Ten Reasons Not To Engage in Premarital Sex: Reason Six – The Slavery of Sexual Addiction

My Pastor shared with us the story of a young lady who had come to meet him after a ministration somewhere in Zaria many years ago.

She was addicted to sex and needed help desperately. She reported she couldn’t do without having sex in a day. If none of her boyfriends was around, she went out to get anyone available that could “help” her out. Indeed this is a story that disturbs.

Though there seems to be a blurry line between high sex drive and sexual addiction, sexual addiction is still a fact and is recognized as an obsession with sex, an inability to control the urge for sexual pleasure even in the face of harm or other dire negative consequences clearly present in the mind.

Typical behaviors include compulsive masturbation, persistent and uncontrollable use of pornography, multiple affairs, multiple sexual partners, prostitution and so on.

The exact causes of sexual addiction are not very clear. Some researches show that sex addicts often come from dysfunctional families and are more likely than non-sex addicts to have been abused.

One study found that 82 percent of sex addicts reported being sexually abused as children. Outside this, a major risk factor as far as sexual addiction is concerned has been said to be ease of access to sexual content in our age and time.

Advances in technology and social media allow access to increasingly intensive sexual imagery and information.

I found this highly instructive and will focus on it. While being abused as a child may be beyond the control of anyone, what you expose yourself to as a teenager or young adult is under your control.

In the days of the Bible, if any man offended not in word, the same was a perfect man and able also to bridle the whole body. (James 4:3).

If the bible is to be written in our own days, it will go thus: “if anyone keeps himself from pornography and offends not on the internet, the same is a perfect man. (Humour intended).

We are indeed in a sexually charged culture. Everything seems to be powered by imageries of sex. Unfortunately, we believers are careless. We allow ourselves to be exposed to poisonous contents on cable networks, secular songs, secular movies, the… Click To Tweet

After some time, we become so taken over by these thoughts that we first become addicts of impure thoughts leading us to ultimately succumbing to premarital sex and sexual addiction if this cycle of poisonous exposure continues.

The real danger in wrong exposure is that over time you will need a deeper and deeper version of the substance or act you’re abusing to maintain the same level of pleasure you had the first day.

It’s why you needed a more hard core version of pornography today to get the amount of pleasure you got yesterday with a lesser version. This brain adjustment is called “tolerance” meaning you will keep sinking deeper and deeper into the endless pursuit of pleasure which you will never find.

This is a real brain disorder medically recognized and established.

It is bordering for instance that the time spent on PornHub in 2016 equaled 5,245 centuries! Every year, PornHub (the largest porn website in the world) publishes insightful statistics.

In 2016, they racked up 23 billion visits to their site and collectively 4.6 billion hours. The bandwidth used was an astounding 3,110 petabytes, which is enough data to fill 194 million USB sticks.

End to end, this would cover 11,000 kilometers or stretch all the way around the moon. https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2016-year-in-review.

That shows you how glued the entire world is to the scourge of phonographic addiction. If you know the statistics of Christians of this figure, you’ll be shocked.

Sexual addiction like other addictions have dire consequences and perhaps knowing the consequences, you will appreciate why you should do everything to avoid it or come out of it.

Sexual addiction is associated with extremely low self-esteem, depression, relationship problems (continuous cycle of break-ups), loss of concentration and productivity at work, pedophilia, a commission of a crime where certain extreme behaviors have been criminalized.

I had the privilege of discussing this issue with a friend Adeola Aderoju who shared with me her own path to breaking masturbation addiction.

I got her permission to quote her verbatim and cite her as the source just to ensure by all means anyone who needs help could believe the credibility of this and probably reach out for help. I will be happy to link you up.

I found her contributions deep and profound and I believe it will be helpful. If anyone has successfully broken out of the issue, you can too. Over to Adeola.

“I might not av been “sexually active” But all addiction have a pattern…

I tell people I was hooked on masturbation even before the age of 10….. I wasn’t physical, it was a thing of the mind.

So, I could be in class, be with people but my mind was??‍♀??‍♀??‍♀. I’ve come to recognize phases in addiction…..
There’s this phase where it feels normal and the action feels good and comfortable….. There’s this other one that it just feels wrong??‍♀. Now, getting addicts to move from phase 1 to 2 is the most difficult and crazy step in breaking an addiction.

As long as an addict sees no big deal in his addiction, all you can do is pray.

But once the person becomes uncomfortable with the act, freedom is just a step away….. And if you’ve noticed, it is at this phase most addicts cry out for help…

Every addiction has its feeders and ‘fuellers’. For me, I loved books… I still do?. From primary school, I read all sorts.

Everything in black and white had to be read… I was already reading John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts in primary school?. So for me, those books filled my mind and fueled my addiction.

Call me a Legend??✌?

So, a major step to stopping addiction is to recognize and eliminate your feeders. I threw the books away. It’s a major reason I don’t see movies till today?? except based on recommendation. Hollywood ati Nollywood o le wa koba mi sir (I won’t allow Hollywood or Nollywood to destroy my life).

Another thing is sin thrives in secrecy….. So does addiction…….. I tell people, especially we these Christians that just like to deceive ourselves…

“I know you have the Holy Spirit, yes but you still need to open up to a human that’s flesh and blood like you!”. You fornicate today, you feel bad and ask God for forgiveness and ask the Holy Spirit to help you and it ends there?

There’s more than a 50% chance it will happen again… The same Holy Spirit that couldn’t stop you in the very first place is the same one you are asking to help you from another occurrence?

I’m not undermining the Holyspirit…It’s your ability to submit fully and ‘sharperly’ to his promptings that is in question.

And I’ve noticed that for every time I ignore the promptings of the spirit on one matter, it becomes much easier the next time…Till the voice of the spirit is silenced and today we have too many “born again” living comfortably with one particular sin or the other…

They didn’t get there in one day…..So the bottom line is, there’s a need for human accountability…..

Then…After eliminating your feeders, there’s a need to fill your mind with something else….. God’s word…
It takes time…..

The same way romance novels built up in my mind over time… Every addiction has a spiritual undertone to it….. So there’s a need to pray and ask God for help… It’s not a mere physical battle. Addictions are terrible destiny contenders.

OK… Let me quickly say this sir. Breaking addiction is a really rough journey.

The person must be ready to take responsibility and live in denial of some sort maybe for life. For instance, I know movies affect me so it will be so wrong if, after all my prayers, I get home and in a bid to relax, I just join my family to see any kind of movie.

My roommate during NYSC loved movies, she used it to relax after work… She found it strange that I didn’t watch movies…

And she was deliberate about making me see movies with her…

Initially, it was fine, but after a couple of movies, I saw my mind drifting to the old, familiar terrains…It shocked me… I was like “after all these years??? Could I still feel this way? Does it mean my deliverance wasn’t complete?”

I stopped the movies….. She called me weird, anti-social and all sorts.

But nah me know wetin I know. These questions troubled me for long….. But Paul said “a thorn was given me in the flesh….I begged the Lord to take it away…..”But the thorn remained.”

I’ve noticed that there’s a thorn we that were once addicted have to live with.

A friend who was once addicted to alcohol told me he still feels the taste in his mouth even though its been years of actually drinking…

And so, there’s the beer parlor on the normal and direct route from work to his house, but he takes a longer route…..?
Anything not to be near that particular beer parlor that was almost becoming his home back then.

You get?…Because of the thorn we carry, we can’t be normal?.

So, my responsibility is knowing that “it’s not every movie that is socially acceptable that is good for me”

In my friend’s case, the shorter route that is better for everyone is not good for him. For Paul, he couldn’t even brag about his heavenly vision very well sef☹ because of the thorn……

It was a constant reminder that he was nothing on his own…

There’s always something to give up….. But then, it’s ALWAYS worth it!!! The beautiful thing about God is the way he brings a message out of the mess we make with our lives. When you see a messed up life that has been refined by God….. Mehn, Nah gold.

So when this kind of people ask me, “Can I still be used by God after all I have done?”

I tell them, “Nah you gangan he dey find”?

It’s easy to help people out if you’ve been there yourself…… That’s life!

With God, every mess is a message…

And yes, there’s so much hope for an addict. You get me bah?”

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There’s hope for you but you have to get rid of the triggers and fuellers. Those movies, your looseness on the Internet, those secular songs, that circle of friend.

You need to run for your life, my good friend. It’s your life!

When you’re ready to get rid of the triggers, you can trust the power of the Holy Spirit to help.

My biological dad was addicted to alcohol for years. When the Holy Spirit stepped in, alcohol irritated him from his inside and he couldn’t return for the rest of his life.

Of course, that didn’t mean he took grace for granted and went on sitting around with drunkards. Point is, there was something supernatural about his deliverance. You can be free too.

I hope this blessed you.

All my love.

Your Brother,
Peniela Akintujoye

There's hope for you but you have to get rid of the triggers and fullers. Those movies, your looseness on the Internet, those secular songs, that circle of friend. Click To Tweet