This is the day we celebrate him: here are 5 prayers to Saint Joseph, to ask him for purity and healing from an addiction to pornography.

 

Prière pour obtenir la pureté de cœur, d’esprit et de corps (Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux)

Saint Joseph, father and guardian of virgins, to whose faithful keeping Christ Jesus, innocence itself, and Mary, the virgin of virgins was entrusted, I pray and beseech you by that twofold and most precious charge, by Jesus and Mary, to save me from all uncleanness, to keep my mind untainted, my heart pure, and my body chaste; and to help me always to serve Jesus and Mary in perfect chastity. Amen.

 

 

Prayer of Pope Leo XIII to St. Joseph

To you, O Blessed Joseph, we come in our trials, and having asked the help of your most holy spouse, we confidently ask your patronage also. Through that sacred bond of charity which united you to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the fatherly love with which you embraced the Child Jesus, we humbly beg you to look graciously upon the beloved inheritance which Jesus Christ purchased by his blood, and to aid us in our necessities with your power and strength.

O most provident guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ. Most beloved father, dispel the evil of falsehood and sin. Our most mighty protector, graciously assist us from heaven in our struggle with the powers of darkness. And just as you once saved the Child Jesus from mortal danger, so now defend God’s Holy Church from the snares of her enemies and from all adversity. Shield each one of us by your constant protection, so that, supported by your example and your help, we may be able to live a virtuous life, to die a holy death, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here to pray with you and ask Saint Joseph or Carlo Acutis for his intercession:

Going further:

• “My husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis thanks to SOS Porn!”
• Regis: “God delivered me from my addiction to masturbation!”
• Deliverance prayer

Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

On the 25th of June, last year, Agathe gave us her testimony using the chat’ on SOSPorn: “when we’re stuck in it, we’re so powerless… it’s a turning cogwheel from which it’s so difficult to get out.” She explained to us how she managed to fight her addiction and be liberated from pornography. All thanks to a new friend whom she met through providence!

I became an addict when I was adolescent

I fell into the trap of pornography addiction when I was a teenager, around the age of 15 yrs old. It very slyly found its way in, progressively, before I’d even had time to react, I was stuck in a trap, impossible to get out of. I always needed more, to go further, in the videos I would watch, I had certain habits too…

Not only could I not go without it, but it took a big place in my daily life.

On the one hand I couldn’t see the problem with it. “More than half of young people have already watched pornography”, “it’s normal, everyone does it”, “realistically speaking, it’s only the Church who disagrees with it”… This is what I heard and it enabled me to let go of feeling guilty, to tell myself it was normal and not anything serious.

“I felt it wasn’t good for me”

However, on another hand, I felt deep down that it wasn’t good for me and that I had to stop. I was ashamed. I was too ashamed to talk about it, to accept what I was doing, ashamed about not managing to stop on my own. I tried stopping it all many times but I wasn’t able to keep it up for more than a day. I felt so helpless, that in spite of the shame, I managed to ask for help in my prayers. I was thinking to myself, if I can’t manage this alone, there was only one solution left, to ask God for help and that he give me the necessary strength to resist it.

He took time before replying, but the reality was that he gave me so much more than just the strength to stop.

I received a real gift: a ‘wink’ from God!  – Liberation

On the 10th of October 2020, I was at my cousin’s wedding and during the reception one of my aunts who I didn’t know very well, came over to talk to me. After having briefly asked how I was she gave me a flyer with the image of Carlo Acutis, and on the back, there was a prayer of deliverance from pornography addiction. She just handed me this flyer she’d found lying in the bottom of her back, before going off to talk to someone else.

I was profoundly touched and struck by the title of the prayer, but I quickly put it away in my bag to carry on with the party, not letting anything show. The following day I remembered it, I thought to myself it was a real wink from God.

It was only after a week I realised that something had happened. I hadn’t touched pornography since the wedding and I didn’t even desire it anymore. I no longer needed to wrestle with it; it had become easy. At that point I became aware of the grace I’d received.

But who is this Carlo?

I’d never heard of Carlo Acutis before, so I researched him to know a bit more. I then realised I received the flyer with his prayer on it, the very day and time of his beatification*.

What happened on the 10^th October 2020 at the time of Carlo’s beatification, when I received the little card with his photo and prayer on it, was a real healing. And this is very much in line with the work of SOSPorn.

I needed time to be sure of the healing and to be sure I wasn’t making it up. But for nearly 9 months now, not only do I not watch pornographic videos anymore, but I have no compulsion to. What used to be impossible for me, is now easy.

I also managed to speak about it, to confess it and this step was truly a second healing for me, more spiritual.

Since then, the effects of grace have decreased and the battle has restarted. I sometimes feel like I could fall again, and that it’s more complicated. But I continue to have this strength which gives me the capacity to resist. I am conscious of the difficulties that lie ahead, but I feel ready to confront them and I know I am no longer alone in this fight.

Agathe

Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here to pray with you and ask Carlo Acutis for his intercession:

Going further:

• François’s recovery from a 25-year porn addiction.
• “My husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis thanks to SOS Porn!”
• Porn: What’s the problem?

7 ways porn affects you

The dangers of porn are all too little known by the general public, that’s why we can find ourselves stuck in a hellish and vicious cycle. Here are the top 7 ways in which porn affects you and your life.

PORN, what does it do to you?

In the moment, you feel excited, you’re looking at pictures and watching videos, and it’s enough for you to feel like masturbating. You feel sexual arousal and that’s exactly the aim of porn: to provoke sexual excitement and arouse pleasure through a visual stimulus. It stimulates your senses, which is one of the main reasons it produces such an effect in you. In addition to the arousal triggered by the images, pleasure is generated, by the viewing experience which is generally done in secret or as a solitary activity, so as not to be caught.

If this seems cool at first glance, it doesn’t come without consequences.

Porn exploits our sexual urges, which is an utter catastrophe for the brain.

Here’s what porn will trigger:

1) Super powerful addiction

The brain assimilates the viewing of pornographic images, to a sentiment of well-being. And so it will ask to be stimulated like this again, in order to have the same feeling of well-being.

It’s the same sort of thing for people who smoke or take drugs; they need regular doses in order to feel well.

However, the consumption of porn acts differently on the brain. As it quickly gets used to images, it demands a more regular and more hardcore consumption to find once again the pleasure and well-being it initially experienced.

2) Depression

Porn completely destroys the reward system. In our brain we have an inbuilt reward system.

It’s present in all mammals, including humans. Its function is to foster and encourage behaviours which are necessary to our survival.

The feeling of pleasure produced by viewing a pornographic image is the result of interacting chemicals. The reward circuit in the brain is activated and releases dopamine, which makes us feel the sensation of pleasure.

It seems logical to try and trigger this pleasure circuit again, but the line between well-being and addiction is quickly crossed.

The pleasure experienced is relatively subjective, fleeting, and can make you lose control of your behaviour and your body. This can drive you to act in a way you didn’t really choose to, as it transforms into dependency.

Scientists describe abnormal and strong explosions of reward and pleasure which subsequently establish an addiction in the brain, of an extremely strong nature. Consequently, this dependency creates numerous sexual dysfunctions impacting mental health and/or the sexual life. Known symptoms notably include depression and anxiety.

3) Modifying beauty standards

“That girl is so beautiful”, generally, masturbation happens after having seen a really beautiful actress. But the women we see every day out on the street aren’t all porn stars. The habit of watching women with a body shaped for porn modifies your reality. The physique presented in these types of films is not ordinary or common. The porn stars are chosen for particular physical characteristics, which don’t reflect reality in any way.

In everyday life, you may find that women tend to have a more normal physique, and it’s hard to find an ‘attractive girl’, but this is because your beauty prism has become distorted.

The dissatisfaction, linked to this fruitless pursuit of an out-of-the-ordinary physique, pushes you into a greater consumption of porn, when you find that reality is seemingly not beautiful enough for you.

4) Deep social apathy

Seduction is too much like hard work…

It’s much easier to sit in front of your screen and consume images. Pornography draws you into isolation and makes you close-in on yourself.

In this way we fall into deep social apathy, a laziness where we avoid making any effort.

5) Serious sexual problems

Consuming porn orientates us towards the search for instant pleasure. It’s easier to sit and watch something by yourself than to put time into a relationship concerning two of you. It becomes a functional sexuality which traps you into the pursuit of personal gratification.

In sex, what about the other person? By just looking for instant pleasure, sex involving another person can get a bit annoying and will lose all its meaning.

6) Reduced libido

Yes you heard me, arousal is actually reduced as your vision of reality is totally deformed.

Sexuality involving the two of you gets more and more deceiving. The brain has racked up numerous pictures and videos where everything seems to go well, but when you are with someone it’s not always the case. This leads to a lack of sexual arousal and trouble in achieving an erection.

And in seventh place…

7) Brain atrophy

1. 1. Slower brain activity
   2. Reduction in grey matter
   3. Dysfunctioning stress circuit of the brain
   4. Loss of concentration and shorter attention capacity
   5. Loss of motivation
   6. Increase in anxiety
   7. Memory loss
   8. Loss of neurones
   9. Weakening of impulse control circuits
   10. Damage to emotional regulation

 

Here’s how porn affects you. What do you think? If you want to get out of porn, and you’ve tried everything and you can’t manage it, you can pray here with an e-missionary, present online, who will ask the help of Carlo Acutis.

Going further:

• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?
• How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques
• What are the consequences of porn on your health ?

Porn is everywhere. Now that it’s often trivialised, it forces its stereotypes on the youth, or those even younger than that. However, instead of enabling access to a varied sexuality, pornography imprisons the individual in simplistic models, depriving them of the richness of their own fantasies.

As philosopher Michela Marzano states in her work ‘Alice in the world of porn’, according to its Greek etymology, the term pornography means “writing involving prostitutes”. Since the XVIII century, this word has been used to indicate explicit representations of sexual organs or sexual acts. However, pornography goes well beyond a representation, as it shows the sexual act in its entirety, whilst erasing all else that surrounds it. The sexual act is not shown to be the fruit of an encounter. “The person is reduced to their body and their body is viewed as an object without a will”, explains the philosopher. “They become something interchangeable. To the point where it’s no longer the person we desire but a body we want to use for our pleasure.” The sexual act is summarised as a physical display. By creating a caricature of a certain number of sexual behaviours, pornography strikes the spectator and makes a strong and durable impression on them. Numerous teenagers recognise being scarred by pornographic images. “I watched a few scenes from a porn film”, confides Gaëlle, 16 yrs. “I found the experience violent. I was shocked by certain images which stayed with me for a long time afterwards”.

Between seduction and repulsion

“The adolescent sees pornographic images as an anticipation of the genital sexuality they are in the midst of accessing and they’re driven to giving these images an excessive place”, highlights the psychoanalyst Gérard Bonnet in his work Defi à la pudeur (Defying Modesty). “We watched a cassette tape just for laughs”, shares Yannick, 17 yrs. “There was a group of us and it excited us.” Pornography creates a deep ambivalence in young people. They are on the one hand, seduced by these images, because they provide a strong sensational experience, and on the other hand, overwhelmed, because they acknowledge the scenarios are violent and based on dominance and possession. They find themselves in a deadlock, which sometimes brings them to totally separate out feelings, from sexuality.

Protect your sexuality

Despite the discourse of certain trendy libertarians, pornography does not allow one to access a sexuality that is free and fulfilling. It actually carries the risk of weakening the sexual imagination of a young adolescent. Because pornography doesn’t let you see sexuality in its wholeness. As Michela Marzano explains: « By wanting to show everything, pornography only deconstructs sexuality, by emptying it from the inside.” Sexuality is an energy meant for serving relationships. It is made from mystery, desire, fears and expectations but also from what is missing. It demands our person in its entirety because it is the union of body, heart and spirit/mind. It involves our five senses but also our imagination inhabited by extraordinary fantasies. Know this and protect it, refuse the pornographic invasion society is imposing on us.

And you, what do you think? Do you watch porn sometimes? Come and talk with us through the chat’!

Going further:

• What’s wrong with looking at pornography?
• Dos porn make it harder to meet people?
• What are the consequences of porn on your health ?

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Source: ‘He is Alive!’ February 2007.

How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques

Top 10 unfailing techniques to stop using porn.

“Just stop watching it!” someone has undoubtedly said this to you before, or maybe you often repeat it to yourself. As if it were simply a question of deciding… To stop watching porn is of course a choice. But it doesn’t happen by clicking your fingers and willpower alone is not enough.

So, just for you, here are the top 10 techniques to stop watching it. Each one of these techniques is a rung on the ladder helping you rediscover your freedom.

This article is written just as much for men as for women.

1. Talk about it

This may seem a little simplistic, but it’s the foundation stone. Freeing yourself from pornography begins by addressing the subject, giving words to what’s going on, the difficulties, the realisations, the suffering. Talking about it enables you to shine a light on a habit which is so often our dark little secret. By keeping it to yourself you risk developing a parallel life, and the habit of lying: hiding this part of your life can become an obsession. In short, talking about your pornography consumption will liberate you and put you in the right disposition for stopping.

2. Install blockers

If you want to radically increase your chances of stopping, and dramatically reduce the time you spend in front of porn, I recommend you put blockers in place, on all devices that can access the internet, whether it be your personal computer, professional computer, your smartphone, tablet… There are excellent systems that exist, like Covenant Eyes or Cold Turkey. These systems aren’t the whole solution but they will help you become habituated to not giving in to the smallest sexual urge.

3. Cultivate a healthy life-style

Sometimes porn erupts into our lives for one very simple reason: biology. Yes, our way of life has direct consequences on our consumption of pornography. Don’t be surprised that you watch porn if you’re often going to bed late, or if you don’t have a regular eating pattern, or you don’t do any sport. Taking care of yourself and your rhythm/style of life is the second key stone in structuring your liberty. Fix a sleep routine, take up a sport that you like doing, and start cooking more instead of giving in to fast food. Simply speaking: take back control of your daily life. These three ingredients will have an impact on your pornography consumption. They have an effect on your physical, psychological and emotional state and will make the task of controlling your urges easier.

I suggest starting with:

• Going to bed at 11pm
• Getting up at 7am
• Going running every day
• Stop snacking

Once these new habits are in place; physical tensions, frustrations and set-backs will have a less powerful effect on you, and will lead you into porn less easily.

4. Do some research

We aren’t the only ones questioning the place of porn in our life. A lot of people have trodden this path before you. Some have developed brilliant resources: whether they be researchers, experts, witnesses, ex-addicts… the internet is also a virtuous tool where you can easily find content to give you the intellectual and mental weapons you’ll need in facing your urges. Here are a few questions to help start your research: Do you know who is really hiding behind all the videos? What strings are being pulled in the pornography industry? How does its business model function? Just a few examples, but I’ll leave you to start your own research like any good internet surfer from the 21^st Century.

5. Identify patterns

You’ve probably already noticed that you watch porn at particular times of the day, in particular situations, after certain events… Maybe you’ve put into place a codified ritual with your own rules and ways of practicing. Every consumer has their own pattern. Are you aware of yours? Sometimes the reasons we watch porn aren’t clear. In any case, there are times we are more disposed to watching it. Write them in a journal, your battle book. Every day, look at what is « going on ». Firstly, note what you observe: places, times of day, and the context of each one of these relapses. Then, try and analyse what is happening: why did I desire to watch it?

6. Identify preconceived concepts

You might be saying to yourself, you’re done-for, there’s no exit door to this. That’s false. Your body has become used to porn. It can just as well become “un-used” to it. Do you believe what you’ve just read? Deep inside each one of us there are certain beliefs we need to identify and deconstruct. The objective of this step is to change the way you see your relationship with porn. Note down in your journal all the preconceived ideas you manage to identify within you. If you need, talk to a friend about it. This will help you to really put your finger on it.

I’ll give you a few examples:

• I’ll never be able to stop watching porn because I’m too weak
• I watch porn from time to time because it teaches me how to be better in bed
• I need porn to manage my sexual urges
• I have wounds that go too deep to be able to give up pornography
• I’ll never be able to get a girlfriend/boyfriend, I’m condemned to watching porn whenever I have a sexual urge
• Porn helps me to manage my negative emotions, I can’t give it up or I’ll have an episode or it’ll make me go through something that’s too painful
• The men of today have to watch porn otherwise they’re not virile
• I am dirty because I watch porn and I’m a woman

There are hundreds of these… It’s up to you to identify the ones in you.

7. Identify the wounds

You now understand the reasons we watch porn are sometimes difficult to explain. You’re successful in everything, you’re happy and fulfilled and yet you sometimes feel the irrepressible need to watch porn. Clearly, sometimes there are simple factors, of a biological nature, for example:

“I see an advert in the street, it awakens a sexual urge in me, I get home, I open my computer and I masturbate compulsively.”

• Read also : Hom to stop masturbating? 8 ways to break out of it!

This is when a relapse is easier to explain and understand. But, there are also underlying causes, linked to our personal history and the first few years of our life. We’re talking about emotional wounds which orientate us towards attitudes of self-protection when faced with suffering similar to that endured at the time of the wound. This could be a wound of rejection, abandonment, betrayal, injustice or humiliation. The vast majority of us are affected by these wounds. Pornography often intervenes as a painkiller or an emergency escape when the effects of these wounds make themselves too present or felt too much. I advise you to dig deeper by reading books and why not consider a therapist?

8. Consult a specialist

At this point, it’s important to be able to lean on the insight, the listening ear and the wisdom of a specialist. You can do a lot by yourself and I would even say it’s good to experience the solitude of the combat of getting rid of pornography, to draw as many solutions as possible from within you. But then, it becomes clear we can’t go very far without a companion on our journey, someone we can confide in. But after this, this friend is too involved in your life to help you make the following step.

For this you’ll need to see a professional; a man or woman who has experience in accompanying people towards freedom from pornography. This could be a psychologist, a sex therapist, an addiction doctor, a gynaecologist, anyone who is trained for it. This person will help you break your standard thought patterns, take a bit of distance, question certain interior beliefs, engage differently with the subject, undo certain knots…

• Read also : Is counseling a must for the porn addict?

9. Get out and see people

For some people, the consumption of pornography can go with a certain form of isolation or at least a preference for solitude. The reasons for this are diverse, shame, fear of how others perceive you, self-deprecating thoughts, more general fears… In all cases, I recommend you make the effort of reaching out to others and developing your social life, whether it’s through your professional network, university, sport, or any other sort of hobbies or activities. If you don’t have a network like this, it’s up to you to find an activity that you like and which enables you to meet people at the same time. Prolonged isolation and solitude create conditions which encourage relapse. Tell yourself as a general rule, when facing urgings to watch porn, you are stronger when you are not alone. Maybe it’s time for you to get a housemate if you live by yourself…

10. Take a cold shower

The ultimate wildcard to play, a major trump: the cold shower. In a critical emergency, anything goes. A cold shower is like a nuclear weapon. You can use it as an effective dissuasion device by making it a rule to have a cold shower if the rest isn’t working. It’ll have an instant vasoconstrictor effect in your body, meaning your blood vessels contract on contact with the cold water in an effort to preserve heat. This will instantaneously relieve any physical sexual tensions and evacuate stress. It’s your ultimate safe-guard, and it’s up to you how you use it…

Until next time, as the adventure continues…

If you need to talk about these techniques, we’re there for you via the chat (free and anonymous).

Bonus : ask for a deliverance prayer!

Warning, this is not a magical formula, but it can help a lot, and, if God wants it, it can heal you too!

If you want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction, we are here to pray with you and ask Carlo Acutis for his intercession:

Going further:

• “I feel guilty, how do I break the cycle of guilt?”
• Porn: What’s the problem?
• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?

Have you smiled today? What if true sexuality wasn’t porn but a unifying relationship which makes you happy?

Good question. What is Porn? 

Pornography is “the brutal representation of manifestations of a sexual nature, with the deliberate intention of provoking sexual excitement in a destined audience”. Sexual excitement is just a fragment of our sexuality.

Sexuality is a wonder and it opens up the relational dimension of our nature. We find fulfilment through having a relationship with the other. Sex is also a function of the human person; like breathing, eating, drinking, walking, thinking. Each of these functions share the same two characteristics: firstly, they have power and drive us, secondly, they put us in contact with the world and other beings.

In my point of view, sexuality is meant to give us happiness. Porn leaves us unsatisfied. This is why the market uses it; it’s an inexhaustible source! As Jesus says to the Samaritan, when talking about the water we drink: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (Jn. 4:14)

Sexuality drives and animates us

Sexuality is a component of love. The urges we get from it, can be channelled, just as we can channel those from other bodily functions. Alas, porn makes us believe that we can satisfy impulses in a quick and easy way. But this is a deception.

It is possible to experience something truly amazing. All this depends on your desire of how you build your life. If we choose the beauty of a relationship, lived between two people, always discovering something new, giving of ourselves totally, we’ll find heaven.

Two dangers of pornography 

A danger of systematic porn use, is it’ll push aside the beautiful life experience being offered to us. The other danger is universally recognised: the trivialisation and exposing of intimacy, which destroys it, but which also degrades the boundaries every person has a right to. It renders imaginable and visible what we want to keep intimate and invisible. Through fantasy, it renders acts which are forbidden in reality, possible. What do we do then, when the line between reality and illusion is erased, due to all sorts of reasons in today’s life; drugs, the power of desire, or simply tiredness and frustration?

Inducing happiness hormones, without the happiness; stimulating desire, rather than experiencing a relationship in its fulness, what a tragedy…

Even so, it’s everywhere! No, porn is not true sexuality, but it is difficult to resist the spirit of human pleasure, unless we have the help of the Holy Spirit. He is the Miracle of Love.

“Apart from me you can do nothing!” John 15:5

Love is a true miracle. And pure hearts are happy (Mt. 5:8) because they will see God.

So, what do you think about it? Is porn true sexuality, for you? We’re here to listen and help, please don’t hesitate to talk to us via the chat (free and anonymous)

 

Going further:

• “My husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis thanks to SOS Porn!”
• What does pornography do to marriages?
• Managing your sexuality: how and why?