4 Steps to Stay Porn-Free Through COVID-19

Healing a relationship affected by pornography also means helping women recover a sense of themselves as persons, not just bodies. What can be done? Besides therapy or spiritual direction, there are some practical ways that a woman can interrupt the thought patterns of self-objectification and develop a healthy sense of herself as a person deserving of love.

Throughout our lives, we experience many things that can have a lasting effect on how we see ourselves, and these can make their way into that mental file cabinet of the self. These beliefs about ourselves make up part of our “core beliefs.” Our core beliefs are what we really think deep down about God, other people, and ourselves. These beliefs have a direct connection to our behavior and the quality of our relationships.

The addictive mentality replaces our human capacity for relationship with self-reliance and a preference for a chemical experience. Thus, recovery from pornography or sexual addiction involves relational solutions and experiences. One of these is counseling. Counseling is not merely a sequence of techniques and strategies. It is a protected relationship geared towards guiding and supporting a person towards a life of purity.

If we can't keep little promises, how can we keep a lifelong commitment to love, honor, and cherish another person? Choosing purity over pornography and lifelong marriage over short-term chemical adrenaline rushes, in the long run, changes our lives. During this time of COVID-19, grace is being poured out in our Church. Let us take the time to pray. Ask Christ to strengthen, heal, and give us the resolve to choose purity and insight to pray for our future spouses. 

We should not overlook the help we can receive from other people in strengthening our reasoning ability in this sort of way. Saint Thomas teaches that a strong surge of emotion can impair our personal reasoning ability. It is a great advantage then if we have a friend or accountability partner that we can contact in moments of weakness and temptation. This friend can remind us of the true nature of pornography, effectively strengthening our resolve.