90 Days to Wholeness: A Porn Addiction Recovery Devotional for WomenSample

Yesterday, you were asked to define abstinence as it pertains to your own recovery journey. In whatever way abstinence looks for you, how is that going? If you’ve struggled, it’s easier and easier to fall back onto lies (justifications), which is why abstinence is so important to recovery. 

Sexual abstinence means having no form of sex with self (masturbation) or with a spouse (for a season). For the unmarried addict, abstinence means freedom from sex of any kind, yes, including masturbation. For the married addict, the purpose for sexual abstinence is to get back to treating sex as an act of worship with your partner more than a means for physical gratification. The abstinence period for married addicts should be 30 days or longer (preferably 90 days) and should be a mutual decision.

And emotional porn can be just as bad, if not worse than tangible porn, because it invades our hearts and our minds in a completely different way. And it seems innocent at first. Emotional porn is romantic comedies, romance novels, some music and the like–things that can create a fantasy world and cause addiction to be triggered.

In order to set yourself up for success for your abstinence journey, what boundaries do you need to put in place? Keep in mind that boundaries may also mean making changes to the relationships that are in your life.