A Tidal Wave of Evil is Coming

The Entrance of Sin

People Experiment with Taking Shortcuts to Peace and Happiness

Alcohol Drugs

Pornography/Sex

These activities are exciting and fun for a while. Satan is good at what he does; first tempting people, and later capturing their hearts.

The Conditioning Process

We subconsciously desire that which we associate with pleasure or relief from stress. These strong feelings are called cravings.

How Do People Get Addicted?Self-Medication

Sin is fun and enticing. People naturally want to repeat the behavior. As individuals repeatedly transgress, they eventually recognize that indulging in the sin takes their mind off their problems. They may begin to subconsciously rely upon this negative behavior to cope with stress and sadness.

Things Can Go Surprisingly Wrong!

Addictions represent the

misguided attempts of

troubled people to use

the wrong ways to cope

with stress and get their

inner needs met.

Eventually, unwanted

consequences may

appear.

What are the Long-Term Consequences of a Pornography Addiction?

1. Objectification of women.

2. Dependence on the addiction interferes with developing good coping skills. Self-confidence decreases.

3. Loss of the Spirit. Difficulty finding peace and happiness. Difficulty fulfilling priesthood responsibilities.

4. Desensitization and escalation. The individual seeks progressively more stimulating material to get the same effect.

5. The desires to act out on fantasies increases and impulsive actions can lead to divorce, church discipline, loss of jobs, and even incarceration.

6. Can become a source of great pain to others. Loss of eternal salvation.

Criteria for Addiction

1. Repeated unsuccessful attempts to stop or control the strong desires to perform the behavior.

2. Preoccupation with the behavior at the expense of other more important activities.

3. A need to increase the intensity, frequency, or variety in order to achieve the same effect.

4. One experiences significant anxiety, restlessness, or irritability if unable to engage in the behavior.

5. Repeatedly engages in reckless, potentially damaging behavior without fully considering the risks.

Pornography Addiction Affects the Brain

The pleasure center of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, is mediated by the neurotransmitter dopamine. Continued overstimulation of the dopamine tracts in the brain leads to downregulation, a decrease in the number of dopamine receptor cells. During withdrawal the person may feel depressed, sluggish, slow-witted, and experience difficulty feeling pleasure. The brain can readjust over a period of several months.

Memories and Triggers

Strong neuropathways are developed as the habit grows. Images, objects, and behavior patterns associated with pleasure become firmly stamped into the brain’s memory system via the amygdala. This causes the individual to be sexually triggered by a variety of stimuli.

Loss of Perspective and Honesty

Downplaying the seriousness of the problem, making excuses, and lying are strategies people use to avoid squarely facing the problem.

And the mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which whichblindeth the eyes, and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men, and leadeththem away into broad roads, that they perish and are lost. (1 Nephi 12:16)

DependencyDifficulty coping with life without the

addictive behavior

The Chains of Addiction

Ignorance and Habit

Feeling Trapped

O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from

the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are

bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that they

are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe.

(2 Nephi 1:13)

Pleasure Seeking Always Fails in the End

Wickedness never was happiness. (Alma 41:10)

The addicted individual is not able to progress emotionally and spiritually.

Tools for Recovery

Why Can’t People Just Use more Willpower and Stop Acting Out?

Plato – Each person is a charioteer with two horses. The black horse is passion and the white horse is reason.

James 1:8 – A double-mindedman is unstable in all his ways.

Human Beings Are Complicated!

Neuroscience has proven that we have a dual mind system, an emotional system and a logical system. The emotional system is much more powerful.

The Dual System Brain

• The emotional system allows us to act fairly sp• The emotional system of the brain acts rapidly and

allows us to act fairly spontaneously using pre-established automatic subroutines. (patterned behavior, emotions, desires, intuition, wisdom, emotionally-based thinking).

• The rational (conscious) system allows us to make sense of set behavioral patterns, interrupt them, and establish new, more effective patterns.

Incognito - David Eagleman (neuroscientist)The Happiness Hypothesis – Jonathan Haidt

The Team of Rivals

Logical System(Logic, planning, organization, awareness, self-control)

Emotional System(Emotions, desires, creative thinking, automatic patterns,wisdom)

This hidden system operates largely subconsciously. However, we can increase our awareness.

The Thoughts and Feelings of the Heart Can Be Different Than Those of the Mind

Purify your hearts, ye double minded. (James 4:8)

Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. (Mark 7:6)

(D&C 64:34) 34 Behold, the Lord requireth the heart and a willing mind.

“I should” versus “I want”

The Secret of Change

We can communicate with the emotional mind (the heart).

The emotional system provides information and feedback to the conscious mind, and the conscious mind provides analysis and direction.

We can modulate negative emotions through the strategic use of truth.

We can also reprogram the heart to act differently. Later positive experiences will cement in the new behaviors.

And again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you. (D&C 50:25)

Main Components of Recovery

The Holy Spirit and the Atonement

Light and Truth Skills for FindingJoy

Faith in Jesus Christ

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: (Matthew 7:7)

The Enabling Power of the Atonement

Elder David A. Bednar : The two dimensions of the Atonement (redeeming and enabling) are connected and complementary. Pray and seek for strength to change your circumstances rather than praying for your circumstances to be changed. We will become agents who act rather than objects that are acted upon.

And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. (Alma 7: 12)

The Holy Ghost testifies of truth, guides us, empowers us, purifies our desires, and gives us revelation.

Recovered by Grace After All We Can Do

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: Throughout our lives, God’s grace bestows temporal blessings and spiritual gifts that magnify our abilities and enrich our lives. His grace refines us. His grace helps us become our best selves.

The Secret Sauce in RecoveryLight and Truth

The most important tool for change beyond the refining power of the Spirit is truth.

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. (John 17:17)

The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. (D&C 93:26)

Light and truth forsake that evil one. (D&C 93:37)

The truth shall make you free (John 8:32)

The Heart of Man

Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? (Proverbs 20:9)

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7)

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. (Matthew 12:35)

Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 8:31)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

Man’s Spirit is Part of His Personality

President James E. Faust: The main mission of the Church is to change the inner self.

President David O. McKay: The highest purpose of man is to develop the spirit within him.

President Brigham Young: The spirit is the intelligent part of man, and it is intimately connected with the tabernacle.

President David O. McKay: The spirit in man controls this physical body just as the driver of an auto may control that machine. (Thus the spirit of man works through the emotional and logical systems of the brain.)

Changing the Heart

We are able to communicate with the emotional system,the heart. As the emotional system is far more powerful, initially our main leverage is persuasion and truth.

Experience touches the heart most deeply and permanently. Through faith and obedience, the heart can learn that the ways of the Lord are the path to greater joy and meaning, and the heart can be converted to righteous living.

Truth in Advertising

Covert conditioning (use visual imagery to create dramatic scenarios about the consequences of sin)

Self-talk (use logic and persuasion to motivate the heart)

Emergency kit(A truth-packed letter to the heart about temptation)

Decision

• Set your heart

• The “no tolerance” rule

• Stages of change

Precontemplation

Contemplation

Work

Maintenance

Distance Offers Safety

The greater the distance from temptation the greater the self-control.

Boundaries

The Lord gives us laws and boundaries for good reasons.

• Rituals and patterns – be aware of where, when, and how the behavior occurs

• Set personal boundaries -Rules and limits

Computers in open areasPasswordsFilters

Guard the Gates of the Mind

Sing hymns

Study scriptures

Turn your focus with visual imagery

Distract yourself with positive activities

Avoid Self-Deception

There is no sin without self-deception. Truth is our powerful ally.

Salesmanship

The heart will be enticed for good or evil. We need to sell ourselves on good.

*Our power lies in persuasion, not force or guilt.

Pornography Addiction is Usually a Symptom of a Different Problem

Ineffective emotional coping

Distant relationships

Poor self-care

Negative beliefs about self and the future

Perfectionism

Impaired motivation

Low self-worth and lack of confidence

*Counseling may be required to adequately address significant

problems that interfere with hope and happiness.

Choosing Our Life’s Path

The Lord’s ways require more effort and knowledge, but bring greater inner peace and joy and lead to salvation.

The world’s way bring instant fun and excitement but bring little of lasting value and no real happiness.

Spirituality: The Path to Happiness

President Benson: The road lies before us. It is clearly marked. The means to travel it are richly provided. We must follow the path set for us by the Son of God in all that we desire, think, and do.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks: To become pure in heart—to achieve exaltation—we must alter our attitudes and priorities to a condition of spirituality, we must control our thoughts, we must reform our motives, and we must perfect our desires.

The Daily Spiritual Path

1. Positive activities- The 4 L’s (love, labor, learning, leisure).

2. Kindness- love and serve those around us

3. Meaning- Be involved in good causes. Be passionate about developing talents

4. Positive thoughts. Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly (D&C 121:45)

Changing our Thoughts

Emotions and desires are highly influenced by our thoughts and perceptions. Negative thoughts associated with anger, fear, self-criticism, or depression must be converted to more logical and positive thoughts.

President David O. McKay An upright character is the result of continued effort and right thinking, the effect of long-cherished associations with God-like thoughts.

Balance in Work and Play

Maintaining Hope

President Benson: We must not lose hope. Hope is an anchor to the souls of men. Satan would have us cast away that anchor. In this way he can bring discouragement and surrender. But we must not lose hope. The Lord is pleased with every effort, even the tiny, daily ones in which we strive to be more like Him. Though we may see that we have far to go on the road to perfection, we must not give up hope.