Father E.T. has always been an inspiration to me. He was the first priest I had ever heard talk about masturbation. It was during a camp in NUS Catholic Students Society that he was invited to give a session before the participants were to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
During his session, he shared on his struggles with the addiction to masturbation that he had when he was an altar boy. He remembered how guilty he felt whenever he received the Eucharist by hand, “the same hand I used to do it”, he said during that session.
I suppose if I have someone to thank, it would be him, because he was the first priest to give me hope. He gave me hope to believe that it was possible to overcome this addiction. In addition to hope of overcoming it, it was possible to become a priest in spite of such a guilt-causing addiction.
I met him the other day. He still struggles to remain chaste in his celibate life today, and yes, he still continues to be an inspiration to me.
Something he shared during our recent encounter made a lot of sense. He shared that as humans, our hearts are not meant to say “no”, but to say “yes”. If we always say “no” to sex, “no” to women, we end up repressing our sexual drive, which is a healthy thing.
Rather than saying “no”, the Church teaches us to say “yes” to God, like Mother Mary did all her life. That is also why Mary is such an inspirational model of chastity for us.
There was a time when I wondered: is it possible to overcome this addiction to masturbation and pornography? I see this question appear from time to time in this blog’s search engine terms as well.
I’ve thought about answering that question for several months now, but I always wondered whether it was safe to answer that question. And to those who are wondering, I want to give you hope. The answer is:
Yes! It is possible to overcome the addiction. But you cannot do it on your own.
Have you ever said to God, “I want to be pure and chaste” only to fall into the habit again? It is not enough to want to be pure and chaste. We need to say, “I want to be pure and chaste for (name) and I know that God will help me.” And we must put that into practice.
When we try to fight the addiction on our own, we are sure to fail, because our strength is limited, and we’re up against the devil in this. His tactic is simple: If he can convince us to rely on our own strength, he can convince us that it is alright to give in bit by bit.
You can’t beat the habit on your own strength. If you don’t believe me, you can try. And you probably have been trying already. If you could beat it, you’d have beaten it already.
I find that it helps to have an accountability partner. An accountability partner is one who you are accountable to whenever you fail to keep chaste and pure. It should be someone that you can trust and he or she might be going through the same thing. Lots of people are addicted to pornography and masturbation these days. It is easy to find another person who does it. It is harder to find someone who trusts you enough to share his secret with you.
An accountability partner does more than keep an eye on you. My partner and I set up a system such that whenever we get tempted, no matter how subtle, we raise our guard and stay alert. Temptations can come from anywhere, even in church, and they are usually very subtle. But once you learn to recognise them, you can resist them. My partner and I talked a lot about this and we learnt to identify how these temptations seem to bypass our defenses.
Whenever we recognised these temptations in our daily life, we raised our guard immediately, because we knew where they was leading us to. And we SMS the other and ask him to pray for us. Prayer works. You can’t begin to fight this battle without prayer. Prayer is essentially the art of spiritual battle.
But a person can’t go to battle without an armor and a weapon. Here are a couple of scriptural verses that you can memorise or write down. Refer to them and pray them every time you’re tempted:
“You do not belong to yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price.” – 1 Corinthians 19-20
“I have made a solemn promise never to look with lust at any girl.” – Job 31:1
There are many more, but it’s up to you to go find them. In addition, it helps to learn more about the whole issue. You are just one victim, but it helps to equip yourself with the knowledge of what pornography is, the lies that it tell us and what it does to us. At the end of this article, you will find some links to websites with articles that I found very useful in my battle.
Like any other battles, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. In the beginning you might lose some battles, but work together with your partner and together, you can overcome the enemy.
Don’t give up hope. It can be done. The way to win is to keeping getting up each time you’ve fallen. Keep relying on God for strength. Direct your sexual drive to other healthy avenues. Avoid places or situations that compromises your chastity and dignity. And above all, be open and say “yes” to God with all your strength, all your mind, all your soul, and all your heart. Receive the sacraments frequently. They will give you the grace you need to fight the battles.
And remember, you can’t do it alone. Rely on Jesus through prayer. It can be overcome, because Christ has set us free. We just need to accept that freedom and live it.
In summary,
1. You can’t beat the addiction on your own. You need help from God, and you need to admit that you need help from God.
2. An accountability partner helps a lot. He or she is one who prays for you when you are undergoing temptation, and you do the same for him or her.
3. You need to equip yourself properly for this spiritual battle. This means
4. The art of combat in this spiritual battle comes in the form of prayer. The more people praying for you, the better you will be able to resist temptation.
5. Sometimes you win the battle, sometimes you lose. But the only way to win the war against the addiction is to never give up hope, and continue to trust in God’s help.
6. Avoid situations in which you might be outnumbered or overwhelmed.
7. Receive the sacraments frequently.
8. Say “yes” to God with all of your being. One way of learning how to direct your sexual energies instead of clamping them down with “no”, is to read and learn about Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.
Some useful links that are helpful in your battle against addiction to pornography and masturbation:
1. PornNoMore.com – http://www.pornnomore.com/
We are here to help anyone in need who recognizes the pain, agony, disconnection and inability to achieve normal socialization within their lives because of pornography – people who realize that their problems are rooted in inordinate desires of the flesh.
2. Dr Judith Reisman – http://www.drjudithreisman.org/
Dr Judith Reisman is sought worldwide to speak, lecture, testify, and counsel individuals, organizations, professionals, and governments regarding fraudulent sex scientists, sex education, and the power of effect of images and the monopoly media to alter human behaviour.
3. Online resource for dads – http://www.dads.org/
4. Theology of the Body Institute – http://www.theologyofthebody.org/
The love of man and woman “tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.” – Benedict XVI, God Is Love, n.5
Related articles:
- The problem of pornography
- Question: Is having wet dreams a sin?
- A great injustice to homosexuals
- How you can help to fight porn
Filed under: Chastity, Eucharist, FAQs, Holy Matrimony, Masturbation, Pornography, Reconciliation, Relationships, Sex
You’re welcome, Aury! Victory of the enemy comes only when we give up. So long as we keep on getting up again, we will not have lost the war.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
One of my most ambitious goals is accomplishing a perfect repentance of masturbation and watching any pornography.i have climbed to a degree that the only sin i am capable of commiting is masturbation, and this is satans (devils) ultimate weapon.yes i do agree with you that without the help of god it is simply impossible but i donth think An accountability partner is neccesary so only god adequates.
[the best way to defeat it is praying for help -not watching any sort of porn-worshiping and reminding god when were alone(especialy in front of internet or satelite channels and ...)-in case of feeling h0rNy whispering your repentance or some verses and going out of home for a fresh air-doing sports or other distractions-NEVER giving up hope and always reminding that were doing a very big and important job and always repenting after commiting this sin-...]
in quran god states that any sort of ejaculation (s3xual activity) out side an authentic marriage is a sin and those who dont marry must resist until a time that god destroys their desires.and he also states that without the help of me no one could be virtuous.
some say because masturbation doest harm anybody or its safe and natural so it isnt a sin but what they dont know is that god had created us for this kind of tests so that he could seperate the true believers(more virtuous) from those who are less virtous.(when adam ate from the tree he didnt harm anybody but what he did was disobedience to god and the same goes to masturbati0n yes it is a sin ).
by the way have you ever noticed that after this sin you will face some punishments like badluck or fightings and tensions and so on!
vrm_5@yahoo is my email for any contact.
I have been helping Catholic souls addicted to masturbation for 30 years. At my website one can purchase “A Helpful Little Booklet” which can help. I print it myself and the price just covers the ink, paper, mailing.
I have also been running a website for these past 10 years that has most of the same information as the book. The website is http://www.angelfire.com/nt/pseudoaugustine/
I hope that this helps.
God bless,
Russell Chesebro
Mount Carmel Media
Thank you so much for this inspiration. I tried many times but all were abysmal. I couldn’t resist it more than 3 days. The more I tried, the worse I got, the less days I can resist. Thank you for worthy advices.
God always is with you and your family.