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Our final installment in our three-part series on Getting Started, focuses on your plan. “Fail to plan. Plan to fail.”, is a true statement. Without a plan in place you continue to get triggered, go to unsafe places, and relapse. Again and again. At the end of this episode you will have the tools to build a simple plan that you can improve on as time goes on.
See episode 040 Getting Started Pt 1: Hitting Rock Bottom and 041 Getting Started Pt 2: Phone A Friend to listen from the beginning.
In this episode you’ll learn:
- The 3 Steps To Build a Plan
The T–UP Exercise (courtesy of my friend John)
- Take a piece of paper length wise.
- With a pen divide into three columns.
- Label them T – U – P
T is for Triggers
List all possible trip wires that can lead to porn.
Examples:
- Emotion
- Being Alone
- Visual trigger
- Family
- Cable TV
- Drinking Alcohol
- Stress
- Late Night
U is for Unsafe Places List all unsafe places.
These are places or things you cannot do. Here is the definition: If I do this activity, _________, I will look at porn.These things lead to porn 99% of the time.
Possible Unsafe Place:
- Unfiltered Internet
- Strip Clubs
- Surfing Video sites
- Smartphone in bed
- A 7/11 that sells porn
- A HBO Show
- A park where people have anonymous sex
- A browser on your smartphone
P is for Plan(or planning.)
The planning step looks at triggers and unsafe places and defines actions. The key is they are specific, accountable, and measurable.
If this happens __________ (insert trigger) I will do this ___________.
Examples:
- If I have stress at work today, when I get home I will exercise first thing and avoid the computer.
- If my mom gets under my skin during my Thanksgiving holiday, I will go for a walk for an hour.
- If it’s after 10 PM at night, I will not go on the internet.
Sprint Coaching for Porn Addiction
Are you getting stuck? I want to help you. I started offering sprint coaching packages in June. Sprint coaching is the fastest way to get a recovery plan in place and start taking action. Send an email to matt@recoveredman.com and we’ll set up a free 15-min call to see if sprint coaching is right for you.
Resources:
Covenant Eyes is a filtering and accountability software, multi platform, multi device filter and tracker. There is a family price even to protect your whole family. Decrease the hesitation. If you have listened to this show for any length and have had a reset you NEED a filter. To get a month free use my link at https://recoveredman.com/EYES.
BONUS: C.S. Lewis on Masturbation
“For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back; sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides.
“And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman.
“For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no woman can rival.
“Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover; no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity.
“In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself. . . . After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.”
– Personal Letter From Lewis to Keith Masson (found in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3)
These quotes originally appeared in the post, C. S. Lewis on Lust, Women, and Masturbation by Matt Fradd.
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