Hugh Houston - Jesus Is Better Than Porn: How I Confessed my Addiction to My Wife and Found a New Life

Jesus Is Better Than Porn:

How I Confessed My

Addiction to My Wife and Found a New Life

By Hugh Houston

Introduction

I UNDERSTAND. IVE been there. The pull of porn enthralled me, then ensnared me and finally enslaved me. Jesus never abandoned me, but I was too blind, too afraid and too ashamed to seek out the help I needed. As you read this book, you will see that you and I are have much in common. I found freedom and a new life. Ill show you how you can too!

I understand. Im not a psychiatrist nor a psychologist. But I know what its like get to the point where youve lost hope of ever recovering your peace of mind. Perhaps you are drowning in lust, stuck on what feels like the eternal hamster wheel of compulsive addiction. Imagine how you will feel when you break free. Imagine a life lived with no regrets.

If after more than thirty years of being caught up in the lies of porn I discovered the truth that set me free, there is hope for you. In this short book Ill share with you the answers I found and the strategies I used to finally put pornography in the rearview mirror.

Pornography is reprehensible and unconscionable. To lust after another person degrades and devalues another human being as a thing to be used for our own personal self-gratification. Pornography is dehumanization at the most intimate level of our being. Thats why its so ugly. And in the end we dehumanize ourselves in the process. This is as far as we can get from the heart of God.

I chose to write using a pen name in order to share my most intimate thoughts while maintaining my privacy. This is not a book of statistics on porn. If you picked this book up, I imagine you are personally acquainted with this problem. You or someone you know is struggling, perhaps enslaved by the compulsive use of pornography.

This book is concise, practical, and impactful. I share my story so that you examine your own story. In these pages you will find hope hope for a better tomorrow; hope for a new and better you!

There is HOPE for anyone enslaved by sin, because Jesus came to set the captives free.

• Learn how to fight lies with the truth.
• See how you can take control of your thoughts and your mind.
• Begin using your own personal "Battle Plan" today.
• Practice intentional living.
• God has already provided you with everything you need for your new life.
• Use the discussion questions at the end of each chapter with your group.

Freedom is a glorious gift from above! Let the jailbreak begin!

Chapter One

A Deep Dark Hole

I FELT TRAPPED. I couldnt take it anymore, and I was scared to death. I knew that if I didnt do something quickly, my secret sin was going to get much, much worse.

I was 50 years old, and it felt like I had been fighting lust, masturbation and pornography my whole life. Up to this point our internet service had been dial-up. I had resisted getting a higher speed connection because I knew it would spell big trouble for me, but my wife and our son really wanted broadband. They kept insisting, so one day I finally gave in. Now with a high speed internet connection I feared my compulsion to search out pornography would get completely out of control.

For practically as long as I can remember lust had played a big role in my life. I recall playing doctor with kids on my street when I was about six years old. But my first real encounter with pornography came when I was a teenager and went to spend the night with my cousins.

My three cousins lived in another state, and I didnt see them very often. They were brothers who all shared a bedroom, and when I visited, they made room for me to crowd in with them. One night, we shut the bedroom door to go to sleep. Thats when they showed me a tall stack of Playboy magazines in their desk drawer.

I had never seen one of those in my life. I still remember the rush of adrenaline that pulsed through my body as I flipped through several of the magazines, the images burning into my brain. Was it an addiction at first sight? I cant say. I know that in spite of the fact that I had been taught differently, from then on, I began to seek out opportunities to take another peek and feel that same rush.

I felt ashamed, but I kept wanting to see more. More than just my curiosity was aroused. It was a sensation I had never felt before. From then on, I began to seek out opportunities to take another peek and feel the same rush. (I had no idea that looking at those pictures triggered dopamine secretion in my brain which in turn produced the feel good rush.)

When I got my drivers license, I had a bit more freedom. Whenever I got the chance to stop at a convenience store, which in those days had mens magazines on the rack with everything else, I would look for another shot of excitement. I knew that as a follower of Jesus it was wrong for me to desire to have sex with these women, yet that didnt stop me. One day, when my sister had come along with me to a department store, she caught me looking at a Penthouse magazine. I was tremendously embarrassed, but not enough to seek help. The urge within me just kept pulling me back.

I was so conflicted. I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and had been baptized into Christ. I read my Bible. I prayed that I would live a life that pleased the Lord. I always treated women and girls with respect. Yet deep within me, my sexual urges were out of control. I was too embarrassed to talk with anyone about these feelings and as a result my feeling and emotions ran wild.

A few years later I went away to college, where I ended up studying theology and preparing to become a missionary. I fell in love with a wonderful Christian woman who is still my wife to this day. Like many so guys, I convinced myself that having a wife and a healthy sexual relationship with her would cure my desire to look at other women. I quickly discovered that I was dead wrong. I did not understand that just as it is impossible to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it, desires do not go away the more you seek to satisfy them.