“I was grown deaf by the clanking of the chain of my mortality, the punishment of the pride of my soul, and I strayed further from Thee, and Thou lettest me alone, and I was tossed about, and wasted, and dissipated, and I boiled over in my fornications, and Thou heldest Thy peace, O Thou my tardy joy! Thou then heldest Thy peace, and I wandered further and further from Thee, into more and more fruitless seed-plots of sorrows, with a proud dejectedness, and a restless weariness.” ~ St. Augustine
The most often repeated question that I receive is: “How do I give up porn?” For the answer, as with all things, I turn to Our Lord Jesus Christ, who rather directly and simply said: “Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.” Well, what does this have to do with an addiction to porn? Here, I think it’s helpful to unpack the incredibly important quote from St. Augustine (see above.) What does Augustine hold at the root cause of his constant and pervasive swerves into fornication? Not lust, not libido, not dirty thoughts; but pride. Now, what does pride have to with porn? Basically, when we turn to porn – we are seeking fulfillment, happiness, and as Christ put it: “refreshment.” Now, before we go looking for porn, we are most likely feeling stressed, fatigued, and yes “burdened.” In porn, we obtain a (temporary) release, an escape, from that oppression. In men, because we masturbate and climax while viewing porn, it’s both a mental and physical respite from psychological pressures. But, why is this prideful? Because, when we turn to porn, we are doing so out of willful pride; a stubborn belief that porn will offer more succor than God Himself. Although, we may not formulate it like that in our minds – the effect is the same: for, we want solace from some other god than Our Lord.
When we make this decision, God will allow us, for a time, to wander about like the Prodigal Son; and, herein lays the great insight and historical import of Augustine’s words: when we walk away from Christ, that which awaits us is truly a fruitless seed-plot of sorrow. Then, in that desolate place, we are reduced to a constant enslavement of restlessness and exhaustion. With those who suffer from porn addiction, this manifests itself through all-night internet porn and masturbation binges, dips into the dark side with strip-club and sex-shops, or dangerous encounters with pick-ups or prostitutes. Afterwards, we are left with a resounding lack of the peace we initially sought; and hunched over in a dejected waste of anxiety and dissatisfaction. As Augustine recounted, the deeper we get into it, the further we travel away from God. Then, you need to ask yourself: Has my porn addiction worked? Is it helping me? Or, are all my problems now worse? If the answer is YES, you need to be “humble of heart,” and admit to yourself, and more importantly to God, that you made a mistake. That you tried to ease the pain of your life, without Him, and that you failed utterly. From that moment of self-annihilation, we are humbled, and from there - healing can begin. It’s a path strewn with great difficulty, but one that the stubborn very often have to traverse. Because, after you sleep with pigs, the sweet odor of sanctity will never once again go unappreciated.