I can’t stop watching porn.
No really, I want to.
I have made promises and tried fresh starts in the New Year. I have even gone forward in church, gotten down on my knees, and begged God to help me stop watching it.
But I can’t quit porn! What is the real problem? Will I ever be able to stop watching porn? Because based on my past it seems impossible.
Porn addiction is an extremely complex issue with no simple answers or cookie-cutter solutions. But most people I talk with fall into what I call the “Zap Trap”—praying that God would just heal them or looking for some other instant solution. They want to stop watching porn without having to fight the fight for recovery.
However, in working with hundreds of men over the past ten years, I have learned that instant healing in this area is rare. So, let’s look at three main reasons why it is so hard to quit looking at porn.
How Hard Is It to Quit Porn?
Editor’s note:
As Dr. Alvin Cooper noted many years ago, the anonymity, affordability, and accessibility of digital porn make it much easier for people today to become addicted.
Not everyone experiences the pull of pornography in exactly the same way. However, some former drug addicts and alcoholics attest that pornography is more difficult to overcome. This is not everyone’s experience. Many factors contribute to the severity of an addiction, such as the age of first exposure and how many years they’ve been consuming pornography.
Additionally, pornography addiction often begins when porn is consumed out of a desire for genuine intimacy. As John Doyel notes below, isolation fuels addiction. Part of the challenge, however, is that pornography often feels like a substitute for real relationships.
3 Reasons It’s So Hard to Quit Porn
1. Porn is addictive.
Apart from the spiritual battle you are in by simply being a Christian, you are in a physical battle with a physical addiction that traps you into watching porn. You have literally become a drug addict. The drugs you are addicted to are those released in your brain when you become sexually aroused.
God designed those drugs as a wonderful part of His plan to bond a husband and wife as one during times of sexual intimacy. They all have a distinct purpose and are marvelously effective. However, your brain does not differentiate between having sex with your wife or having sex with porn. The same drugs are released with the same effect. Pleasure, focus, energy, release, and other things happen that make having an orgasm one of the most enjoyable things God has given to us.
We can’t quit porn because we like it. We like it a lot. So, we want it again and again. With that experience accessible in a five-minute trip to the bathroom with your smartphone, we start using it more frequently. When we get stressed. When we get angry. Or when we want to escape from problems, we can easily get a fix that does not fix anything.
Dopamine, testosterone, norepinephrine, oxytocin, and serotonin flood our brains, and we feel good for a while.1 Then shame and fear return, and it is not long before we want another escape. It’s hard to escape porn when porn is your escape. Scientific research shows that porn warps the brain like any other substance.2
Those who can’t stop watching porn do not like it when I tell them they are drug addicts, but that is the truth. The drugs are between their ears. They don’t need a pusher. Their drugs are basically free of charge and are extremely effective. We can now access whatever things we want to view and get a quick fix within a few seconds.
Also, we can walk out of wherever we just acted out and seem fine to everybody. No hangover. No trace of what you have done unless you forget to delete your history. Breaking free from this addiction takes a lot of work, and most men are not ready to fight that battle. Especially due to reason number two.
See Why Is Porn So Addictive?: 4 Reasons It’s Tough to Resist.
2. We remain in isolation.
How many people know about your secret struggle? You can’t quit without telling someone about it, but you feel like you can’t tell anyone. Telling means risking your job, your friendships, your wife, and your family. People will drop dead in shock because everyone thinks you have it all together, and so that pressure keeps the truth buried deep in your darkest places. You feel trapped because you are in a prison of your own making.
I know this from experience. As a pastor for 26 years who struggled with sexual addiction for eight long years, I hated myself. I committed many sexual sins, and there was no way I could just say to my wife and my board, “By the way, I am addicted to sex.”
However, God in His mercy revealed my secret life and my recovery began in September 2005. Talk about a train wreck and painfully injuring my wife and our four adult kids.
See Understanding the Shame Cycle.
Remaining in isolation makes it seem impossible to stop. Recovery demands confession, disclosure, coming clean, and genuine repentance. If I had been a better and braver man I would have stepped forward and asked for help. But I lived in denial and minimized my actions by telling myself I knew enough to be able to stop watching pornography.
We like to say that a lone sheep is a dead sheep. If you remain in isolation, you are a dead man and won’t be able to break free. Porn has its hooks in deep, and you will need a team of people to help you pull the hooks out and stop watching porn.
To make it through a withdrawal period of about 90 days, you need people available to you on a constant basis. You need to learn how to reach out to them when the whole temptation process to watch porn begins. We like to say reach out before you reach in. Reach out to your team before you reach into your pants.
The opposite of isolation is community. Scripture has a lot to say about community and our ministry was founded on this passage in 1 John 1:
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
Secular research conducted outside the Church likewise underscores the vital importance of accountability:
- One study found that having an accountability partner can make you 95% more likely to accomplish your goal.
- Gallup Business found that accountability is a key component in employee engagement. Businesses with highly engaged—and highly accountable—employees reported up to 17% higher productivity, 21% higher profits, 10% higher customer satisfaction, and 59% lower turnover rates for employees.
- One study suggests that accountability can even help people treat one another more fairly.
Fellowship is community. It is being daily connected to other men to help you fight the battle. How many armies send their troops out alone to fight the enemy alone? None. Stupid question. So why are you trying to fight it alone? Lone sheep are dead sheep.
3. We don’t take it seriously.
It is so easy to say to yourself that everybody is doing it. It is not such a big deal. Are you kidding me? Porn use is destroying families and marriages at an alarming rate.
God says sexual sin is a big deal. He calls us to purity and holiness. He has started a good work in us and plans to finish that work, but if we are walking in sexual sin like porn, we grieve and stifle the Spirit within us and will continue to be pulled into deeper areas of sin.
Every Monday night, about 100 men gather at our church because their sexual sin has been and is ruining their lives. They cannot stop and are heading into very dangerous and dark waters. We lie to ourselves when we think that we can handle it. If you could handle it on your own, why are you reading this article?
Not only should we take it seriously because God does, but we should take it seriously because of the effects porn has on us and society.
Did you see the cover of Time on March 31, 2016? They found that Millennials who have used porn over the years are experiencing erectile dysfunction because they have trained their brains to see sex as something you do online. So, when it comes time to have a real relationship, they fail to answer the call.
Are you aware of the rise and prevalence of sex trafficking around the world?
We Need Daily Encouragement to Stop Watching Porn
I believe with all my heart that God’s Word holds the path to stop watching porn. He calls us to community with no condemnation. He wants all of us to be connected and truthful with one another (and Covenant Eyes can help with this). We need to do as James says. We need to confess our sins to one another and pray for each other, and then healing can begin to come. Lastly, we need encouragement. Look at this passage in Hebrews 3:
“See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”
We need encouragement every day or we will be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. To start your journey, check out How to Quit Porn: 6 Essential Steps.
1 William Struthers, Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2009).
2 Frederick Toates, “A motivation model of sex addiction – Relevance to the controversy over the concept,” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 142 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104872.
Hi, my name is Chris i just want to stop watching porn so that i can be my best self and come back to God. I am typing this cos i just want to know that soeone out there cares cos its so hard telling friends about this addiction of mine but i’ve made up my mind to tell a friend or two about this. I just need some encouragement so that i can defeat this addiction and sin cos i am tired of doig this alone and failing
Hi, Christopher – I’m sorry you’re struggling, and yes, someone is here! And, it’s an awesome step to speak openly about this issue with a trusted friend. Please do that soon!
That spirit of shame and disgust is so heavy. But, it wants you to keep secrets and hide the issue because when you do that, the enemy wins. BUT, in the light, and saving Grace-filled love of Jesus, that disgust and shame is crushed.
Let me direct for a minute. Jesus did not die for us to flounder! It’s time to man-up :) So, I lovingly and directly offer to you that it’s time to put on your suit of armor and instead of seeing this as struggle, look at it as a battlefield. A good soldier wouldn’t go out expecting to die, so get out there and fight and don’t accept anything less than victory. You don’t have to give way to these sins, you choose to. Victory comes moment by moment. Not in life-long promises never to sin again. The enemy loves those promises! “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Be strong! Christ did not die, descend to the depths of hell, conquer death, and rise to glory only to be defeated by your struggle. He overcame the struggle for YOU! Yes, for you. God is for you and will be your strength. But, you must act. Look at Joseph in Egypt – when tempted by Potiphar’s wife, he didn’t stay and ponder the situation. No, he ACTED and RAN! Now is your time. If you still have access to porn through a computer or smartphone, then pitch it. Through the TV? Toss it out the window. Battle.
I hope the best for you, I truly do.
Chris
Please pray for me as I am struggling with this a lot and I am too afraid to really tell anyone that I know closely.
God is coming soon and I ask that we need to all stop this nonsense of porn. You are looking at a screen that won’t make you breakfast like a wife would. Every time you look at a video, the porn industry makes money. Watching porn adds fuel to the fire. God says that it is better to be maimed and enter the kingdom of God than to rot in hell. Give up all your electronics and magazines for the sake of your soul! Pray for the end of the porn industry.
Hi ,
I think I have become addictive to porn to a point of masturbating
I have prayed and confess to my God father and he helped in praying for me but it seems as if after sometimes I went back to them.even when I sleep I just wake up feeling as to do so. I am a lady , I love God but I keep on deceiving him although I know it is gud,I keep on in the shameful act.
Please could you please help me pray , I need prayers
Hello,
My name is Sarah and I used to watch porn as many have. I was fortunate enough (when I found out porn was a sin) to stop cold turkey. After I haven’t had the desire to see it with many prayers to God and never allowed myself to be put in situations where I could be tempted.
I have been with my fiance for 10 years. I’ve committed to him. We have two children together. He’s been struggling with porn for over 8 years that I know of. We broken up over this many of time. We are suppose to get married this July 7, 2017. But I recently found out he’s still watching it after many of promises and chances. I tell him I feel disrespected and not valued as his partner.
I’m making the choice to not marry him anymore. I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do but I’m not sure what else to tell him. He says if I didnt spy on him (go through his phone ) that I wouldn’t know anything. I feel beyond disrespected and betrayed.
Any advice I would much appreciate. Do cancel the wedding and leave him with no more chances?! Or do I just turn a blind eye and just deal with it?!
Best regards,
Sarah
Hey Sarah,
I guess it kind of depends on what kind of marriage you want to have. You know what’s going on, you know his response. If you want to live with his choices, that’s up to you. If you’re okay with things as they are, I’d say go ahead with the wedding.
If you don’t want your marriage to be this way, then you’ve got some hard choices to make. You can’t control his choices, but you can control your own.
Peace to you,
Kay
Hey there ones thing I want to mention is that
It’s not totally your fiance fault he is not only responsible for his condition. Society also plays a greater role he sometimes feel lonely sometimes distressed that’s why he is found it
And fair enough in men testes levels are quite high yeah u may feel betrayed but that’s not his choice in reality he deserves u if really he is not betraying u anymore.. Stay blessed stay happy
Work tho it
Hi, my name is Paul I’ve struggled with watch porn since I was in the 5th grade. It began just as curiosity and then began watching it more frequently. I’m in high school at a certain point I was able to break free from this sin. The reason for this was beacause I got diagnosed with kidney faluire then recieved a transplant. After a year so later I began watching porn thinking to myself I could stop any time I wanted to. But the truth is that it’s difficult to ignore the thought of not watching. I hate myself for watching it because I know I’m better than this. And every time I watch porn all I think in the back of my mind is that I didn’t deserve to get this kidney or a second chance at life. And hat that I think that but I just don’t know what to do.
Hi, Paul – I’m sorry that you are struggling. Here’s a place to start – a simple question that requires a simple, but firm answer – do you want to quit? What I didn’t read in your comment is that you want to quit but it must – IT MUST – start there. As Oswald Chambers says, “make a clear and effective decision about sin.” Here and here are a couple of blog posts that might help you take some steps in a helpful direction. Gos is for you! Read Romans 8 as a reminder of Who Jesus is, who you are, and the power your have because of the cross of Christ.
Peace, Chris
God again… as a magic pill, if you believe. Grow up.
Hi, Jean – your way appears to not include God. That’s fine. Why is my way, which includes God so offensive to you? I’m genuinely curious.
Chris
Read the article, stopped taking it serious when you mentioned god…
Hey friend. You might appreciate a site like Fight the New Drug. Hope that helps, Kay
hello, I am struggling with this issue of wanting to see explicit images. I haven’t gotten to the stage if there is stages, of masturbation, I am so afraid of having extreme remorse regarding this. I have gone forward to tell my spiritual leader, and found that becoming accountable helped, but a deep and true repentance was and is not yet achieved. I told my wife of this desire I have. and she was supportive. I say was because she thinks I am healed. I don’t want to hurt her, yet I know I am lying to her. I am tired of repenting and I feel as if God knowing my heart is tired of seeing me on the elementary level of repentance. please help.
Hello, you’re in the middle of battle. A battle for your heart. It’s tough, tough going. BUT, there is hope. Day by day. Press on. Continue to read. Continue to repent. Continue. Continue. Continue. You are fighting a relentless enemy. A question to reflect on: Do you truly want to stop? Do you truly believe porn is a horrible evil? Here are a couple of posts that can help you reflect on the true nature of your resolve and belief:
Blog post #1
Blog post #2
Press on, brother! God is for you. He is not tired of watching you fight. He’s got His hand on your shoulder, whispering in your ear, “I am strong enough. Look to Me. Depend on Me. Victory is MINE.”
Peace, Chris
Jordaan, remember that when you repent, God forgives, and forgets all your sins. He understands we are weak and sinful, and when he died on the cross he carried all of mans sin with him. Stay strong brother, God Bless
God bless you, and grant u the strength and faith u need through ur journey