Week 1: "Cold Turkey" | Finding out how bad it actually is

This course isn’t here to tell you that porn is bad. You already know that. You've seen the documentaries, you've read the threads, you know what the industry does to the people in it, and most importantly, you know what it does to you. Knowing was never the problem. You know all of it, and you do it anyway, because somewhere along the line it stopped being a choice and became an addiction.

So this won't be a week of being told something you already know. This week is about something you probably don't realise yet, which is how bad it actually is.

Most of us carry around a quiet little lie. I could stop if I wanted to, it's not that serious, it's not like I'm one of those people, I just do it when I’m stressed, I'm fine. And maybe you're right. Maybe you really could put it down tomorrow and never look back. There's only one way to find out.

This week you go cold turkey. No exceptions, no negotiating, no "just this once." When the urge comes, and it will come, you don't feed it. Prayer is crucial, but most importantly, your own self-control. You feel it rise, you feel it peak, you feel it pass. People who study addiction call this surfing the urge, you ride the wave instead of letting it pull you under, and the part nobody tells you is that the wave always breaks. It never actually drowns you. It just feels like it's going to.

You won't find this sort of advice in other Christian quit-porn programs, because the idea of a 7 day fast implies that you can do it after the 7 days. This is not condoning sin. This is a realistic approach. It would be nearly impossible for an addict to simply surf the urge, not knowing if he’s ever going to be able to get a hit again. But with that idea at the back of your head that “Okay, just 7 days.”, the impulse you’re fighting because simply “Not now”. And that’s a much easier thing for an addicted brain to say yes to.

And regardless of whether at the end of these first 7 days you realise that you did pretty well, or you find yourself scrambling back for a dopamine hit, you’ll know exactly how bad your problem is, and that’s the first step to recovery. Knowing exactly how bad the problem really is.

One more thing. In these 5 weeks, we’re going to rewire your relationship with confession.

The relationship most of us have with confession is a strange one. It turns into a game of how long you can hold out before the next fall, and then you trudge back, and then the cycle repeats. Or it goes the other way. You just stop going for confession altogether. You stop receiving communion, because what’s the point?

Both traps come from the same disordered relationship with the sacrament. Thinking that confession is something you only go to for this one specific sin, in order to be able to receive communion. It’s easy to fall into the thinking that if you went the whole week without acting out, but spent it feeding lust in your head, taking the quick "curious" look, telling yourself a glance isn't really the same thing, you don’t need to go for confession. Chances are that as an addict, your relationship with this sacrament has eroded over time, and your bar for sin is now rock-bottom.

Going every week, at least for now, whether or not you fell to that main obvious sin, slowly repairs something.

**Commitments**
- Cold turkey. Abstain completely, all seven days, and surf every urge.
- Pray for strength, daily. Practice at LEAST 15 minutes of devotion. Rosary, Divine Mercy, Chotki, Scripture, your choice.
- Go to confession once this week

**Reflection**
Before the week begins, write down how bad this is for you. Not the version you'd say to a priest or a friend, the version you actually believe in your own head. Keep it somewhere. You'll want to read it back later.

**Share anonymously**
What's the urge usually attached to for you? Boredom, stress, loneliness, something else entirely?