Hope won't save you, but this might
Had an email exchange with a young fellow who’s already had something of a rough go in his short stint on the planet —
22 years old
Got hooked on porn around age 14 (like me)
Already had to change his life trajectory and quit his pursuit of the priesthood in a Catholic Seminary 2 years into it because he simply couldn’t get it under control
Still believes it’s wrong and knows he could do so much more with his life, but doesn’t seem to care anymore, and that’s what scares him... like it’s not worth it to even try.
His questions are as follows.
NOTE: If you are not dealing specifically with porn or sexual addiction yourself, read “trigger” or “angry outbursts” or “food binging” or whatever else may be happening.
But don’t miss the key point.
Here we go —
What does it take to just start? To want something better without the fear of failing again.
Is a life porn free possible? Like no porn ever again?
Let’s start with the second set of questions first — is a life “trigger” free possible? Like none ever again? The short answer is:
No.
... and yes.
Will anyone ever be able to so completely control their environment that not a single shred of pornographic material, irritating relatives, crude jokes, sugary donuts, work deadlines, angry customers, or bills due ever crosses their path to “trigger” them again?
No.
Not unless they’ve so far removed themself from society that they live as a hermit somewhere.
And even then, they can’t control their dreams, the weather, or the random thoughts that might enter their brain without warning.
So is it hopeless?
That’s the wrong question to be asking.
Because hope never saved anybody! It’s only kept them alive longer.
Remember the gruesome rat experiments performed by Curt Richter in the 1950’s?
Curious about what he called “The Phenomenon of Sudden Death In Animals and Man,” he and his colleagues placed rats in tall, 8-inch-diameter, glass cylinders, and timed how long they could tread water before dying.
They averaged around 15 minutes.
Then, in a follow-up experiment to that death toll, he took more rats, had them tread water the same way, but this time rescued them right before they died and held them gently until they recovered. After that, he put them back into the cylinders and timed them again.
How long do you think they lasted this time?
60 HOURS!!!
That’s 240 times longer!
Having been saved once, Richter concluded that the rats somehow believed it would happen again and continued doing what they had already been doing until finally dying of sheer exhaustion.
Fast forward 70 years and some do-gooder on Facebook spins that horrific experiment into this:
If hope can cause exhausted rats to swim for that long, what could a belief in yourself and your abilities, do for you?
*Remember what you’re capable of. Remember why you’re here.
Keep swimming.
That sort of asinine nonsense is most emphatically NOT the point to take away from this AT ALL!
To whit —
Being saved taught the rats to stay and wait for a savior, when was needed was a DIFFERENT SOLUTION.
Likewise, believing in yourself when you know you don’t have the skills to change yet (as evidenced by the series of failures thus far) is a STUPID course of action.
How long do you really want to keep treading water in your current state of affairs?
“Excuse me, sir. Would you like 240 times the suffering you are having right now? You would? Well, then, here’s a dollop of hope to keep you swimming on into an abysmal and unchanging future. Enjoy!”
Can you see the problem?
Without the skills to change, no amount of hope will do anything but prolong the suffering.
The main difference between the fellow who emailed me and myself is that I clung to my hope for AN EXTRA 10 YEARS before realizing that I needed to learn the skills.
He’s caught on at 22! What a gift!
What a chance to avoid being a walking example of Einstein’s supposed definition of insanity like I was — doing the same things and hoping for a different result.
What I finally had to do was QUIT hoping.
Quit pretending it would one day work.
Quit believing the solutions everyone else had given me that weren’t working for them, either.
Quit “believing in myself,” even.
And simply go learn the skills needed to change my reactions to a world that I will never be able to rid of “triggers”.
Turns out that those skills have nothing to do with therapy, digging into the past, diagnoses, setting boundaries, resolving traumas, or identifying as an addict.
Nope.
They are subtle, physical skills.
That’s how you start.
You have to teach your nerves, muscles, and tissues to respond to your environment differently.
Then all the addictive behaviors go away on their own.
No hope required.
I’ve created multiple online programs to help with that process, but honestly, the most effective way to tackle this is in-person, all at once.
I’ve seen years of struggle evaporate from people in just a few days’ time.
Like this guy —
I’m just wrapping up my 14th year in full-time ministry. Throughout my time in ministry, I’ve been woefully aware of my need for healing and freedom. I’ve had opportunities to experience various forms of “talk therapy”, “theophostic therapy“, and other forms of healing prayer.
I didn’t realize until experiencing five days with Bob and his team that the key ingredient that was missing to take my freedom to the next level was: my body.
Multiple times throughout the week I came viscerally face-to-face with fear. I experienced things in my body that I’ve never experienced before.
I felt something to “leave” my body after the first deep breath exercise. After fasting from light, sound, and food for 20 hours, I had a spiritually experience ;the likes of which I haven’t experienced in a long time. I’m beyond grateful for the opportunity to come on this retreat.
I’ve been home for five days, and the freedom has maintained. No acting out. And not only no acting out, but I find myself serving my wife and children in a more confident and present way.
I’m so grateful for Bob, the team, and the mission of The Freedom Specialists. Thank you for your support, and for making this possible.
All of this I go deeply into in my recent book Built For Freedom.
And when you sign up for my daily emails below, I'll send you the first chapter (including the audio) for free.
Either that, or you can purchase the whole book (along with the companion course to go with it if you want) here:
Bob Gardner
