How We Break Free, Part 2
In my recent post “How We Break Free, Part 1” i mentioned a few vital ingredients in the process of breaking free from pornography addiction.
i said that a man who is addicted to porn needs to come clean to his wife (if he has one) or a small group of men he can trust with the painful truth of his addiction. i also said that he must submit himself to real accountability with trustworthy men who are committed to transparency. That accountability must be continual.
And i mentioned that for a while, he must alter his patterns when it comes to his entertainment choices, even in the case of entertainment choices that are not explicitly pornographic. For me, in the very early days of dealing with the fallout from my addiction coming to light, i had to stop watching many regular TV programs because either the subject matter; the beautiful actresses and their clothing; or the escapism of the entertainment itself triggered me toward porn.
i would add that i also changed other behaviors such as where i went on my lunch break on workdays, because certain restaurants or the mall had all sorts of “land mines” that could easily explode and take me down.
In Part 2, i want to elaborate something i briefly referenced in Part 1; namely, that until a man is convinced that his life depends on freedom from addiction to porn, he will still try to manage the behavior rather than attack it like the warrior he is intended to be.
The concept of the warrior is crucial to breaking free. In our age it is often very difficult for men to develop an appropriate, healthy, Biblical warrior mentality. Rather, many men find it much easier to live vicariously through modern-day warriors like NFL players; or UFC fighters; or action movie heroes.
That sort of vicariousness leads men to live in a fantasy world in which they delude themselves that they too are warriors, or it results in men who corrupt the concept of the warrior and they become destroyers of other people.
No doubt about it, sports, movies and other things like that get the blood flowing.
But those vicarious things are not tied to our actual lives, and ultimately those displays of warrior-ness are separated from the daily realities that shape our lives. In the end, those displays of warrior-ness are games.
Your life is not a game.
The Biblical narrative tells a story of a life and death battle that is raging all round us in which we all have a vital role to play. The evidence is there for all to see: Human sex trafficking; corruption in business and politics; abuses of power in nations as well as in families; marriages exploding; and the list could go on.
These things are a combination of our own fleshly bent towards sin and the scheming of our Adversary, who goes out to make war on God’s people (Rev. 12:17).
Developing a warrior mentality starts with understanding that as men we ar emade in the image of God and Exodus 15:3, tells us that the Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name. To be made in His image means we are also warriors.
Paul understood this and so did Peter (See 2 Cor. 10:3-5, Eph. 6:10-18 and 1 Pet. 5:6-9). We fight for the King and what the King values. We fight for healthy, Biblical sexuality, among other things. And we recognize that everything about pornography is from The Enemy, Satan.
In Part 3 i will say more about being a warrior, as well as other aspects of how we break free.
Intentional Warriors 
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