Questions

I know we all feel really guilty, sad, depressed, and scared we are going to hell when we mess up and watch porn. I have some questions about this. How much of these terrible emotions should be considered a good thing such as: a response of our conscience and the holy spirit telling us that what we did was wrong. How much should be considered a bad thing such as: discouragement from satan? How much of these emotions are from God? How much are from satan or our own foolishness? How do we tell the difference? On the one hand. Feeling guilty, ashamed, scared, depressed would seem like it is a good thing in this situation because it would show that we still care and motivate us to resist temptation. On the other hand. How much of these terrible emotions could be attributed to satan trying to discourage us to give up and stealing our joy. Using these emotions to make this addiction even more devastating than it already is? I ask this because I am so sad and depressed and scared every time I mess up and watch porn. I feel really good when I go for a long time without watching porn. I will go for a while without but I always mess up again. I am wondering about this depression. Is it normal response of my conscious or is it too much? How bad should one feel and for how long? How do you know if feeling bad is a productive motivation to help you want to quit ? …. or just a discouraging thorn the devil has placed in my side to make things worse? It seems like this depressed, shameful, and scared feeling has in the past had both good and bad effects on me. By this I mean that being depressed has discouraged me to the point that I give up and go ahead and watch porn because it makes me feel better for a brief few moments. In this case these feelings were harmful. But these bad feelings have also served as motivation for me to resist temptation. In this situation, these feelings were helpful. Thanks for your response. Wonderful website you have made here.

I’ve been addicted to porn for a while now. I’ve been trying to get through this on my own, but that hasn’t always been going so well. I do want to turn my life around and be who God made me to be, but keep turning back to porn. How do I tell my parents and friends??

Dear XXX Church, I need your help I think porn is among the most disgusting things to ever have been invented. It’s not natural, it’s a fantasy that people have accepted as a healthy reality when it is not. How do I express to the person who means the most to me that it shouldn’t be in their moral compass to even consider watching it, when it makes me feel so disgusting and I’ve lied about it due to fear for so long? I feel like i’ve begged and even though he says he won’t watch it, I almost feel like he’s making me feel guilty for not feeling comfortable with him having a “quick fix?”