FIGHT YOUR TRIGGERS TO WIN

Jonny was falling apart again. Life was running him over and he was losing his desire to live life the right way. Last month he needed to work a lot of overtime. His hot water heater died and he needed a new one. This month he was asking for as much overtime as possible. He had no reason for doing that – and now he is remembering why that was a bad idea. This was how he used to live back when he was a sex addict. Push himself relentlessly until he was exhausted and then use that as an excuse to have illicit sex.

Jonny felt a little stupid at that point. You see, he was in the middle of the 2^nd time through a 40 day program. He had identified “working himself relentlessly as a trigger to relapse”. He knew what he had to do. He went into his bosses’ office and explained to him that he had taken on way too much. His boss quickly let him know that he would do everything he could to make an adjustment as soon as possible. The minute he left his boss’s office he felt closeness with God again. On his first day off he had time to pray, read the Bible and he even remembered that his buddy (who was worse off than him and was open to hearing about how great Christianity was) wanted to spend some time with him and talk about how to get his messed up life together.

He called up his friend, set up a meeting and felt joy in his life for the first time in weeks. Abruptly the temptation which had been haunting him 24 hours a day began to fade. Then he remembered that when he was busy trying to follow his purpose temptation sometimes even disappeared. Maybe that was what the Bible was talking about when it said that when you become a Christian you become a new creature. This is how you quit a sex addiction or porn addiction for good.

Maintain clear reasons why you want to control the behavior and remind yourself of these reasons continuously.

For example: Lisa is determined to quit her sex addiction – she has had enough of the destruction.

In her diary she writes: “It is 1:30 – why can’t I think about the right things. I must change, my daughter needs a real mom. 2:10 – nothing I really want to do and I’m ready to pull my hair out. But, I need to pull it together, I have finally gotten married and it is time to get my act together. 3:05 – no one wants to do anything and I am going crazy. But, if I slip up once it will be 3 then 4 times then who knows. 3:54 – bad boy Billy is calling. I know all about the bad things that will happen if I answer. Let it go to voice mail. I really like the person I am starting to be, who will avoid the total jerks who just will still try to use you even though they know you just got married.

4:30 Mom calls and complains. Temptation hits and Lisa writes: I must change, my daughter needs a real Mom.

You may ask – how many times do I have to remind myself about the things I already know?

One of the reasons Lisa is determined to keep reminding herself is because her new husband said he did this for months and that is how he quit gambling. She thinks it is sort of funny that he still writes in his diary at odd times while they are together. But he says that every penny (plus more) used to go to gambling. Now he actually has a few dollars in his pocket.

Now his ex – friends are starting to like him again. He is not using them like he used to. He says “if I have to write my reasons for quitting a million times it will be worth it. I have my life back.”

When we remind ourselves continuously why we want to control our behavior- then we can quit porn or illicit sex for good.

Stop The Blame Game

Bill’s buddy said to him: “You will never make progress if you keep blaming others for things that keep happening.” Never blame others for what you are doing that is wrong. The blame game is a form of denial and the problem with denial is that while in the short run it numbs our pain, in the long run it kills our Soul, Spirit and sometimes our bodies.

“Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’ It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is ‘How can I make it better?’ To that there is an answer.”
Leo F. Buscaglia (March 1924 – June 1998) 

Jan once again was saying – I will always be this way. But her new Christian friend told her “if you start to do things the way Jesus Christ wants you to do them you will start to be a person that you really like and one that begins to have some power and understanding over addiction.”

David Hawkins from Breaking Everyday Addictions says that  “Freedom thinking says, I’ve been this way, but with God’s help and the support of others, I’m going to change”.

Read 1st Corinthians 8, Matthew 8 and Proverbs 1

Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life.

If you are on track great, if not review the red letters from day 2.

…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus Phil.1:6

Matthew 5 is about how we can change so that we will start to be blessed by God. www.relijournal.com noted the following

The Fourth Beatitude v6

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

To want justice is to want righteousness. Righteousness is right living. Proverbs 21:21 tells us that we will find love, honor and justice when we search for righteousness. It means we are concerned about the welfare of others, seek out what is honest, stand firm, receive peace and joy and are rewarded by God. Being righteous is a lifestyle that Jesus approves of and it tells us that in Psalm 11:7. There are plenty more verses in the Bible that talk about how to live righteously and about how Jesus is righteous. It is fair to say therefore that God expects us to take notice of it.

We must do our best to want what is right for ourselves and other people and then God will make sure we are satisfied.

The Bible says “Be ye filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter from the Bible was mightily filled with the Spirit. If he walked by a man dying of cancer he would be instantly healed. All Christians have more or less of the Spirit in them. Christians who have more of the Spirit have less addictions or no addictions. Christians who have less of the Spirit have more addictions. Why did Peter have more of the Spirit in him then I do. It was because he spent way more time working on being filled with the Spirit. It is an aquired gift. A person who works hard to run from sin, who spends a lot of time in prayer and Bible study will be more filled with the Spirit.

People with severe addictions get run over by life, get depressed and run back to their addiction. People filled with the Spirit get run over by life, keep their joy and continue to fufil their life’s purpose.

When can you pray more? While driving your car (only do this if it will not endanger you) mute the TV and pray during commercials.

The Holy Spirit is a fire that should be burning in us. When we truly acquire the fire, the addiction disappears. Find time to prayer more. But the prayers must be on fire, fervent, intense, original prayers pleading with Almighty God to change your life. We must pray to get the sin out, find our purpose, and kill our addiction.

If you are prepared for your darkest hour (which leads to addiction) you will be ready to fight your addiction in your darkest hour.

Jan prayed “Father, take away my sinful urges and help me to worship and praise you so that I will become more disciplined and stronger.”
Repentance in the Bible is a condition you must have before you can be saved. To repent means to change. “With addiction it is the same thing, we need to change. A change of mind” – a decision, a choice, a determination of the heart, a deliberate exercise of the will – in which one determines to act differently in the future than he has in the past. As a Christian to change we must hear, believe and obey God’s will to understand how to change. With addiction we must hear, believe, study and be disciplined with renewing ourselves in order to change. Do we have genuine sorrow for the fact that we fell back into addiction again? Have we thought about and tried to understand why it was so wrong?

Joel 2:12,13 – Turn to God (repent) with weeping and mourning. Tear your heart, not your garment. God wants, not mere outward expressions of grief, but sincere sorrow. We must sincerely wish we had never done the act.

2 Corinthians 7:10 – Godly sorrow leads to repentance unto salvation. One who does not repent cannot be saved, and he cannot truly repent without sorrow.

Top Four Slots

We have 4 slots in life that we fill up with various things. If we have committed our lives to Christ then Jesus is often in the #1 slot. Each person puts something else in each of the remaining slots. Things like money, getting stuff, lust, gambling or entertainment. To determine which things fill yours look at where you spend the most time.

A fully dedicated Christian like Paul would have Jesus in all 4 slots. He would have Jesus as his center, his all, his existence. If you or I gave him all of our physical and mental addictions he would start to shake them off on week one. Why? He knows he has something better. He would put up with the temptation and frustration all week and he would praise and worship Jesus all day, always.

How do you need to change now to replace the forces in your life which are keeping you in bondage to a focus for Jesus.

Example: You realize TV is a habit that you spend a lot of time on.

#1 Say 5 times each day: I will get in 100% of my prayer time today. If I don’t, I won’t watch any TV tomorrow. #2 I will plan and pray about fulfilling my purpose before I settle for TV fantasy land. #3 If I watch even one sinful thing on TV today I will not watch anything tomorrow. #4 Ask Jesus what He wants me to do today. I will focus on following Christ by being willing to do what He wants me to do today (there is almost always someone you can help or support). #5 I will focus on increasing in love before, during or after moderate TV viewing. Jesus love is a powerful force which helps to break bondage. Increasing it always helps you get closer to permanent freedom from your lust.

  Repentance Is Essential in Order to Develop Proper Attitudes.

We can never please God till we develop a proper state of mind. We can never quit addiction untill we develop a new way of thinking.

Proverbs 4:23 – Keep your heart diligently because out of it are the issues of life. People do wrong because they chose to do wrong. In order to start doing right, they must change their mind and decide to do right – repent.

The mind is where we decide what we will do. This is why our state of mind is so important.

Romans 6:17,18 – One who is a servant of sin needs to be made free from sin and become a servant of righteousness. To do this, he must obey God “from the heart.” You cannot obey from the heart until you have decided in your heart to obey. That decision to do right is repentance.

If this article has helped you, share it with your friends. Share buttons are below the index.

Thank you for reading day 11 of this program in your plan to quit sex and porn addiction for good.

Index

Day 1: Overcoming cravings

Day2 : Is God real?

Day 3: Quitting addiction exercises

Day 4: Getting negative emotions out

Day 5: You can never increase the amount of pleasure that you can have for the month by going back to an addiction

Day 6: Sin leads back to addiction

Day 7: Worshiping God helps us overcome addiction

Day 8: What causes you to stay addicted

Day 9: Develop positive addicitons

Day 10: Overcoming negative emotions