Four Levels Of Freedom From Porn

Have you ever felt further ahead in quitting porn than you actually were? 

In 2014, I reached a new level of freedom when I went a year without masturbating.

At the time I was leading a ministry of 200 students and I was writing a book called Redeemed Sexuality. Maybe you've heard of it.

It was at that moment of success and being the victory story that I had my worst season of relapse after relapse.

I was like, "God, why? I thought you were healing me." 

"I thought porn was in the past and here I am back at the beginning, sexually acting out with porn! What is happening?!"

The reality was: I had reached a new level of freedom AND I was up against new challenges too.

I had just graduated college. (many of you know that post-college transition sucks) 
My best friend and ally moved away and got married.
I lost my entire support system.
I was overworked.
I was stressed.

Whew. I was going through a lot of emotional pain!

This is what I tell guys all the time: "If you have a relapse after years or months of freedom, listen: seasons of struggle and sexual sin do not invalidate the work of freedom and healing God has done in your life. He has changed you.  He has grown you. The level of challenge you're up against happens to be greater than the level of freedom you have right now. "

I believe there are four levels of freedom from porn:

1.   Misery.  When your desire to heal from porn is low and your knowledge about how to heal is also low.
   
   When you are miserable, life sucks.
   
   No one describes this better than Charles Spurgeon:
   
   "The half-committed Christian is the most miserable person on earth. He's just enough in the world to be miserable in the presence of God and he's just enough into God to be miserable in the world."
   
   I would change it to say:
   
   "He's just enough into porn to be miserable in the presence of God and he's just enough into God to be miserable when he uses porn."
   
   And that describes so many of you out there. You're miserable!
   
   In order to move to the next stage, you need to start dreaming. You need to create a vision for your life which is bigger than porn...something that will inspire you and give you that desire to heal.
   
   
2. Motivation. When your desire to heal from porn is high, but your knowledge is still low, you've reached the level of motivation. You've begun to dream and now it's time to start training.
   
   Usually, this requires some kind of rock bottom experience to push you over the edge of being ready to do whatever it takes to truly heal.
   
   If you're at the level of motivation, the best thing you can do is start reading some of the awesome books out there like Redeemed Sexuality, Unwanted by Jay Stringer, and others like Patrick Carnes, Ted Roberts, Marnie Free, Mark Laaser.
   
   There are so many resources to get started.
   
   You can also watch our videos here on Husband Material. 
   
   You need to get some training so that you can learn what it takes to be free.
   
   And when your desire to quit porn is high and your knowledge about how to be free is also high, you'll reach level three:
   
   
3. Maturity.  When your desire is high AND your knowledge is high, you have gained maturity.If you are at that place and you don't have great results yet in your sexual behavior, that's okay. You have a dream for your life that's bigger than pornography and you've been learning, reading, training about what it takes to be free.
   
   You've still come a long way.
   
   What you need now is support.
   
   That's what I didn't have in 2014. I lost all my support.
   
   I believe the best way to get that support is to get coaching.
   
   You can sign up for a free coaching session with me at drewboa.com.
   
   I would love to help you strategize about getting the support you need.
   
   When you have the knowledge and you have the desire and you have the support, that's when you can start reaching high-level results.
   
   And when you get those high-level results, you reach level four:
   
   
4. Mastery. This is when you've taken action, you've received all the support you need, and you no longer need to fight the battle to quit porn. The war is won.
   
   This is what I see with the guys who have graduated from the Husband Material Coaching Program.
   
   I give them the title of Certified Husband Material because I know they're free, not just from the behavior of using porn, but from the battle itself.
   
   It's not just like, "Oh yeah, I try not to do that anymore." It's like, "That's not who I am anymore. I didn't just quit it. I outgrew it like a pacifier."
   
   When that happens, no matter what level of challenge you're facing in life, your level of freedom and healing is higher.
   
   This is what I've experienced this last year. I went through something really, really hard when my son died. He was born with something called Anencephaly, and he lived for four hours.
   
   That was so hard.
   The grief was horrific.
   
   Only because I had reached level 4 freedom (Mastery) was I able to go through that without a relapse back into my old sexual behavior.
   
   

So these are the four levels of porn: Misery, Motivation, Maturity, and Mastery.

My prayer for you for you is to get to that level of mastery, so that no matter what happens in life, you know you're free and you know you're healed because you're a new person.

Always remember: no matter what level you're at (miserable, motivated, mature or a master), you are God's beloved son and in you he is well-pleased.