• Avoid stores and websites that sell porn & sexual paraphenalia
  • Don’t surf the internet alone; avoid being alone
  • Avoid sexually explicit movies (usually R rated and some PG rated)
  • Avoid looking at people in a sexual manner. If you can’t look at a person without having sexual thoughts, then don’t look at all!
  • If married, avoid being separated from your spouse, especially in the evening
  • Pre-plan alternate, non-pornographic activities you will do when you feel the urge to view porn. Examples:

Ask God for help in prayer
Pray for others struggling with porn addiction
Call a friend
Exercise
Recite Bible verses audibly
Sing praise songs to God
Install internet filters on your computer, phone and other devices and give a friend the password
When tempted, remind yourself the truth about the lies behind the temptations
Take actions to clean out your home from any physical or spiritual stumbling blocks related to porn
Take action to build your spiritual walls of resistance through our online courses

Here are some helpful tips provided to us by a site visitor:
1) I’m an IT guy. I have a laptop. However, I don’t need to bring it home with me every night, though I used to. One of the easy steps to assist me was to simply leave it at work when its not needed at home. I’m too afraid of not properly covering my tracks or of getting caught by my wife to browse porn on her computer, so not having my own is a help. On the nights I need to work from home, I use it only on the couch in public view where anyone can walk up behind me and see what I’m doing.

2) OpenDNS is free and awesome. I know there are benefits to a lockdown-type application and giving the password to an accountability partner. However, sometimes this doesn’t work or the free solution is just as good. I use OpenDNS for free and have the options set to filter out the following categories:
Sexuality
Tasteless
Nudity
Pornography
Additionally, I’ve also added the “Academic Fraud”, “webspam”, “adware” and “typo squatting” categories. Basically, you sign up for free service with them and set filters. You then update your router to use their DNS servers. This in effect protects the whole house… or anyone behind the router. So not only does it help me, but it helps protect my children from unwanted exposure to sexual material (as well as popups, malware, and the temptation to cheat on their homework). It also protects any guests at my home that want to use my wifi. There are other good categories in there as well including “dating sites”, “lingerie/bikini”, etc that could be enabled. If my kids need to research something for school that is blocked (say a biology thing), my wife can login to OpenDNS and approve the specific page or domain. When dealing with addictions in general, there are categories for tobacco, drugs, gambling, etc. Its awesome for a free service. For someone that hasn’t explained the situation to their wife *yet* and doesn’t want her questioning a monthly charge for internet software, this helps. Also, for people with work-provided computers where you cannot install your own software, this is a good work-around. I have an Airport Express from Apple that I use when travelling and its also configured with OpenDNS. Can I bypass it? Sure, but at least its a deterrent to hopefully buy me some time if I’m tempted.

3) For free accountability, Google’s web search history is awesome. If you have a gmail address, you have a Google account. I specifically enabled the Google web search history feature. It records all searches and keeps a record of every site I’ve gone to. I then gave my gmail password to my accountability partner. He is then able to see where I’m going and what I’m searching and if he sees chunks missing he knows I’m covering my tracks. Combined with OpenDNS, I have a blocker/filter and a accountability and I’m not paying a dime.

4) When it comes to TV and cable, etc I have personally found that some shows are about as bad as porn.  For example, crime shows that center around a homicide or rape or other sexual crimes.  Such shows can can be more spiritually draining than a month of not praying or reading the Word.