useful to relax myself, which makes me less susceptible to getting stressed out and relaxing that way.

One thing I will say is this. There are a lot of different spiritual practices and belief systems out there. If you want to see what spirituality can do for your recovery, look at a few different ones. Maybe you could even take the best of a few different faiths to come up with your own philosophy. Recovery from addiction is a very personal thing after all, so you need to do whatever's going to work for you.

 

It depends. I don't know where @IggyIshness is coming from, but in Eastern spirituality for example, god is often thought to be within. He is within everyone, but of course you can only look inside yourself. Based on the non-duality between the outside and the inside, creating balance in yourself will give you the power to create balance in the world, too. "Worshipping yourself" can then mean that you are looking for authenticity and listening to your heart. Compared to this, Christian faith is more extroverted right away and saying "I am god" will sound almost Satanic, but it really depends on the underlying notion of who or what is god, the soul, mind, spirit, body and so on.

 

Great post. Meditation will help you focus no matter what you believe in. Science proves that meditating regularly increases your ability to think, your overall happiness, reduces stress etcetc.

 

Yeah. When I was addicted I often felt like I deserved all these women and looking at them like if I created them and I deserved pleasure and stuff. It made me very lazy and developed in me a mindset of entitlement where I deserved everything and didn't need to work for it. I totally understand.