Transcript We are at war

And the enemy is after you!
outline
Part I
The Big Picture!
Part II The Science of Pornography
and the Brain
Part III The Social element
Part IV So Now What!
 1)
Hit your emotions, preferably before you
have the intellectual capacity or skills to
fight back.
 2) Divide and conquer; isolate and create
such shame that you do not want to speaks
about your individual battles.
 Expose
their fraud, give you the
knowledge you need to



Recognize it
Run from it
Run for support
And it does not clean off easily if
at all
 “Blessed
are the pure of heart for they shall
see God”
 Pornography and masturbation are linked and
feed off one another.
 The habit of pornography and masturbation
makes it impossible to see the spiritual joys
of heaven; here or later.
 The sin can be forgiven. We can grow and
regain our happiness, but it is not likely to be
as grand an adventure as it could have been.
 Pornography
permanently affects your
brain
 Pornography is addictive
 Pornography gravely harms your ability to
relate to others
 Pornography affects those who are
closest to you
 The
huge change in technology has occurred
in one generation; yours.
 Science has no way of knowing what this
increase in pornography use will do to
change the society you will try raising your
children in.

Every second there are about 28,000 internet
users viewing pornography online in the USA
 Science
can say that it does negatively affect
the individual physically, emotionally, and
socially.
 The
brain’s job is to work from the senses to
form pathways and patterns of thinking and
acting. And this is why habits are so
powerful.
 The more we use a pathway(or part of a
pathway; from memory or sense input to
action), the stronger it becomes.
 Adolescence is a particularly critical period
for forming these pathways.
Without some clowns exploiting
you through the emotions!
Normally this arrangement is OK, unless
the elephant goes berserk.
 Pornography
excites the emotional
center with Provocative images that
are sent to the amygdala (“fight or
flight” center in the emotional
brain)[fear response]

You do not “provoke” joy, happiness, love;
you “provoke” anger, hostility, distrust;
and hatred
•
•
•
The cognitive brain is not fully
developed in men until they reach
21.
Any emotional stimuli before this
will necessarily have more effect
on the brain; it will not be softened
by reason.
It is easier to be “out of control”.
 There
is a first impulse given to the
amygdala even before reaching your rational
brain
 Whatever is stored in the emotional memory
of your amygdala is stored more permanently
and more vividly
 This is how pornography enters your brain
and how it leaves a more permanent
emotional mark.
 The
amygdala needs to make instant
decisions to get us out of any potential
danger A.S.A.P., so the amygdala’s pattern
matching of new sense data and memory is
very crude.
 This means that emotional memories can
have their pathways and response sequences
crossed – bringing fear, shame, and anxiety
into normal situations.

Porn rewires your brain, making panic attacks,
and other anxiety related symptoms much more
likely.
 Pornography
goes to work in 3/10th
of a second. This is the time
needed for the image to reach your
emotional center where it starts to
work triggering the response and
storing it in memory.
•
•
•
Both of these are natural processes that
occur with repeated use of pornography
Tolerance: With each viewing, you need more
intense porn to get the same level of
satisfaction
Sensitization: You need less and less of the
substance to crave it intensely.
•
So sensitization leads to increased wanting,
though not necessarily liking. There is no
“pleasure” associated with craving.
 Inside
the context of marriage, the chemicals
released by your body work to solidify the
relationship between you and your wife and
children.
 It is only the abuse that brings about the
negative addiction.
 Just
like muscles that become impatient for
exercise, the brain “craves” exercise along
the pathways established by porn.
 Abuse brings real withdrawal symptoms when
we try to leave it: insomnia, irritability,
jitters, itchy skin, dizziness, body aches,
restlessness, anxiety, mood swings… that
make quitting very difficult
 Once
the level of addiction is reached, there
is a protein that throws a genetic switch
reducing your ability to find enjoyment.
 This switch may never go back to normal.

You may never be able to find enjoyment in a
good lacrosse game, or spending time with
friends as you used to be able to do.
And its effect on the spouse and family
is very much the same
 If
you become involved in pornography you
will spend less and less time with your wife
and children
 You will become more irritable with them
 You will lose respect for your wife and start
to look at your wife as you do porn stars
 If your wife knows of your habit, she will feel
inadequate and may feel she has to try to
compete with the porn stars
 Because of the taboo in speaking about porn,
your wife will feel more and more isolated
 You
will have less trust in others
 You will have less self esteem
 You will form a cynical view of marriage and
love
 You will form the feeling that marriage is
confining
 You will lose interest in caring for others
 You will form the need for more novel and
bizarre porn to become aroused
 Women
see pornography as a total betrayal
 Pornography is the antithesis of what they
see in a relationship and later in marriage

Mutual respect, honesty, shared power and
romantic love are replaced by power imbalances,
discrimination, disrespect, abuse, voyeurism,
objectification, and detachment
So use the best of both to stay out of it –
or to break out of its hold once it bites.
 God
is more powerful than the devil; victory
is assured if we take the courageous path
and run! Put an electric fence around you!
 Build stronger relationships – especially with
God. All doctors who work with this agree
that this relationship is not “just like any
other” relationship. We draw a lot of
strength from our love for God and Mary.
 Pornography
depends on
three pillars:
accessibility, anonymity,
affordability.
 Knock out as many
pillars as possible!
 Both anonymity and
accessibility can be
killed
 It
does not take a lot of pornography to form
compulsive desires to see more
 Once a month is sufficient to pull you into
addiction
 It can work its way up to a behavior that
takes over your life at the cost of family, job,
friends, and even your vocation
 Talk
about it. This is the number one most
helpful piece of advice: get others helping!
 Know and break the reaction sequence
 Know and protect against the triggers
 Fill emotional needs in better ways

(boredom, anger, frustration, loss of selfesteem, rejection, stress, isolation, need for
affirmation)
 Establish
goals – excellence in activities
establishes pathways that can compete
 Possessions:
raise the dignity of women;
chivalry; obedience esp to mother
 Pleasure: Temperance; triggers
 Power: Get help (spiritual and medical).
Abandonment; sense of divine filiation;
appreciation for role in Providence; humility;
apostolate
 Requires
time and effort and demands
commitment.
 Anyone who promises a quick fix is
overlooking the withdrawal symptoms.
 Generally, success comes from learning
about the addiction, preparing a game
plan, carrying out the game plan,
reviewing what is working and what is not
working.
 Learning from mistakes and gaining more
information is very important.
We may lose some battles, but if we
get up and fight again, we do not have
to lose the war – God’s team will win!