Mar 10
2
The Red Pill or The Blue Pill?
You will come to a point in your life when you realize that you must make a choice. You can continue on doing what you have been doing, or you can drastically change directions. There may be some good intentions in what you are doing, but it may not be really effective. When you start talking about changing a behavior like pornography use, there is often some big event or circumstance that steers you down the road to real recovery. For me, the turning point came when I realized that continuing to do what I was doing would have the dire consequence of causing my marriage to fail. At that point, I had to choose. Before that point, I had the desire to stop, but really didn’t ever “do” anything different. As a result, nothing changed. After the turning point, the choice I made was to start doing some things drastically different, in fact, most everything I did changed.
My relationships changed, my free time changed, my rituals and habits changed, even my job changed. All of the sudden my life as I knew it was barely recognizable to me (for a while). Then, after a few weeks, the pieces started falling back into place in an orderly manner. Some of the new rituals and behaviors started becoming habits and the things I was doing didn’t feel like work anymore.
The “before” picture looked much different. Before the change, I dreamed of stopping, vowed I’d never go back to that computer screen for sex again, and swore up-and-down to myself that this was the last time. The difference was, I never took any action that initiated any changes in my life. The same triggers were there, the same “internet” was there (without a filter), and the same lies and secrets were there, and the same distance was there between my wife and I.
My challenge to you today, if you are struggling with pornography use that you feel you cannot stop (or any other behavior for that matter), is to take immediate action and do something drastically different. The resources are there and they will work, but only if you choose to do the work. The internet filters are easily accessible, there are online pornography recovery programs, some of which are even free (Settingcaptivesfree.com), . There are books, counselors, support groups, and friends all ready and willing to lend a hand, but you must first decide to do something different and take action if you want your behaviors to change. Which pill will you take in your pornography addiction recovery, the red, or the blue?
