In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity (Jeremiah 31:31-34) every person can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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Pornography Addiction – Online Helps - PDF version of this text
There are a variety of approaches for someone who wants to
get off the disordered sexuality merry-go-round, which only makes one dizzy and
prevents us from enjoying the abundance of life Jesus promised He came to give
us and which our heavenly Father wants us to have and enjoy.
There are a number of services available on the
Internet to help a person become free from the dependency on porn and all the
various forms of sexual behavior that is not in accord with the way in which
God designed us in order to truly love and be loved. Here are a few of them. I
haven't used any of these myself, nor do I know anyone who has, that is, not
yet. However, we are only now just beginning to do something about the plague
of porn and of the many destructive improper uses of our human sexuality, which
is a truly awesome gift from God to allow us to love and be loved in a way that
is truly life giving for everyone involved.
I have received emails from Covenant Eyes, and I
find them to be of a high quality and quite impressive. Strive is
offered by Matt Fradd who is highly recommended by pastoral workers in our
Diocese in Montreal and he gave two talks on Thursday, September 26th 2019
on "Parenting the Internet generation" and on "Porn: Seven Myths
Exposed". I would be inclined to think that you can certainly trust his
Strive offering. I've looked at Reclaim and Fortify and they seem
legitimate and honest.
Please email me your impressions once you engage in one
of these. You will find my address at the end. One thing is certain, and that
is that your decision to do something in order to change is how you will begin
to experience relief. God offers us all his love and divine power, and his only
condition is that we follow up on the good desires He gives us and that all
along the way we give Him our consent to do what He wants to do in us.
Strive
to become the man you are meant to be is a company whose service is clearly
based in Christian values and its team is clearly identified. It is a powerful
21-day challenge to help men get the tools in place necessary to get on the
path toward freedom. It is a practical step-by-step plan to break free from
pornography, and a supportive community of men from around the world journeying
together. You'll also have lifetime access to the challenge and current and
future live events. This is for any man who engages porn and/or masturbation at
any level every day or only occasionally, a clear red flag that something is
off and needs to be dealt with.
You simply cannot continue to engage in pornography
and/or masturbation and love others rightly. And this is such a slippery slope.
Porn use always leads to more porn use and more deviant forms of porn use.
That’s what the science is telling us. When we no longer get aroused at the
more “vanilla" forms of pornography, we seek something a little more edgy
which becomes a little more violent and soon we find ourselves in a place we
never dreamed we would be. We want to help you stop that vicious cycle before
you go to that place.
There is more information in the FAQs
tab section. For now, the program is free, but in time, they may have to charge
a fee for it. After all, we all need to earn a living and the worker deserves
his wages, Jesus once said.
Fortify
does not clearly identify who runs it. It is an online support community for
men and women – young and old – seeking lasting freedom from pornography.
Fortify was designed to equip individuals struggling with compulsive
pornography use – young and old – with tools, education and community to assist
them in reaching lasting freedom. Our mission is to help spark an uprising of
people tired of porn messing with their lives – and ready for something far
better. In addition to a series of instructional videos and accompanying
training, Fortify offers many opportunities for individuals to share insights
and stories together. This is from their "About" page. Sign-up gives a complete
breakdown of the services offered for free and what you get for
the Premium version at US$9.99 / month, US$6.95 for
students, and free for teens 13-17 with and approved scholarship. They
have a chat option allowing you to get in touch with someone who is apparently
qualified to offer this service.
Reclaim God's Plan
for Sexual Health is an online service offered by Elizabeth Ministry
International; so it is run by a clearly identified Christian agency. This
inspires confidence that they are responsible and accountable and willing to
reply to queries and respond to complaints. Reclaim is available 24 / 7 which
is anonymous, private, and secure; a science-based approach designed to activate
or re-activate, form, and strengthen your "human decision system". It
is offered at low cost (a soft drink or coffee a day) which gives you a daily
tracking calendar and a personal journal. That seems to be not much but it adds
up to US$49 / month or US$245 up front for 6 months (5 months with a 6th
month free). The operating principle is that if something is free it doesn't
trigger our commitment, but when there is a cost, we have to find inside our
willingness to commit, which is essential to success. Also, their incredible
investment of people and technology needs to fund itself.
You also get online "crisis tools" to help you with cravings and
urges to act out unwanted sexual behaviors. Reclaim is also a prayer network,
faith focused, a social support, with real world application, safe and
anonymous, so you can be always moving forward. You would begin this Online
Recovery Program with 10-15 minutes of training a day over several weeks from
six modules, which will give you incredible knowledge and understanding about
your life as a human being. They offer a free mini course
which is really a promo and intro to the program.
Covenant
Eyes like all these services is not specifically identifying as a
Christian service but is clearly based in Christian values and also offers a
“Catholic service” for parishes and dioceses. It is a service offer to give you
the assurance of having caring people become your allies to help you become
accountable for your Internet use and communication. The idea is that the
service allows you to recruit people who know and love you to help you be
accountable. Once you sign onto the service, you log in all your devices - PC,
laptop, tablet, phone, etc. - and Covenant Eyes monitors your use, logs any
suspicious images, blurs them, and reports on them to your allies. This allows
your allies to support you, affirm you, ask helpful questions, and support you
in formulating and accomplishing realizable goals for yourself. They have a
high success rate.
They offer the service free for 30 days, and after that, they charge US$15.99
per month, but there is room for up to 10 users and unlimited devices. A
whole family or two families or a bunch of friends could sign up into one
account; so it would only cost them a cup of coffee a month for each member on
the account.
CMG Connect Parents is an online service offered to parents by Covenant Eyes and Catholic Mutual Group. I haven’t researched it much but it seems worth investigating.
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All
these services have a common goal: to help people break free from pornography,
and those who design and offer these services are people who hold human values
that harmonize with Christian values, with the gospel and person of Jesus
Christ. These services are also founded in companies that need to be built up
and exist in the real world, which means paying people salaries, housing the
work in office buildings and studios, and other resources and expenses. While
individual people can offer their presence and service free for a time or on a
specific occasion, everyone needs to earn a living for themselves and their
family, and as Jesus once said, the worker deserves his wages – Matthew 10:10
& Luke 10:7.
In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity (Jeremiah 31:31-34) every person can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
© 2006-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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