A miraculous cure through Carlo Acutis. The heartbreaking testimony of a wife and mother who discovered that her husband was addicted to porn, and how he broke free from it.

I am now thirty-eight years old… Two years ago, we went through a terrible ordeal as a couple. We were married in church fifteen years ago and I can testify to the wonderful graces of the sacrament of marriage. When I discovered that my husband had fallen into the grip of pornography, I fell apart. “Anything except that!” I can’t explain it but you feel totally devastated and yet it wasn’t me who was searching for those images.

I loved my husband too much to believe that it was true, that he had fallen into this trap. I could see that he wasn’t feeling great. I have to say that there were many extenuating circumstances but I felt terrible about the fact that he was watching these videos. I felt alone. This subject is still considered a taboo, so who can you talk to about it? It is so hard; and it affects our intimacy as a couple.

God is so good that He hasn’t abandoned us. At the same time, the SOSPorn website had just been launched and I got an email about it. I had the courage to visit the website and I discovered the prayer of deliverance through Carlo Acutis’s intercession. So I prayed for my darling husband. Prayer is essential, but I still felt alone. I then took the decision to use the Chat facility and the Lord, in His infinite goodness, put me in touch with the right person at the right time. Thank you!

• Does this affect you? Talk to us via the chat! (There is no charge and you remain anonymous)

I was able to have a friendly chat and discussion. I was also able to confide in a friend who was a priest and who had given us a lot of support. I had a desire to save our marriage, our love and the man to whom I had committed my life and whom I loved. That’s when I moved heaven and earth. You know, when you have a sick child, you do everything to care for them, reassure them and cherish them, even when you are exhausted. Well, that’s what I set out to do for my beloved husband!

A prayer for a miraculous cure through Carlo…

I wanted to fight, to tell myself that it was possible to help him. It was a lot to take in. For sure! I used to cry a lot when I was alone. I got angry too.
Sometimes I said things to him and it was as though he’d been electrocuted. I also tried to continue to love him as he was, with his wounds, and to let myself be loved…

None of this would have been possible without the support of prayer. Thanks to SOSporn and its members, I really felt supported. I can truly say that my husband was miraculously cured through Carlo Acutis and thanks to SOSporn. In fact, during the beatification of Carlo Acutis and the veneration of his body by the faithful, members of SOSporn placed my husband’s name before Carlo, and Carlo’s mother also prayed for my husband. For my part, I prayed to Carlo a lot. He has become my little brother in heaven who watches over my darling husband, our marriage, and our family.

When my husband realized that he was hurting himself and our marriage, he agreed to let himself be helped… by me. I felt so weak but we had entrusted ourselves to each other on our wedding day. I let myself be led by the communion of saints, especially Carlo and Saints Louis and Zélie Martin.

We love the sanctuary at Alençon. We had planned to go and pray in the chapel, where there was Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, but the sanctuary had to shut because of the Covid pandemic and it just offered an evening livestream. There was no way I could accept that! I explained to the nuns that it was vital that we pray in person at the sanctuary. They told me that they would discern what to do and call me back. In the meantime, I expressly asked Carlo for his intercession because if my husband was ready to let himself be loved by the Lord, we really shouldn’t lose the opportunity! The sisters called me back an hour later to say that they would make an exception for us and that we could go. Thank you Lord! Thank you Carlo!

A few months later, my husband agreed to go on the At the Heart of Men retreat. But then the possibility of a third lockdown started looming. I prayed… I had my family and friends pray… I explained to the Lord once again how vital it was. Thank goodness! The retreat was still on and my husband left with his good friend. His wife said that I really had faith because the retreat was so close to being cancelled. Thank you Lord! Thank you Carlo! He returned from this retreat transformed. Over time, my husband has changed a lot, for the better. We have nothing to hide anymore. We love each other as we are. This may seem easy to say, but it is a daily struggle. I lost confidence in myself and in him, and today I am trying to regain my confidence.

The only thing for me now is that we love each other in weakness. This trial has made me understand how a wounded person can let themselves be fooled. Since then, I have become more compassionate towards human suffering.
The battle is not yet won because temptation exists. We are vigilant. Patience and perseverance make it possible to keep going. I know with a deep certainty that Carlo is watching over us. I ask him to look after my husband every day.

Now, these words are for you, my darling husband. You know how much I have always loved you. You know how much I have always believed in our calling to marriage. Just like the great hero King David, you – the hero of my heart – have fallen. I’ve learned that forgiveness has a price, especially when it hurts a lot. But you can be sure that I have forgiven you. Thanks to you, I understood how patient God is when I walk away from Him. You have taught me patience… You have taught me to forgive. I love you.

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:

• Help! My husband recently disclosed his porn addiction to me.
• What does pornography do to marriages? 
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

 

“I feel guilty, how do I break the cycle of guilt?”

Being imprisoned in pornography can lead us to feel guilty, we are torn between the immediate artificial pleasure brought by looking at pictures, and the awkwardness of a broken chord somewhere, feeling that something is being damaged within us. We would like to give ourselves to another, in fullness and in truth, but our sensual preferences make us close in on ourselves, like Adam hiding from God, after sinning. In facing all this, we can take one of several different paths.

1) Despair

Every time we end up falling again, it’s so easy to say it’s all useless, we’ll never manage to be successful. We let ourselves give up, to despair, to experience depression, perhaps worse…

2) Pride

Yes, I fell, but I’ll get up again, for sure, because I’m strong, I can control myself… vanity of vanities, all is vanity…

3) Humility

The third solution, and the only one to help us break the infernal cycle of guilt, lies in recognising that we can’t succeed alone. It creates an opening to God, for those who believe in him, acknowledging before him that we’re weak, and imploring his mercy: this is the sense of confession.

This opening can also be made through a third-party, someone who has our trust: a friend, a priest, a psychologist… Lots of options exist, competent individuals ready to provide help. I’ll mention a couple here:

• Talk to us about it via the chat!
• Novena to Carlo Acutis. The possibility of reciting the same prayer for nine days, asking the intercession of a young Italian who died in holiness and who was passionate about new technologies.

So we should never give up, we need to use the ways given to us to make progress, getting to know ourselves and our limits, and always staying hopeful.

If you’re asking yourself, ‘how do I break the cycle of guilt?’ Don’t hesitate to talk to us about it via the chat (free and anonymous):

Going further:

• How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis
• Watching porn, what does it do to you?

Addiction to porn, sign of pschological distress?

Addiction to pornography or to masturbating regularly, even if your partner seems to ignore it, has an effect on the trust within a relationship. Shame, breaking the rules, or sinning, the subject is taboo. How can we address it differently? How do we talk about it, in all simplicity?

A man admits to his friend that he’s addicted to porn. His friend replies directly: “Your combat is essentially a question of control. You like the control that pornography gets for you. You’d prefer to dive deep into this universe rather than run the risk of real intimacy.” Stupefied, the man recognised that it was true: “I wanted control over the way I experienced pleasure and I didn’t want to face the perspective of not having my needs satisfied by a real person.” (1)

Exercising your sexuality in a solitary way is totally paradoxical. Contradictory even in the terms we use, if we accept that sexuality is made for relationship. Each one of us has a deep need for intimacy with another. To be intimate with someone, is to live in close physical and emotional proximity with this person. We have a first experience of this intimacy in the relationship with our parents. When a lack of intimacy, or a displaced intimacy with them, or with one of them, affects the child, a distrust is planted in them. The child hardens their heart, in an effort to survive it. Later, this can make them become a “detached” adult, who finds it difficult to be intimate and incapable of talking about it, because it implies surrendering. An adult in this case can become narcissistic, not able of taking another person into account. The partner of someone like this is clearly bound to suffer.

Porn addiction, sign of psychological distress

Porn addiction, like sex addiction, is not in the first instance a moral problem, but a psychological problem, and sign of psychological stress. Moral convictions will not help a person in breaking out of it. Rather, they need to become aware of the reasons behind their addiction, by working on themselves, accompanied by someone who is competent.

And where is God in all this? More intimate than my own self. God can be a source of healing.

• Read also: Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

Therapy can also help you become aware of the causes behind these inappropriate sexual habits.

Sexual impulses and urges are the sign of a greater and deeper desire: that of being loved and of loving. In quenching this great and good thirst through solitary satisfaction we deprive ourselves of the inter-personal dimension of this desire, it deprives us of love. Break out of it! Get help!

So, how do we do it? Talk about it with your partner and/or talk to us using the chat’!

Going further:

• Is masturbation harmful?
• Joseph, ex-porn addict: “One day, I thought to myself: you’re not happy!”
• What are the consequences of porn on your health ?

 

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Notes

Extract of an article written by Sophie Lutz for ‘Famille chrétienne’, March 2013.

(1) Vers une sexualité réconciliée, by Andrew Comiskey, Éditions Raphaël.

Dos porn make it harder to meet people?

Porn doesn’t completely block an encounter with someone else, but it does lower the chances of a having a sincere exchange. Here, we’ll explain why.

• Porn is time-consuming

Porn use is aimed at producing the pleasure to satisfy urges which are more often than not the result of being unhappy, stressed, feeling undermined in your masculinity or femininity, an excessive fatigue, or not looking after your body.

Consuming porn like this, firstly creates a habit or reliance, and secondly an increasingly stronger need for it, because it functions on the same principal as using drugs. The time spent consuming porn is detrimental to other activities, which get pushed aside, mathematically limiting occasions for meeting and making friends, or entertaining the possibility for something more, if things go well.

• Risk of isolation and self-satisfaction

Addiction and individual pleasure, without the constraint of involving another person, can encourage us to be satisfied with the situation and not look to change. Taking the risk of meeting someone, then building a friendship or relationship with them, involves making certain adaptations to the other person. An attitude like this may be more difficult to adopt if we are used to a way of life where there is unrestrained pleasure, and as the consumer we select our merchandise, porn, in a unilateral way.

• Basing the relationship principally on its sexual potential

The habit of using porn, with its ‘drug’ effect, develops an increasingly greater need for it. This dependency will have an effect on the way you see the people you may meet, and what you expect from them. They’ll end up being judged and compared to model or porn actors you’ve seen and there’s the risk of prematurely breaking up relationships, and missing out on finding your lifetime partner, when porn is not at all a reference point for real life.

• What will your future partner think?

If you go on a date which launches into a relationship, what’ll your partner think? Will they be annoyed or disgusted with the comparison? And what if they accidently come across your porn consumption? If you don’t manage to get out of porn before meeting someone, the best option would be to talk to them about it, so they can help you on your journey. Contrary to the image given to us by society, which insists on presenting an idealised projection of yourself, sharing your wounds often strengthens the bond between two people because it’s a sign of trust and honesty.

And this combat, that you’ll face together, can give foundations to your couple, and bring something good out of something bad.

If you don’t have a partner to help you face this combat, come and talk on the live chat’, we’ll give you a shoulder to lean on in this fight:

Going further:

• Why do we need to educate ourselves about sexuality and Feelings?
• Porn: What’s the problem?
• François’s recovery from a 25-year porn addiction

Masturbation, what’s the problem? Last night, Văn Sinh N. left us this message on the contact page of SOSPorn:

“Help me overcome masturbation. Thank you so much.”

We can clearly see through this example: a man asking for help…

What is masturbation ?

Masturbation is the solitary pursuit of sexual pleasure through arousal of genital parts. It’s frequent at adolescence when sexual urges start appearing. It can be supported by fantasies, consumption of pornography, etc. There is always a link between porn and masturbation, even if this is not true of the opposite.

But what’s the problem?

The real problem with masturbating, is the pursuit of pleasure centred on ourselves, without a real relationship nor true tenderness.

This can provoke an obsession or a guilt which will poison your life!

Masturbation is also an escape from or over-compensation for certain frustrations: loneliness, lack of love, etc; It can hide a secret wound. But masturbation is not the solution. It’s the contrary, it imprisons us in the problem. It’s a quick escape… and for Christians it’s a sin because it cuts us off from the love of God, source of all love.

 

Two tendencies TO AVOID:

1. TRIVIALISING masturbation like it’s a necessary part of looking after your body or a normal and positive way of discovering your sexuality.

Masturbation is not harmless!

2. DRAMATISING masturbation like it’s the dirtiest and most shameful thing ever. No: our body is beautiful and pleasure is justified!

The problem is not then physical, but mental:

1. If it becomes a habit, masturbation weakens our personality (dependency). It affects our sense of fulfilment because of sexual obsession, the feeling of failure, or guilt.

2. Masturbating can also paralyse our romantic relationships through its pursuit of individual and climactic pleasure instead of living a true RELATIONSHIP based on love and shared pleasure. This can cause a partner to suffer deeply.

And you, what do you think? Come and talk about it with us through the live chat’ (anonymous and free discussion):

Going further:

• What’s wrong with masturbation ?
• Porn and masturbation, the same battle?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

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Source: response freely adapted for Sosporno.net/Sosporn.org from a page in the booklet for teenagers Succeed in your sentimental and sexual life, Brother Jean-Benoît Casterman, Editions des Beatitudes.

What is Chastity?

We might sometimes ask whether “chastity” is a term still in use, or a virtue which is less and less present today… But we should understand it’s meaning and how it can be beautiful to experience.

Does it still exist?

If you asked a young person of today what the virtue of chastity is, they would look at you, almost confusedly, asking what it is you’re talking about. Some might reply it’s “something” we don’t do anymore, from the Middle Ages. Chastity may be seen as a mortification practice, to humiliate; a sort of “castration” of the person. This conviction seems to only get stronger when we look at the Christian tradition where monks and nuns take a “vow of chastity”, never marrying and locking themselves into a monastery or convent. And so, today, if we mention chastity, it’s almost always in a negative or outdated context.

Deprivation or liberation?

When talking about chastity, the real problem is we believe that those who live it have to renounce carnal pleasures, without knowing why, depriving themselves of a human joy.

It’s true, pleasure is not something negative in itself and it’s not considered so by those who experience it. Sexual experiences, at increasingly younger ages and more widely spread among the youth, testify to the search of a pleasure without limits. We are “free” when we can live our sexuality without constraint or cultural limitations. However, living like this doesn’t seem to make us any freer; a sexuality left to its own devices, provokes addiction, frustration, wounds and a feeling of being empty in our hearts.

Giving, is really gaining

Chastity is the path on which I will learn to love the other. Egoism defines itself in possessing, provoking pleasure for itself; love is founded on the gift of self which elates the other’s heart. Living chastely is choosing to respect the other, their existence, their body, their being and welcoming all that they are, in a profound mystery which exceeds us. True joy is when I am able to make another feel they are a special and unique being; it’s in valorising gestures like holding hands or caressing. The trivialisation of sexuality dries out relationships, destroying them and taking away the beauty of being together, damaging trust and tenderness.

Object or person?

The television tells us of an ever-increasing violence towards women. This is due to an objectification of the person, which gives us the impression we’re allowed to use the other, to do what we want with them, and how we want it. This means the other feels ‘abused’, ‘robbed’, ‘violated’ in their body and their being; even if, underneath it all there may be sincere feelings of affection or attraction. Indeed, it’s not enough to feel something for someone, to then be able to give ourselves entirely to them.

In love, there’s no rush!

To avoid becoming dry instruments of pleasure, here’s the key word: patience! I know, especially for young people, it’s a synonym for torture, but waiting for important steps and key moments, when it comes to love, is essential for a romantic or friendly relationship to be constructed and endure in the long term. Love, in its deep and intimate reality, cannot be experienced immediately. Time has to be given to get to know the other, to understand their feelings and whether they’re real, and their way of thinking, their character, their expectations and desires. The fruit of love can only be picked when it’s ripe, at that point it’ll be sweet and a source of happiness.

What do you think? We are here for you, via the chat to listen and answer your questions:

Going further:

• Is masturbation harmful?
• Managing your sexuality: how and why?
• Why do we need to educate ourselves about sexuality and Feelings?

Wich path of recovery from porn addiction?

By Dr. Peter Kleponis, clinical psychotherapist*.

You want to recover from a porn addiction? Let’s look at what does and doesn’t work:

What Doesn’t Work

• Trying to overcome pornography use on your own
• Believing that praying more and being more religious will take it away
• Minimizing the problem, hoping it will just go away
• Hiding the problem from your wife
• Being too embarrassed or ashamed to ask for help

What Does Work

• Admitting to your self and at least one other person that you have a problem
• Taking responsibility for getting help
• Letting go of shame associated with pornography addiction
• Seeking the help you need
• Being accountable to others
• Walking with the Lord every day in recovery
• Being willing to do whatever it takes to recover!

Over the past ten years I have evaluated many recovery programs. I have seen what works and what doesn’t work. From them I have developed a 7-point plan for recovery that includes the best of what does work.

7-point plan for recovery

1. Self-knowledge and Commitment: Every day admitting to yourself that you have a problem and that you are responsible for getting help. Being committed to doing whatever it takes to recover.

2. Purifying Your Environment: Getting rid of all pornography and anything that reminds you of it. This includes destroying magazines, videotapes, and DVDs, blocking sexual Internet sites, avoiding certain businesses or parts of town, and even ending unhealthy relationships.

3. Support and Accountability: Anyone who has been successful in recovery knows you cannot do it alone. There are no “Lone Rangers” in recovery. You need other men who can support you in recovery as well as make you accountable for your actions. 12-step groups, such as Sexaholics Anonymous, and Catholic men’s groups, like The Kings Men, are needed for support and accountability.

4. Counseling: This is needed to get to the root cause of pornography use. Often issues like shame, loneliness, anger, childhood abuse and abandonment, and pure selfishness are the root causes of pornography use. These emotional conflicts need to be resolved for recovery to be lasting. Without this, any sobriety will be a “white knuckle” sobriety, and there will always be a struggle with strong temptations to use pornography. Counseling is also needed to insure that all other points of the recovery plan are in place and working properly. For married men, marital counseling is needed to heal the deep wounds to their marriage caused by porn use. Wives may also need counseling to help them recover from the trauma caused by their husband’s pornography use.

5. Spiritual Plan: Anyone who has been successful in recovery also knows that a strong relationship with our Lord is necessary. This includes daily prayer, spiritual reading, the sacraments and even working with a priest in spiritual direction. A healthy spiritual life can help reduce selfishness, loneliness, anger, and fear. It can also help strengthen confidence and raise self esteem. In addition, it can help heal deep emotional wounds. Daily walking with the Lord can make recovery a lot easier.

6. Education: You need to educate yourself on the dangers of pornography, its addictiveness, and what it does to relationships. You then need to share this knowledge with others. It becomes increasingly difficult to fall into using porn when you know the truth about it. In recovery, several books are recommended to educate men, and their wives, on the truth about pornography.

7. Virtue: This is unique to this recovery plan. By working every day to grow in virtue, men find it easier to avoid pornography. It is said that the true measure of manhood lies in virtue. The virtuous man strives to live a life of integrity that avoids all vices, including porn. It can be very difficult to fall into using pornography when a man is striving to grow in chastity, honesty, faithfulness, charity, and courage.

I call this a seven-point plan of recovery and not a seven-step plan because each point is of equal importance. They all need to be worked on in unison. This is not difficult as the points overlap. True success comes when recovery becomes a lifestyle. When this happens, working on all points daily becomes easy.

It has been my experience that when all points of the plan are addressed daily, sobriety and recovery can be achieved. Often when a man reports he has fallen into using porn, at least one of the points was not addressed.

The first step in recovery is asking for help. This is done by finding a qualified therapist who can work with you to develop and effective recovery program. I have worked with hundreds of men to overcome pornography use and addiction. I want to invite you to contact my office to schedule an appointment and to begin the healing process.

• His website : PeterKleponis.com

Do you too want to receive help from heaven to get rid of this addiction? We are here for you, via the chat to listen and answer your questions:

Going further:

• Prayer for deliverance from porn addiction, what good can it do?
• What are the consequences of porn on your health ?
• Jessica Hariss: “I was a porn addict” (video)

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Notes

(*) Dr. Peter Kleponis is a clinical psychotherapist. He’s a faithful Catholic who specializes in helping those struggling to be free of pornography. He can conduct counseling sessions via Zoom or can recommend a Catholic psychotherapist in your area.

Stop masturbating? If you are already in the habit of it, you’re probably finding it pretty hard to stop: addiction can take hold very quickly! You may even think that you can’t live without it anymore, which is absolutely false. So, here are a few words of advice to help you break out*:

1. Avoid over-dramatizing the situation or blaming yourself excessively. (“I can’t do it, I’m so bad, I fall again and again, I’ll never be able to stop it I’m not capable, etc.”). This can continue to paralyse you, and make you lose all self-esteem, or any confidence you have in stopping.
2. Try to identify your deepest desire, the one which masturbation is trying to compensate for. Task yourself with responding to it positively, by developing your qualities. If you believe, entrust this project to God. If you don’t, maybe entrust it to people who do, for example via the live chat’ on this website. Entrust your heart and your body to God, as well as your deepest desires, your interior wounds: loneliness, lack of affection, etc. If you are involved with porn, you can also pray or ask for a deliverance prayer on this website. Masturbation is presenting you with a challenge: forge your true personality!
3. Avoid temptations: porn videos or pictures, daydreams, erotic gestures. Don’t tempt the devil in you. To help, read also: I’m obsessed by pornographic images, how do I get rid of them?
4. Share the weight of your problem. Ask advice from a good friend, a professional, your local priest or why not ask a psychologist to accompany you? When you’re able to express the problem you’re facing, and the difficulties you have in resolving it, you’ll lighten your load by 50%! Dialogue and advice can help you break the isolating and vicious cycle of masturbation.
5. REDUCE progressively acts of masturbation. It’s easier to walk up a mountain progressively than to arrive at the summit in one go! SLOWLY, BUT SURELY.
6. Take up commitments in positive activities. Give your energy to cultural activities, sport, social or Catholic activities. It’s not by wrestling with your faults that you’ll overcome them, but rather by developing the qualities you have.
7. Don’t listen to people who push you into having sex in order to avoid masturbating. Pornography and debauchery – or sexual vagrancy – are much more dangerous, much more destructive than masturbation.
8. If you fall, stand your ground: after a time of liberation, there will be moments where temptation comes back in force. Perhaps you’ve courageously managed to renounce casual sexual relationships, but you slip into the habit of masturbation? You’re asking yourself whether you’d be better off taking up sexual encounters again? Masturbation is compensation on a temporary level. No need to worry. It’ll fade out once you’ve discovered love in all its strength!

And, going from small victory to small victory, you’ll end up breaking out of it! If you fall again, tell yourself that you’ve lost a battle, but not the war!

So, what do you think about it? What do think about this advice? Come and talk to us via the live chat’! (Free and anonymous listening service) :

To go further, about porn addiction:

• What’s wrong with masturbation ?
• Masturbation, what’s the problem?
• How do I break the habit of masturbation ?

 

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Source: response freely adapted for Sosporno.net/Sosporn.org from the booklet for teenagers Succeed in your sentimental and sexual life, Brother Jean-Benoît Casterman, Editions des Beatitudes.

Possible to stop using porn? Marcelin*, 27yrs old, gave this testimony to us directly. He managed to break out of a ten-year pornography addiction thanks to the program Free to Love.

« It’s possible to stop »

I think what we’re all waiting for, us, the people marked by the red iron of addiction to pornography and masturbation, is for someone to tell us it’s possible to stop, and that stopping is real. That others have already done it and that, today, some are on the path to getting out of this unhealthy stupor, just like we want to be.

• Read more : How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques

When we can’t find strength enough to stop by ourselves, what we’re left thirsting for is hope, for an attitude that doesn’t judge and one we can trust. An attitude which believes in us and in which we can see the first glimmers of hope. This is why it’s essential to fight this combat whilst being accompanied, and if I want you to take one thing away with you from this testimony, it’s the belief that it is possible!

One day, I couldn’t face sinking anymore more deeply, interiorly, into this addiction, so I decided to use the same tool which was destroying me daily – the internet – to look for a solution. With force and rage, begging God to help me, I desired only to extract myself from this interior paralysis. Ten years, I celebrated my ten years of addiction to pornography and masturbation, after discovering at the age of eleven that my own father was himself a victim of this scourge.

It was an immensely heavy heritage to carry, for the child that I was. The image of a father and the coherence of the education I’d received crumbled. Suddenly, I wasn’t a child anymore. What I’d seen violated my childhood and destroyed my relationship with my father, replacing it with incomprehension, then with violence. I know that what animates my undertaking today is the need to spare this burden from my own child, to break the chain of passing it on to the next generation.

An interior straightjacket

With time, my addiction became little by little like a second skin, stopping me from being myself, blocking me from emerging in the world, and opening my arms to existence. Pornography dependence was like an interior straightjacket. My whole being was turned inwards to a ball within myself which I hated, which dominated me, but in which I took refuge, where I would escape from myself and the world. I was closing in on myself, I was both jailkeeper and prisoner, and unhappy.

Truly, after ten years, I couldn’t do it anymore. My skin was like a prison, enslaved to a force within myself much stronger than I was. On that day, by doing some research, I came across several websites and many different publications that I instantly bought and read. I was ready to try everything. Anything was better than carrying on like that. In reality it was this outburst that saved me. It wasn’t a momentum of willpower, where I promised the gods and myself once more never to go on pornographic websites. This never worked and I would always come away disappointed and disgusted with myself. No, it was different. It was the will to stop it, at any cost, to take up other weapons, ways other than direct confrontation, which only seemed to deceive and belittle me.

I can tell you that my life changed when I decided to open the book Get out of porn (1), and to follow the program Free to Love during the period of Lent.

A glimmer of light

For me, it was the first time a door was appearing before me, glimpsing a thread of light around it, bringing hope. For the first time, I started believing, after 10 years of practicing masturbation, having sexual relationships which were more or less balanced, and pornography addiction. I know that, on the last day, Easter evening, when I burnt the letter I’d written, in my little garden, which contained the confessions of these years of alienation, I felt like whatever came next, things would never be the same.

The weight of it wasn’t the same. The taste of liberty made me smile, I felt a real and authentic joy in my heart. However, to think that on the final day with the last page of the program turned, it was the end of the road, was a mistake. I’ve always loved efficiency, boxes ticked, lists crossed off, final points… I like to finish a step, not think about it anymore, and start a new one. In reality, after having turned the final page of the book, all the blank pages of my life stared up at me; and as the program had guided and supported me for a time, it was now down to me to take up the baton, like an invitation to the coming of age from childhood to adulthood. This program was not another box to tick. It was a walking stick God was offering me to journey on the road. It was the first (great) step on the path, opening the blank pages of our lives to write on. It was the new program opening up to me, the program of a lifetime. My mistake was to believe that I would never need the walking stick.

 

“Stand up, take your mat and go to your home.”

– Jesus, Mark’s Gospel, chapter 2, verses 1 to 12

But Jacob who had his hip wounded in combat with an angel in the Old Testament (2) will undoubtedly limp for the rest of his life. And Jesus did say to the paralytic “take your mat and go to your home” (2). I needed to humbly understand that this wound, even if it was healed, would accompany me with the walking stick. The hard winter evenings spent alone, which would burn me again, I would have this stick which served also as a reminder.

I followed the program in an exemplary manner. I did it assiduously, almost pridefully, I felt strong, a brave victorious warrior after battle with the enemy in me, who had enslaved me all these years. I bought all the referenced texts and read them, taking notes, planning spiritual retreats… When the last day of Lent was over, I put my sword away, believing myself to be free from my enemy who was definitively vanquished. I didn’t see him anymore, I had broken out of pornography, and so I didn’t watch out for him anymore. The months went by and I let my guard down, I lost a battle, then two, then three… What we call “falls”, knees to the ground. And as we’re terribly intelligent beings, we look for ways to disguise the hole in the road, which we pretend to have not seen coming, in the end we aren’t yet free, and liberty in the face of addictions is not something which is won in a single battle. It’s not a box we can tick, this has to be accepted.

The battle for liberty takes place every day, I would even say with every glance. And, in the end, glory dipped in pride is, little by little, transformed into humility and mercy towards yourself, to recognise I am “only” human and so, poor.

Three pieces of advice for getting there

So, the first piece of advice I’ll allow myself to offer you through this testimony, is about remaining prudent and not forgetting there are no ‘last pages’ in a program. Don’t set off without your walking stick, even if you think you’re strong enough. Our best strength is humility.

My second piece of advice, which I find hard to use myself sometimes, is to decrease the trust we put in our own strength so as to increase our faith in the grace and the fruits of our relationship with God, through prayer. It’s a shift in logic: going from strength, to abandonment and tenderness; from a need to control, to accepting that time is an ally and we must work with it. It’s in leaving the prison of inhibitions, where we’re folded in on ourselves, to unfolding and looking out into the world. It’s no longer a question of efficiency but a long road to walk. But I can see, and my life can testify, that looking back, the fruits are so much bigger than what I’d have been able to harvest by my own strength.

My third piece of advice is about not forgetting, after having done all that, not forgetting that the ultimate aim is to love, in all the variations that it might bring. To not forget the title of the program… I was so focussed on the addiction that I forgot about the cause: freedom to love. To want to be as pure as possible but with a heart dried up from lack of love, we’ll forget to live, work, cultivate our talents and put them in service of loving a woman “as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (3), and to put all our strength into the coming of the Kingdom of God. To finish, I feel that we need to rediscover the sense of rituals. The program proposes a certain number of them. I think it’s a good thing to take steps which are concrete and which map out the road over time and in truth. They give us the sensation of progressing, and so the strength to continue. Little rituals of passage, regular little rituals which help us and do us good. These are both little steps on the road and lights illuminating the path already trodden.

It’s possible to stop… with the help of others!

So, I assure you, I am writing what I always dreamed of hearing, yes, it is possible to stop using porn, yes. Yes, it is possible to move on, to change things, to evolve. Yes, it is possible to break out of pornography, the question is: do we really want to? Want do we truly desire deep down, for our life? How would we like to love the loved one? What are we prepared to put into place? Are we ready to make the first step today, even if it’s small, miniscule but as much as we are able to? To start the journey is already to have our soul retract itself from a dark corner of it.

We are not perfect beings, but there are three little things which make all the difference: we are no longer alone, we are on the path, and we believe in the hope that things can change. This is the path which constructs who we are, and we’ll walk it every day. We cannot let our guard down because in this world, the enemy is close and we’ll always be limping. It’s what I came to understand in the two years following the end of the program. We’ll always be scarred by it, but no longer overcome by it. So, this program has to offer a very deep experience for those who follow it, and it remains only for me to welcome you on this steep path, for whomever wants to be free to love!

And you, what do you think? Do you believe it’s possible to stop using porn? 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:

• How to stop watching porn: 10 techniques
• Porn and masturbation, are they the same battle?
• Liberated from pornography by Carlo Acutis

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* The firstname was changed.

(1) Sortir de la pornographie, Editions de l’Emmanuel, Paris.

(2) Bible, Gn 32, 25-29.

(3) La Bible, Eph 5, 25