What is Reddit's opinion of He Did Deliver Me From Bondage (20th Anniversary Edition)?

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You came to earth to get a mortal body and learn to control its parts, passions and appetites in submission to God's will. You can fully do that, but the fact that you have so long engaged in things that were opposite to that, it can be difficult.

Yes sexual feelings are strong --- God made them that way so that humans would be motivated to marry. Experts will tell you that if you want to get rid of a bad habit, you have to substitute a replacement behavior. You think about sex, you do pushups, clean, sing hymns, run, do crosswords ---- pick whatever you choose and intensively do it every single time until you no longer have the sexual urge or you fall asleep. You change your environment --- maybe you have to withdraw from all electronics, or avoid the places where you see sexual things, or hang out with your parents, or limit yourself to cold 30 second showers, or sleep in front of your parents bedroom door or wear clothing to sleep that is configured to discourage access, or something.

You attend 12 step meetings (maybe every day for a while (the church's addiction program has many phone meetings so you should be able to identify something and really work the program. You get a sponsor who you call when you are still jonesing after you've done all of those things.

And if all that counseling/psychiatry didn't discuss whether your behaviors are a coping mechanism for something other than the obvious, you need to have some sessions with someone who can help you parse out exactly what and why you ARE doing what you claim you do not want to do. And most importantly, if it is a coping skill for something other than sex itself, figure out different ways to cope for that.

If you haven't read Colleen Harrison's https://www.amazon.com/Did-Deliver-Bondage-20th-Anniversary/dp/1930738226/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=colleen+harrison&qid=1634564098&sr=8-2 you might start with that.

You can learn to let your spirit control your natural man in submission to God's will. God did not send you here to fail. And that endeavor in all areas is a lifetime pursuit. It is true that indulging it in this way has made the pursuit now harder for you. (For most young people it starts out as curiosity, but once indulged becomes uncontrolled.) But that doesn't mean you cannot stop it, even cold turkey if you get rid of all sources and refuse/don't seek it anywhere in any form again.

Start with the anxiety and depression. Get and read David Burns' Feeling Great. It will help you learn about Cognitive Behavior Therapy which is research proven for teen depression and anxiety. If you cannot find CBT delivered with fidelity (really hard to find almost everywhere) that you can afford, try an online version at https://ecouch.anu.edu.au/welcome CBT will teach you how to think in healthy ways so you can get through and around obstacles.

Experts will tell you that when you want to eliminate a habit, you must replace it with something else every.single.time. So every time you think about it drop and do pushups until you are exhausted and no longer want to do it, or you fall asleep. Or crochet, or clean, or sing uplifting music, or something else. Immediately.every.single.time. In 30-45 days you'll likely no longer think about it so much and maybe not at all. But keep going doing the alternative thing if you aren't there yet for as long as it takes.

You'll have to change your environment. Take the door off your bedroom. Take 3 minute cold showers. Eliminate or Child protect your electronics or other source (use a flip phone?). Avoid the stores or places where you've been triggered. Stay far away from any source.

Attend the Addiction Recovery Program. The meetings at the moment are mostly online. Your stake probably has a weekly meeting, but at provident living you can find a list of all the meetings that might be available. The church program doesn't require an actual addiction, and also helps those who do not meet the medical therapeutic definition of the word. It also doesn't discuss the specifics of people's addictions. What it does do is help you understand and access the atonement of Jesus Christ to help you quit and fix.

Get a sponsor. Someone who has conquered the issue to call when the 12 step meetings, the substitute habit, the other things are not enough to quell the impulse, who can help you back off the ledge because they too are recovering.

There are some people for whom those things have become a coping mechanism for something unrelated (it may not even be sexual). If you are in that category, you are going to need professional help.

Some people find Colleen Harrison's book helpful: Some people find Colleen Harrison's book helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Did-Deliver-Bondage-20th-Anniversary/dp/1930738226/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&

If you are not getting sufficient restful sleep or having trouble sleeping try a weighted blanket.

Healthy eating and daily heavy exercise will also help (because these are good things for your body that help you control thoughts and emotions and gives you less down time).

Service to others, being in nature and listening to uplifting music all help me with the mental health side

You can do this. And yes, you can master this before your dad comes this summer.

Well, your post means that you can be proud of yourself. You recognize a problem, and you are seeking help to resolve it. That is a good start.

Figure out what the sequence is from thinking about sex/porn to using it. First, change the environment. You may have to mothball your electronics, or give them to parents for overnight; delete an email address that receives porn messages; sleep on the floor in front of your parents bedroom; never be alone with yourself; change the route you use that puts you past signs or stores that display it; wear something different to bed; take only 30 second cold showers.

If you started wanting to know more about your body or sex (which are perfectly normal and healthy interests) has to be managed so you can train your spirit to be fully in charge for your mortal body, its parts, appetites and passions. (That is what you came to earth to do --- to get that mortal body and become like your Heavenly Parents and Savior. So think of this not as you are a worm, vile, disgusting or sinful, but as "I'm going to get further down the road of controlling my natural man to act and think like the disciple of Jesus Christ I want to be. I can be in control of myself.")

Another important thing is to get a sponsor --- someone whom has been in recovery themselves for a while who you can call on for help when you are still struggling after doing all the other things here. But as you are 15, it isn't appropriate for adults or probably even kids to be your sponsor. And therapists aren't the right person for this either. You might want to talk with your parents about what they would suggest. There may be an older cousin or some other trusted family friend, or maybe your dad will have to do. (Sometimes people want to rely on their bishop for this, but that isn't really his role.) Maybe you'll have to do it without a sponsor for a while.

Experts will tell you that if you want to eliminate a habit, you must replace it with something else. Whenever you feel the urge to look at or use porn, immediately do the replacement behavior, not stopping until the urge to do it goes away, or you go to sleep. Immediately. Every time. For as long as it takes. Wherever you are. People have use singing, running, jumping jacks, crocheting, playing an instrument, writing in a journal or stories, drawing, cleaning, singing, snapping your wrist with a rubber band, dancing. Experts will tell you that if you do this every time for 30-45 days (but continue thereafter if it takes longer) the habit can be replaced.

But there are some cases where porn use has become a coping skill for something else. So if you aren't making progress in a month or so, go see a therapist who can help you figure out whether that is your situation, and what you might be using it to cope for, and how to resolve that issue.

There is a book you might find useful called "He did deliver me from bondage" https://www.amazon.com/Did-Deliver-Bondage-20th-Anniversary/dp/1930738226/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=colleen+harrison&qid=1639345602&sr=8-1

Also you might want to read "Believing Christ" by Stephen Robinson so you fully understand the atonement. You need to know that your Heavenly Parents and Savior know you intimately and well, by name, in every moment of your life. They love you and are routing for you no matter how far away from Them you feel. THEY are NOT condemning you in the way you are condemning yourself and writing yourself off. After baptism, your personal best every day (which will get better over time) and quick repentance of actual sin are ALWAYS ENOUGH for Them.

Remember that we all get a full life to learn to control our mortal bodies in Their service. Just keep working on it.

No the real issue is that you are not at all ready for any healthy relationship. You are not in control of yourself enough not to put others in danger. (Confessing sin without doing the hard work to leave it behind is even selfish, instead just simply quit trying to be with her in any relationship way until you have established full control over yourself. And you are laboring under the false impression that if you can get married your problems are then over because you can have sex. The truth is that your porn exposure will make marital sex that involves more than just you and release not what sex is supposed to be between partners. And your partner deserves to NOT be a sexual object and to have equal say in your personal closeness rather than you wanting all the false stuff youve been exposed to through porn.

Yes sexual feelings are strong --- God made them that way so that humans would be motivated to marry. But you have not taught your mortal body to subject itself to your spirit (or you don't want to do that). Experts will tell you that if you want to get rid of a bad habit, you have to substitute a replacement behavior. You think about sex, you do pushups, clean, sing hymns, run, do crosswords ---- pick whatever you choose and intensively do it every single time until you no longer have the sexual urge or you fall asleep. You change your environment --- maybe you have to withdraw from all electronics, or avoid the places where you see sexual things, or hang out with your parents, or limit yourself to cold 30 second showers, or sleep in front of your parents bedroom door or wear clothing to sleep that is configured to discourage access, or something. You attend 12 step meetings (maybe every day for a while (the church's addiction program has many phone meetings so you should be able to identify something and really work the program. You get a sponsor who you call when you are still jonesing after you've done all of those things.

And you get counseling because it is not uncommon for the porn addiction to be about something other than sex itself. You need to figure out whether it is some kind of coping mechanism for something else, and how to cope without it.

You cannot be a good partner, until you are in charge of yourself. And you aren't now there. So quit making excuses and get to what you can to earth to do --- get your mortal body and learn how to control its parts passions and appetites in submission to God's will (so that you can have the life your Heavenly Parents and Savior and yourself planned for you to have.

If you haven't read Colleen Harrison's https://www.amazon.com/Did-Deliver-Bondage-20th-Anniversary/dp/1930738226/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=colleen+harrison&qid=1634564098&sr=8-2 you might start with that.

Every single person who sits in a pew at church (or never even comes to church is somewhere in the quest for discipleship and not at all perfect (though they may have mastered doing one or more single commandments perfectly). Your presence in the pew even knowing you aren't yet what you want to be doesn't make you an Imposter, but simply like everyone else. That is why it is important you come to fully understand the Atonement of Jesus Christ (which I finally did when I read "Believing Christ" by Stephen Robinson --- bet you could borrow someone's copy if you asked the RSP to ask if anyone has one to lend).

Porn use is typically simply a matter of your not yet having learned to control your natural (wo)man in submission to the Lord's will.

Ask your Bishop if there is an Addiction Recovery Program group for teens and if not, if there could be one. (The Church's ARP meetings do not involve discussions of specific issues, but does provide a support group, and knowledge of how the atonement works to fully heal you. They are also not strictly for those who meet the definition of addiction but are simply working on something that they find intrusive in their lives. --- You can find out when telephone meetings are at https://addictionrecovery.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng I would hope that you would counsel with your parents about this.

Many young people start with porn because they are curious about their bodies and/or they have had some kind of trauma. It isn't wrong to want to know everything about how your body and bodies of the opposite sex work. And there are books about it ("Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask" for instance), which your parents should get for you if you ask them. Deseret Book sells books about human intimacy in a gospel context too if what you are doing is seeking to know what you think everyone else knows about human sexuality.

But you should know that everything about porn is fake, airbrushed, etc. It isn't the place to get accurate information about anything at all, and it seeks to persuade you that lots of things that are way outside the way the Lord wants you to eventually use your sexual passions, desires and appetites when you are married, are normal and good and what everyone does. Neither of which is true, and all of which comes from Satan and human greed. Further you should know that porn is often exploitive of the participants, and that research shows that using it can change the way you think and feel. So it is fair to think when you go to look at it, that you are essentially doing something like feeding your eyes poison.

Experts will tell you that if you want to eliminate a habit, you need to replace it with something else. Whenever you feel the urge to do what you want to eliminate, you begin immediately to do the new replacement one (singing, cleaning, jumping jacks or pushups, painting, playing the piano or whatever). And you continue doing it until you fall asleep or are totally exhausted. Every.single.time. In 30-45 days (that is typical, but keep doing the substitute habit thereafter whenever you feel the urge) you will likely have rid yourself of the urges (unless it has become a coping mechanism --- see below).

You will also want to change your environment. Maybe you sleep somewhere different (on the floor near your parents bedroom, the couch in the living room), take only cold three minute showers, wear bedclothes that don't give you easy access, give up your cell phone and other devices or only use them when in your living room, having put on them protective apps that work to deny access to anything, or maybe you have to change jobs so you don't see it at work, or avoid the stores you used to buy it from ---- whatever will make it harder for you to continue doing what you are trying to quit doing. Maybe you make your scripture reading and prayer more frequent or memorize scriptures or words to hymns that you can repeat when you find yourself thinking about it.

There are some people for whom it has turned into a coping mechanism. If you are one of them, you should go see a therapist to work through what that coping mechanism could be and how to change it (or not need any coping mechanisms any more).

You may also need to identify a sponsor. This is someone who has recovered from their struggles with the issue, whom you can call when you are struggling and the doing the replacement activity isn't working. It is hard to get this as a teenager, because it is inappropriate for you to be alone with adults, and teens aren't very often able to provide this service. If you cannot get your parent's to help, then you can ask them to send you to a therapist who can't be a sponsor, but may be able to help you deal with this anyway.

You might benefit from reading https://www.amazon.com/Did-Deliver-Bondage-20th-Anniversary/dp/1930738226/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=colleen+harrison&qid=1608429020&sr=8-1

There are many young people who want a connection and get drawn into sexual activity because they like being hugged and touched and they think that sex is what you have to trade. Sometimes they trade sex for affection or being seen that they crave. If that sounds familiar to you, just know that you are a precious and beloved and known child of God, whatever mistakes or sins you may have committed. You matter. And you absolutely can keep the commandments going forward, no matter how much you've struggled to before now. Anyone who truly loves YOU, will not participate with you or beside you or in telephone conversations in sexual activity outside of marriage, will not ask you or try to manipulate you into it. So you automatically know when someone asks you to do that, no matter what they say, they don't actually care about you. This doesn't mean that you won't really have strong sexual desires yourself in specific moments of your life. God made those sexual desires strong on purpose, so that opposite sex partners would marry and form families into which His spirit children would be born. You just need to control those appetites, passions and desire, which requires you set your boundaries waaaay far back from the edge, when you start dating.

If you have been sexually abused or harassed or experienced some other trauma or exposed by an older youth or adult to sexual material, or asked by someone to send naked pics or received naked pics from anyone, none of these are okay. Please report it to your parents, and/or your school guidance counselor and make sure they take you (or you can just go yourself) to your local law enforcement. It isn't easy to do that, but you deserve protection and help to get over and through that.

You are going to be alright. The atonement heals all pain and hurt, when we are baptized, doing our personal best (which gets better as we do that) and quickly repenting of actual sin.

There is a book that might help you. https://www.amazon.com/Did-Deliver-Bondage-20th-Anniversary/dp/1930738226/ref=sr_1_2?crid=22VSMA4HY84G3&dchild=1&keywords=colleen+c+harrison&qid=1607374897&sprefix=colleen+harrison%2Caps%2C354&sr=8-2

I'm not sure in our world there remains anything that "almost all of society would consider to be sexual vulgar and inappropriate". About the only I can think of still in that category is child porn or child sexual abuse.

If he is trying to figure out what happened to him, then he should see a counselor who specializes in helping adult sexual abuse survivors recover. Such counselors may not be easy to find, but you can ask your local prosecutor's office where they send perps for the counseling, and that person would probably know who does such therapy.

It is okay to be repulsed. And you might suggest that he needs to find a sponsor and go to more meetings, and identify something he can replace that bad habit with. (Experts will tell you that he will need to immediately start doing the substitute behavior and continue doing it until he is exhausted or falls asleep EVERY. SINGLE.TIME he starts thinking about doing it for 30 days or more if he wants to eliminate the bad habit.)

The ASD issue wouldn't be relevant unless a) he is one that gets stuck in his thinking because of it, and therefore also needs help for that as he is changing the habit; or b) he is impulsive and he went where he went with that experimentation, not what he likes or wants to do again.

Sounds also like me might benefit from doing community service at an unpaid job if he cannot find a paid one (your ward or stake probably has an employment specialist to help people find work, and justserve.org may have ideas about community service if your community doesn't need help at its food welfare agency or the elderly people in your neighborhood don't need help with repairs or mowing lawns or shoveling sidewalks or cleaning gutters or raking leaves.

You also might want to read one of the books on human intimacy that are available at Deseret Book, all of which attempt to address sexual issues in ways that explore the full range of sexual expression in light of the Gospel teachings. While it is true that there are limits to the range of sexual expression that I'd feel free acknowledging at judgment, God does intend for us to bond together in sexual expression and maybe there is room for you to consider things you haven't yet done. (What I'm saying is that for most people there are things that they've always expected to be doing, and things that they absolutely will never do, and other things that are between those two places. No one should ever feel compelled to do what they don't want to do sexually. And sometimes it is okay to decide that a partner's desires that are different from their own don't have to be opposed. What this means is that sometimes we can accept the differences and no longer be repulsed, and forgive.)

Adultery, fornication, and abuse have all been identified by church leaders as reasons justifiable to heaven for divorce. If, after trying to get through and around this, you still cannot be with him, you may decide that the marriage is over, and that you've done everything you could to save it. But before that, read the books above and go to marital counseling and individual counseling and work to salvage it, before you walk away.

Colleen Harrison's https://www.amazon.com/Did-Deliver-Bondage-20th-Anniversary/dp/1930738226/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=colleen+harrison&qid=1621039830&sr=8-1 might help.

No point in would a should a's: you did marry him, and you are going to make it through this together.

What we've heard at conference is that adultery/abuse, might be justifiable reasons for divorce (though not required in either situation), but I've never heard struggles with porn identified in that category. I'm sorry this is so hard.