Brother “Ed’s” Testimony, Single

I have only been counseling for 5 months, but already I have made some real progress. Even though I grew up in the church and had a dramatic conversion at age 15, I couldn’t shake the habit of masturbation and porn. I have never slept with a woman but I have spent countless hours looking at porn. I started with magazines at neighbor’s houses and then pornographic movies on Cable TV. After I was saved, I had several years of purity, but when I went through problems at my church, I reverted to my old ways, except that by then, I had discovered the Internet. I used to look at hardcore porn and masturbate until I literally vomited from disgust with what I was looking at—but even that didn’t stop me. My addiction killed my relationship with God and I began to withdraw from relationships, isolating myself even further. Whenever I would get stressed or had problems at work, I would binge on porn and masturbation. Of course, this only made me feel worse, which led to more binging, and so on.

I found out about Pureheart through the Internet. I now have hope that I can be pure again, my relationship with God is growing again, and I am renewing friendships with people I haven’t talked to in years. I put a filter on my computer at home and set a rule of no Internet use after midnight when I get back from work. I was pure for a month and then relapsed into masturbation and porn for several days. I then got more serious about consequences for my behavior and set up a plan with my accountability partner (my stepbrother). If I masturbate, I owe him $20 and if I look at porn, it’s $30 a pop. My stepbrother was hoping to make lot of money off me, but so far he has been very disappointed. I now have 3 months and counting entirely porn and masturbation free. My thought life is getting cleaned up as well, and I have real hope that I learn to walk in constant purity for the rest of my life. I want to be pure so that when I find the right woman, I can be someone who has a habit of purity and not sexual sin.