Top Tips for Sexual Purity

Top Tip 008 – Suggestions For a Travel Purity Strategy

by Jeff Fisher on January 30, 2012

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Many people have jobs that require them to travel a lot. This can be very difficult for someone who struggles with pornography and sexual sin.

No accountability
Anonymity
Lack of relationships
Lots of time alone

The point of today is: think about your travel time and develop a strong purity strategy for when you’re on the road.

A QUICK LIST OF SUGGESTIONS

Get an accountability buddy – You gotta have someone you’re honest and open with. You gotta have someone to share your struggles with.
Talk to your wife, a lot – Fill your time with the right thing. Keep your wife fresh on your mind. Keep working on your connectedness.
Have your TV removed from your room – Tons of hotels will do this. You might have to be insistent, but they’ll do it. Many men in my support group do this every time they travel.
Check out www.cleanhotels.com – This is a great site I found that lists hotels that do not have porn channels on their TVs.
Join a phone support group -
Pure Life Ministries www.purelifeministries.org
Blazing Grace Ministries- www.blazingrace.org
Dr. Doug Weiss – www.sexaddict.com
Find a SA or SAA group in the town you’re going to – Go to www.saa-recovery.org or www.sa.org to find groups meeting in the city you will be traveling to.
Make time for some counseling – Find a local counselor or one in a city your traveling to to visit regularly.
Spend time in public places – Only going to the hotel room when you’re sleepy can be a big help. Make sure to go to public places that are not triggery for you (bars, clubs). The hotel lobby is a good public place that might be good for you.
Find healthy outlets for your stress relief – Go to the hotel gym. Go for a walk. Do some writing. Go to the arcade. Anything positive and wholesome that will help you.
Don’t carry cash – Some of you get into trouble when you have cash. You are less accountible when you are using cash. You might want to coordinate this with an accountability partner.
Don’t travel alone when you can help it – If you can work this out, it’s great.
Get a different job – Be really honest with yourself. Your purity is not worth it. Your marriage is not worth it. If you need to get a new job – MAN UP and do the courageous thing!

These tips are especially helpful for business travelers, but we all take vacations. They can be vulnerable times. We are out of our normal routine. We are disengaged from life. We want to relax. And sometimes we resort back to old habits and old ways of reaction.

I’ve found that even when my family is around, I have to be on guard when I travel and stay accountable to another buddy. There are many, many opportunities to slip in my sexual purity journey.

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101 – Start thinking about your travel purity strategy. Get it written down. Work on the basics and share it with a buddy.

Beyond – Start asking some hard questions about you and your travel. Is this the type of job that is helpful to your purity journey. Are you doing constructive, things with this time away? Ask God how He can use this travel time to glorify Him, and use your creativity for Him instead of sucking it up for yourself.

CONTACT INFO
jeff@porntopurity.com
@porntopurity on Twitter

Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY

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Top Tip 007 – You Need a Down Time Strategy

by Jeff Fisher on January 27, 2012

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Today I was to share some thoughts and tips about down time. This also applies to alone time. Alone time is alone time. Downtime has more to do with times that you are not engaged in your normal routine. I’ve found that down time can be a very vulnerable time if we do not have a good strategy.

Downtime can come when we take off for Spring Break or holiday, on the weekend, when our spouse is away, in between jobs, or even staying up late at night. If we’re not careful:

Downtime can very easily = disaster.

DEVELOP A STRATEGY FOR DOWN TIME
A couple of weeks before my current job was ending, I started to talk with my wife and some of the guys from my group. I talked about the things I would be doing during my off time, how my heart was doing, and what type of structure I would need.

My strategy included:

Calling recovery buddies regularly
Making to-do lists
Going to the gym everyday
Working on writing projects
Time spent looking for a job
Get up at the same time as the rest of the family
No naps
Keeping the TV off during the main work hours
Doing projects around the house
Time spent in the Word
Talk to my wife several times a day

You could sum my strategy up as staying active and making healthy connections.

THE NEED FOR STRUCTURE
Sexual addicts in recovery do much better when there is structure. Generally, the more structure, the better.

I have done bad in the past when I had a lot of down time and very little structure. That’s seems to be a sex addict’s recipe for disaster.

My structure is simply setting my TO DO list to a schedule. Here’s what Monday looked like for me of my first day with no job:

Take kids to school
Go to the gym
Check and answer emails; check other blogs
Have a quiet time
Go to the library to work on book
Work on home projects; prep dinner
Pick kids up from school

You get the point.

I don’t think you have to strategize and schedule every hour of the day, but I know myself. I know that my natural desire is to chill out in front of the TV & computer, eat too much, take naps and stay up late. I’m trying to stay emotionally fit.

WHAT ABOUT LATE NIGHT?
Late night is a bad time for a lot of us. You need a strategy for it. You might need to:

Go to bed when your wife goes to bed
Call a buddy each night to check in
Set a computer or TV curfew for yourself
Only watch DVDs or content on your DVR after a certain time
Read books or read your Kindle
Do your bible study in the evenings

Going to bed when I’m tired is helping me a lot. I don’t “hang out” in my bed. It’s a place for sleep. A lot of my acting out was in bed. The bed can be a trigger place for me if I’m not tired or can’t get to sleep. I try to stay out of bed until I’m tired.

WHAT ABOUT A VACATION?
Vacation has a different purpose doesn’t it? One of the best things you may need to do is take a nap, rest, or go on a vacation. But the sex addict needs to still have a strategy and some structure set up… even during a vacation time.

There are many other types of downtime and alone time. I hope this podcasts get the juices flowing for you.

On the next podcast, I’ll talk about a different type of alone time – traveling for business. It’s an area where tons of guys are struggling, largely because we have no structure, support, and accountability.

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101 – Start looking at your alone time. Design a purity strategy for your alone time.

Beyond – What productive things are you doing when you’re alone? What healthy habits are you cultivating?

CONTACT INFO
jeff@porntopurity.com
@porntopurity on Twitter

Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY

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Top Tip 006 – Lust Hurts My Intimacy

by Jeff Fisher on January 23, 2012

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I was thinking this morning back to the times when my wife and I were struggling in our intimacy during our first 8-10 years of our marriage. Our counselor recently asked ups about our intimacy during our first 6 months of marriage and then how things have been since then. It was a hard question, because things were good early in our marriage, but had become strained.

I think lust on my part was the biggest factor to our intimacy demise. I never realized was that my intimacy was driven by and clouded by my lust. I brought a very lustful mind and emotional makeup into my marriage. I had no clue how it was affecting my relationship with my wife.

There are many factors that contribute to our intimacy disorders. I’ll share several, but let’s look at the biggest one: lust.

LUST IS SELFISH
Lust comes from our sinful flesh. Lust is selfishness. It is self-centeredness. Lust says, “I want what I want. I want my desires met. I want my fantasies fulfilled.” It is not about the needs of another person, but about me.

Of course, lust is more than sexual lust. We can lust for power, appreciation, the latest technology, and anything we think will make our lives better. Lust is full of covetousness and taps a deep hole in your life that can only be filled by God.

Since we are talking about sexual purity, let’s only talk about sexual lust today.

When I got married, I thought to myself, “Now have a real person to fulfill me and to act out with instead of magazine pictures or computer images.” I was expecting all my sexual struggles to go away with marriage, but they didn’t. Instead of lusting after strangers I began lusting after my wife. I traded the pictures for a real person, and little about myself was changed.

Now that I think about it, my relationships with girlfriends were pretty lustful to. It was more about me, my sexual desires and my sexual fantasies than it was about the girl I was with.

Another variation is when I would do good things for my wife to try and get something for myself. I thought if I would just push the right buttons, I could get sex. I was looking for the magic combination to unlock the sexual animal in my wife. How selfish is this!

LUST ROBS US OF INTIMACY
True marital intimacy is not about “Me”. It’s about meeting the other person’s needs. It’s about serving my wife. It’s about connecting with her heart, hearing what needs she has, what she’s like, what she would like to do, what she would like us to do together. How can I help my wife? How can I meet her needs?

The addict lives a life of self-absorption. He has spent so much time connecting with things that meet his own wants. His deep need for relationship has been morphed into pictures, internet sites, foreign women, illicit places… whatever. He must see the truth about his self-centeredness. His biggest fight is to begin to pour his life into others, and to receive from others.

There is greater fulfillment in meeting my spouse’s needs. I now care about my wife’s soul and emotions. I enjoy when I get my desire or urge met. But I have a greater satisfaction knowing that I am meeting my wife’s needs. I can do things to make her happy. It’s awesome.

WHAT IS INTIMACY?
I feel like I should pause here and define “intimacy”. I’m not talking about sexual intimacy. That is one type of intimacy. But intimacy on a broader level is emotional, relational, and spiritual… not just sexual.

If I’m connecting deeply with others. If I know them, and they know me… that’s intimacy. I can have intimacy with God, a spouse, a best friend, a pastor or a support group.

Knowing someone and being known – that’s my simple definition of intimacy.

BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR SELFISHNESS
We need to be honest with ourselves. We really want our own needs met above those of others. We will do things for others, but expect them to reciprocate. We want what we want, and can be pretty crafty in making it happen.

LAY IT A JESUS’ FEET
As my wife and I have been going through this recovery stuff during our 15th year of marriage, I have been laying my selfishness at Christ’s feet. Many of my addictive behaviors, along with their self-centeredness are fading. I realize that I need other people. I need real relationships, instead of the false ones I had clung to. I want to pour my life into others: my wife, friends, my group, my church, my small group. For the first time in my life & marriage, I am starting to really put the other person first.

Dear God,
Empty me of my self. Help me not to be absorbed in myself. Help me to serve my wife and others. Help me to not expect something in return. Help me to trust that you will take care of me.

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101 – Start asking the question, “How much do lust and selfishness control my relationships?”

Beyond – How’s your serving and sacrificing? These are more difficult disciplines to grow. But they are the heart of God. We can’t be selfish and lustful when we are serving. Work on your serve. Work on dying to yourself.

CONTACT INFO
jeff@porntopurity.com
@porntopurity on Twitter

Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY

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BONUS: How to Deal With Pockets of Shame

by Jeff Fisher on January 21, 2012

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When I entered recovery I wanted to heal. I wanted to get as well as possible. Some of the biggest obstacles in the way of being healthy are the pockets of shame I had.

At first it was large chunks of shame. Entire themes of shame I carried. I hated myself. I felt my sexual sin identified me. I felt like my effectiveness in life was over.

Bad memories carried shame. Sexual experimentation and discoveries in my adolescence were tainted with shame. Fetishes I have explored in the past and still feel a pull to have shame.

I found that my desire for everyone to like me carried shame. When people didn’t respond the way I

wanted I felt rejection. The worthlessness made me feel shameful. It’s not hard for me to feel worthless, not valued, and not loved around others.

My gut instinct (which I know comes from my flesh) is to hide and cover up. I want to cut myself off and distance myself from others

As I explored my relationship with my dad, I couldn’t believe all of the shame I felt. My dad was not the best at connecting emotionally. He did a bad job. I felt a lot of anger and distance. I interpreted that as a child as not being good enough. Unconditional love. And I have carried these wounds and lies into my adulthood.

God continues to release me from these pockets of shame.

So how do we get out of these shame pockets?

ID the shame pockets
Move toward them
Talk about them
Stop believing the lies
Replace lies with God’s truth
Strengthen them with continued flow of truth & support; build no shame muscles; takes time and training
Keep bringing the pockets with God; let him replace it with his love and his presence

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CONTACT INFO
jeff@porntopurity.com
@porntopurity on Twitter

Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY

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Top Tip 005 – Close The Loopholes

by Jeff Fisher on January 19, 2012

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We have to close the loopholes in our sexual purity strategy. Can’t be any holes that we know about.

None of us are going to have a perfect strategy. We can’t see everything or anticipate everything. Others around us who are involved with us, even they can’t catch everything. We can’t intercept all of the temptations and triggers. There are some that we haven’t even thought about. There are triggers internal and external that we haven’t anticipated yet. Plus there are new people that come into our life, and new places we will go – THIS YEAR that we will have to plan for. Our strategies are going to change.

For sure we’re going to have problems if there are loopholes in our current purity strategy. Where are the gaps? Find the gaps and close the loopholes in your strategy?

First, some examples of loopholes…

Computer Gaps
No filter on my computer. No accountability software. My computer is hidden. I have a password, but I know how to get around it. Know how to clearn the cache, history. My wife doesn’t look at the history bar even though I told her she can look at any time.

Are there any known loopholes in your computer strategy?

Phones / Wireless Devices
It’s the same thing for our Smart Phones, Tablets, and I-Pod devices. How easy is it for you to go searching or download content that is trigger?

Movies / DVDs / Magazines
Are there movies that trip you up at a weak moment of vulnerability. When you get vulnerable is there stuff that you can go to immediately. That’s a loophole in your strategy.

We can go past our boundaries at any time. No matter how good your strategy is you can sin if you want. If we have a good strategy in place it creates good distance between you and acting out. It puts more hoops for you to jump through. Makes it harder for you to act out because you have layers, accountability, protection.

Relationships With the Opposite Sex, including those at work
Who are you hanging out with? Are you pushing the boundaries with women or guys? What about that girl at work? Do you have some boundaries drawn up, or are you flirting around? Do you go out to lunch with a person of the opposite sex by yourself? Do you flirt around with a married man?

Travel
This is one of the most unguarded times for us in our sexual struggles. We don’t have accountability. We are away from our normal settings. We are alone. We are bored in a hotel room in a foreign city. That’s a recipe for disaster.

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Again, you can’t predict ever scenario, but are you trying to close the loopholes as they come up? Are you taking aggressive measures to preserve your purity and swim in the right lane?

START WORKING ON A STRATEGY
The first thing you might need to do is get a purity strategy. Maybe you don’t have one yet. You have to put a purity plan together.

I have a lot of favorite podcasts. Ones that are definitely in my top 10 are:

Build a Good Defense – Top Tips, Season 1, Episode 41

Build a Good Offense – Top Tips, Season 1, Episode 42

Those podcast go into greater detail about developing your purity strategy. Go check them out. But briefly…

Defensive – roadblocks, what defense line do I have set up between me and acting out? What roadblocks do I have to jump over in order to act out.

Offensive strategy – healthy behaviors that you are cultivating. Me building my relationship with my wife, counseling, marriage conference, meaningful conversations, non-sexual touch with spouse, serving her, meeting her needs. Getting a good hobby.

Build your strategy, and make sure the holes are plugged up.

SHINE THE LIGHT ON YOUR LOOPHOLE
Recognizing a loophole a major step. But if I want to repair a loophole, I’m convinced I need to bring someone else into it. Recovery is a team sport. I can do OK by myself, maybe. I can definitely do better with someone by my side.

When I talk about my loopholes with my counselor, a friend or a guy in my small group, I am bringing light to it. I am walking in truth and practicing confession. It may be a loophole that I’ve slipped though before or it may not be, but speaking it out about it is an invitation to intimacy and brotherhood.

The more intimate the relationship, the stronger I will be after I share my loophole. If I talk about a flirty girl at work to my best friend, we have a serious talk about it. If I talk about the flirty girl with my wife, we have another level of conversation. It will definitely escalate the seriousness in my attitude when my wife is involved.

Do you get the point? I picked this tip up from a pastor friend of mine who got into an emotional affair with his secretary and kissed her. Believe me, when he told his wife, that relationship at work was over.

Our cases don’t have to be that extreme, but when I talk to a trusted friend or my wife about something that is pulling me or tripping me up, it invites them to join me on a deeper level.

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101 – What are the loopholes that you know about right now? What are you going to do about it? Develop a strategy.

Beyond – Who do you have who is involved in your strategy? Are you accountable? When a new temptation or trigger comes along, who do you talk to about it?

CONTACT INFO
jeff@porntopurity.com
@porntopurity on Twitter

Call-in voicemail line line: (321) 5-PURITY

Logo Design by Chris Quimby at Nacho Tree Print & Digital Design

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Top Tip 004 – Create No Shame Zones

January 16, 2012

Press HERE to Play Podcast or Download – Recently, I interviewed Jonathan Daughtery of Be Broken Ministries for our Porn to Purity Podcast. We talked about the subject of shame, and he said something that blew me away. He said in the support groups he leads, he has esttblished “No Shame Zones”. The idea of [...]

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Top Tip 003 – Friction Can Be Productive

January 12, 2012

Press HERE to Play Podcast or Download – In our SA recovery and purity journey we wish that everything would be smooth and perfect, don’t we. We wish we wouldn’t have to deal with pain, hurts, consequences, woundings, suffering, broken relationships, arguments and fights, conflict, struggles, withdrawals, and difference of opinions. These bring friction to [...]

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Top Tip 002 – You Will Have Trouble Hearing God Speak

January 9, 2012

Press HERE to Play Podcast or Download – What a strange tip. Thanks, a lot Jeff! That’s not even a tip to begin with. It’s a troubling statement that I’m not sure is true. One of the biggest lessons I’ve been learning is that God speaks through others. I do believe that God speaks to [...]

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Top Tip 001: Freedom Comes Through Community

January 5, 2012

Press HERE to Play Podcast or Download We are not going to find freedom from our sexual struggles if we stay isolated. There are no Han Solos. There are no Lone Rangers when it comes to the sexual purity journey. We need others to get pure and stay pure. On this episode of the [...]

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A Pastor Finds Freedom From Secret Sexual Sins – An Interview With Pastor Fred Rochester

December 12, 2011

PORN TO PURITY PODCAST Pastor Fred Rochester of Prevailing Word Bible Church The Secret Sexual Sins Podcast Every once in a while I’ll do a search on I-Tunes for new podcasts on “sexual addiction recovery”, “pornography addiction”, or “sexual purity” ** Be careful doing these searches, OK? There’s a good selection. Some are sermons on [...]

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Counseling the Sexual Addict: Interview With My Counselor Dr. Jerry Lankford, pt.2

December 9, 2011

THE PORN TO PURITY PODCAST A SPECIAL INTERVIEW TODAY’S EPISODE: Jeff of Porn to Purity interviews his own counselor and part of his support team, Dr. Jerry Lankford. As co-founder and president of Lifecare Counseling & Coaching, Jerry provides individual, marriage and family counseling. He works with clients who suffer from mood disorders such [...]

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