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    Love Letters to a Porn Addict: How Patience, Self-Compassion and Forgiveness Can Help You Find the Courage to Leave Porn Behind Forever
    Love Letters to a Porn Addict: How Patience, Self-Compassion and Forgiveness Can Help You Find the Courage to Leave Porn Behind Forever
    Love Letters to a Porn Addict: How Patience, Self-Compassion and Forgiveness Can Help You Find the Courage to Leave Porn Behind Forever
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Love Letters to a Porn Addict: How Patience, Self-Compassion and Forgiveness Can Help You Find the Courage to Leave Porn Behind Forever

    By Luke Knight

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    About this ebook

    Few things are as demoralizing as the feeling that you're trapped. Porn traps its users in a cycle of frustration, self-loathing and despair. In such a weakened state, is it surprising that so many good men struggle to find a way out? This book can help you to change the way you think, so you can find the strength to leave porn behind and pursue a life of success, satisfaction and fulfilment.

    The book is entitled “Love Letters to a Porn Addict.” I call them ‘love letters,’ because each chapter is written to you by a fellow human being who is motivated by love for you. We’re not talking about romantic or erotic love, of course. This is the type of love the ancient Greeks and early Christian writers called 'agape,' pure altruistic love based on nothing more than wanting the best for the other person. True, we’ve never met. But I assure you, I want you to succeed. The purpose of these love letters is to give you the confidence to know that you can live a life without porn.

    What about the term ‘addict’ in the book’s title? I know it’s controversial. In this book, I freely use the term ‘addiction’ to describe the relationship many people have with porn. True, some scientists question whether it is a real addiction, comparable to alcoholism, nicotine, or other drugs. I’d be the first to admit that they may be right. Possibly the effect of porn on the brain is quite different. The jury is still out.

    But when you think about it, that’s hardly the point, is it? Ask anyone who’s been hooked on porn whether they were addicted. If it’s not an addiction, then it sure as heck feels like one. My non-scientific, common-sense definition of addiction is this: Feeling unable to stop engaging in an activity that you know is bad for you and wish to avoid. If you feel porn is harming your mental well-being, your family life, your relationships, your career, or your spirituality, and you want to stop but have been unable to, then for all practical purposes, you are addicted.

    This book will help you to see the need to love and accept yourself, while gently nudging you to be better. You'll learn the value of self-forgiveness, self-care and self-compassion. You'll see areas in which we can change our thinking to maximize our chances of success. And we'll talk about how to remain positive if things don't go according to plan.

    Chapters:
    Chapter 1: You Deserve Love, Not Criticism
    Chapter 2: You’re Not a Bad Person for Failing; You’re a Good Person for Trying
    Chapter 3: You Are a Work in Progress
    Chapter 4: Forgiveness Is Your Friend
    Chapter 5: Don’t Get Furious, Get Curious
    Chapter 6: Celebrate the Beautiful Gift of Free Will
    Chapter 7: Connect to Your Deep Reasons
    Chapter 8: You Can Deal With Temptations
    Chapter 9: Giving Your Body and Your Mind the Care They Deserve
    Chapter 10: Have the Faith to Know that Success Is Yours
    Chapter 11: What to Do If You Slip
    Conclusion: The Power of Hope

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLuke Knight
    Release dateOct 5, 2020
    ISBN9781005514884
    Love Letters to a Porn Addict: How Patience, Self-Compassion and Forgiveness Can Help You Find the Courage to Leave Porn Behind Forever
    Author

    Luke Knight

    Over the past 20 years, I have counselled dozens of people who have had pornography issues, in the context of my faith community. My books are based on material I have produced to help them. I enjoy researching topics and explaining them clearly to others.

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      Book preview

      Love Letters to a Porn Addict - Luke Knight

      Love Letters to a Porn Addict

      Copyright 2020 Luke Knight

      Published by Luke Knight at Smashwords

      This book is licensed for your enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of physicians or mental-health professionals. Readers should regularly consult a physician or mental-health professional in matters relating to their health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

      Some names and non-essential details in this book have been changed to preserve the anonymity of those involved. In quotations from other sources, bold or italics have sometimes been added for emphasis.

      Table of Contents

      Foreword

      Chapter 1: You Deserve Love, Not Criticism

      Chapter 2: You’re Not a Bad Person for Failing; You’re a Good Person for Trying

      Chapter 3: You Are a Work in Progress

      Chapter 4: Forgiveness Is Your Friend

      Chapter 5: Don’t Get Furious, Get Curious

      Chapter 6: Celebrate the Beautiful Gift of Free Will

      Chapter 7: Connect to Your Deep Reasons

      Chapter 8: You Can Deal With Temptations

      Chapter 9: Giving Your Body and Your Mind the Care They Deserve

      Chapter 10: Have the Faith to Know that Success Is Yours

      Chapter 11: What to Do If You Slip

      Conclusion: The Power of Hope

      Foreword

      Forget porn. Your life is waiting.

      I’m serious. Life is short. You want to get as much out of it as you can. You want to enjoy all the love, the happiness, the experiences, the relationships, all the meaning that life has to offer. Porn stands in the way of your enjoying all that pleasure. So porn has to go.

      Don’t do it for your parents. Don’t do it for your pastor, your Rabbi, or spiritual advisor. Don’t do it for your boss. Don’t even do it for your spouse or your kids. Do it for yourself. Do it because you deserve better.

      You might be saying you don’t know whether you can do it. If so, I hear you. When you try with all your strength, again and again, giving it everything you’ve got, only to watch your efforts fail time and time again, it’s easy to lose heart. Whatever confidence you had in your ability to change just evaporates. We’ve all been there.

      But still, you can change. You must believe you can change. You must change. And you will. Having sex with your computer is not an option. It’s like endlessly surfing websites of restaurants and never eating at any of them, constantly looking at travel websites of places you’ll never visit. What a letdown!

      Love Letters to a Porn Addict – Why?

      You may wonder about the title of this book. The book is entitled Love Letters to a Porn Addict. I call them ‘love letters,’ because each chapter is written to you by a fellow human being who is motivated by love for you. We’re not talking about romantic or erotic love, of course. This is the type of love the ancient Greeks and early Christian writers called agape, pure altruistic love based on nothing more than wanting the best for the other person. True, we’ve never met. But I assure you, I want you to succeed. The purpose of these love letters is to give you the confidence to know that you can live a life without porn.

      What about the term ‘addict’ in the book’s title? I know it’s controversial. In this book, I freely use the term ‘addiction’ to describe the relationship many people have with porn. True, some scientists question whether it is a real addiction, comparable to alcoholism, nicotine, or other drugs. I’d be the first to admit that they may be right. Possibly the effect of porn on the brain is quite different. The jury is still out.

      But when you think about it, that’s hardly the point, is it? Ask anyone who’s been hooked on porn whether they were addicted. If it’s not an addiction, then it sure as heck feels like one. My non-scientific, common-sense definition of addiction is this: Feeling unable to stop engaging in an activity that you know is bad for you and wish to avoid. If you feel porn is harming your mental well-being, your family life, your relationships, your career, or your spirituality, and you want to stop but have been unable to, then for all practical purposes, you are addicted.

      Another objection to the term ‘addict’ is that it defines you by your porn habit. I actually agree with this objection. I don’t want you to think of yourself as an addict. So, why do I use the word in the title of this book? The answer is simple: In all probability, that is how you view yourself. The problem is that if you have looked at porn for any length of time, it’s likely you’ve started to think of yourself as an addict. I wanted you to know that this book is for you.

      I’m Luke and I’m an alcoholic. The Alcoholics Anonymous movement is famous for using the phrase. But it’s controversial. As explained by one woman who no longer identifies herself in this way, this formula ensures that I will remain in the mind-space of something I don’t even do anymore.¹

      You may be addicted, but you need to stop thinking of yourself as an addict. You’re so much more than that. To live a meaningful, porn-free life, you have to separate your behavior from your identity. That’s something we’ll be discussing in this book too.

      A Different Approach

      In these letters, I’m not using the language of morality. I’m not going to rant endlessly about how porn is ‘evil,’ ‘sinful,’ or ‘degraded.’ It may well be all of those things, but this is not a religious book and I’m not here to judge. I make passing references to statements by spiritual leaders and religious texts, but that’s not an endorsement of any of them. I just happened to like the way they expressed an idea, nothing more. Every garden of thought has at least a few flowers of truth.

      Neither will I be characterizing the journey out of porn use as a ‘battle’ or a ‘fight.’ Again, I’m not suggesting that such comparisons are out of place. Indeed, I use them myself in my other book Porn Escape.² But this book takes a different approach. In this book, we view the journey out of porn use as one of healing and recovery.

      The English word heal comes from the same root as the word whole. Its original meaning is to make whole,³ in other words, complete, sound. You don’t make things complete by taking something away, you make them complete by adding something. For a porn addict, we aren’t thinking of ‘getting rid of’ an addiction, ‘losing’ a habit, ‘giving up’ porn. Look at it the

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