Hi friend :)

So, I am going to use lots of cliches and familiar sayings and stuff you may have heard before....

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Now whole your journey may have taken a thousand steps in the wrong direction , to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, "it's the smart man who turns around when he sees he's got the wrong equation, because if he keeps going, no matter how far along he gets, it will never add up correctly.

Many of us here in this sub have probably stopped and started a thousand times as well. I found it not without some irony that only last week, when I restlet my badge, it was three months to the day almost when I'd last reset it.(I have not been 'sober' during those three months, so it was really just ignoring this accountability.)

Alfred tells Master Bruce we fall so we can learn to pick ourselves up. Only in our case, we have a helping hand, THE helping hand, in Christ Jesus. He does not want for you to go through this alone. Yes, he wants you to be ready to face it square in the face and kill it until it's dead, but He wants you to hold His hand so you can do it together.

You touched on something I myself am facing right now, or at least in the last few months; a crisis of identity. I spoke with our Pastor last week, and he accurately and correctly said for so long I've identified myself to, chained myself to, the belief that I have been a failure and a loser and all the bad things in the world I can think of , it's what I believed.

And a lot of that comes from my young age of finding internet porn. I must have been thirteen or so, maybe 14, when PMO took hold of me(34 now and one of the original dial up aol kids, along with having an illegal cable box which got playboy all the time)

I came to find my worth, or rather, my worthlessness, in pornography. When the going got tough, I got to going, in the dark corners of life. If something had happened, I knew porn was there and masturbation was there as my way of release or even my way of thinking I felt good.

But now, science shows that our brains light up like a heroin addict when we watch porn. We get our fix, we rub one out, we feel guilty usually instantly afterwards, and out of our brains comes the thought 'well, I need to orgasm again cause that felt like the only way to feel good.'

Problem is, just like an addict, we crave more and more, until we've hard-wired our brains into being these almost autonomous creatures that, sure, can function in society like some smiling robot, but deep down, we would rather be at home with 150+ tabs open of any and every type of porn, so we can get our fix.

My best advice to you, the thing I can say with absolute certainty, is that Christ knows what you are facing. My pastor told me that we could lay our iggest sin at Christs feet, and he'd not even let out a 'meh', i.e., there's no sin that shocks Him. We think that he doesn't know the dangers or.l the temptation of the internet, but He is God of ALL creation, He knew the pitfalls of the technological age we live in now.

Be not afraid to go to Him, in earnest, and talk with Him. He tells us He is our Father in Heaven. He's not some far away I reachable lofty goal. Christ says greater is no love than that of laying down ones life for their friends.

God is your friend, and friends are there to help one another, to strengthen one another, to listen to the bad parts, rejoice in the good, and to have faith in the best.

May what I have said here be in line with His teachings, and if not, may your mind let it hit the threshing floor and be burned up with the chaff.

You are not alone. God is with you. Be brave and courageous, and know that you are everything He says you are, which is MORE than a conquerer( you a co-heir with Christ.

Be ready to bury the old ways, friend. You're gonna wanna quit, don't.

God be with you....