Proverbs 5:3-5 says, “For the lips of an immoral woman drip as honeycomb, and her mouth is sweeter than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; and her steps lay hold of hell.” The monster elephant sitting in our pews and spewing waste all over the sanctity of the Church—that no one wants to acknowledge and few are talking about—is Internet-based sexual addiction. Click the mouse and choose your wild lover. S/He is ready, red hot and yearning (or should I say, purring) for your love and…credit card.  For those living in broken relationships, starving for affection, overworked or spiritually empty, the temptation must be sweeter than honey. Nearly 40 million adults now engage in Internet porn in some fashion or another. And they are good people—husbands, wives, dads, moms, pastors, counselors, business leaders, college students, youth leaders, and yes… kids.

The number one consumer of Internet porn now is kids ages 12-17. What’s so difficult in offering hope and guidance is that the war is so strongly tied to the mind. When working with heroin, cocaine, or alcohol addicts, a substance is ingested that highjacks the brain and produces a buzz or high. The raw goal is sobriety, but in porn addiction the mind is consumed, highjacked from within. At the thought of an imaginary lover, endorphins (chemicals from within) kick in and highjack the brain creating the consuming effect. And the effect is intoxicating, ‘smoother than oil.’ I have yet to meet a man who couldn’t recall the first time he was exposed to pornography.  When the mind is flooded with imaginary lovers, it is easy to understand why some leading researchers now believe that treating porn addiction rivals heroin and cocaine addiction. Just recently a leading pastor told me, “I don’t know what comes over me Tim…I can pray one minute and in the next breath click the mouse and go straight into a charade of porn—totally absorbed and consumed by the exhilaration it brings. And then in the next minute, I get overwhelmed with guilt and shame. I’ve read every book out there and can’t break free. I hate the person I have become.

God must hate me.” My heart grieves for these men. When leaders become entrapped in Internet porn and illicit relations, the pain goes deep and the reputation of Christ Himself is besmirched before the world. God-haters laugh, point the finger, and accuse us of fraud. Elite medias may give little to no press to the miracles and persecutions of the saints around the world, but moral failure and discovery of sexual addiction by Christian leaders is fodder for front-page news. The American Church, in particular, is facing an epidemic of mid-life men who have lived double-minded lives for much of their adult years. Publicly, they are good family men, living lives as upstanding citizens in both church and community. Privately, they are emotionally dead—or on life-support—and are usually estranged from their wives, and often alienated from their children. They carry on a secret sexual life that robs them of all true joy and peace. Living long beyond any thrill from their secret life, they live primarily to suppress their constant terror—the fear of being found out.  The tolerance effect of a long-term, but functional, addiction has robbed them of all ability to know and experience pleasure from the simple things in life. That pushes them into more dangerous behaviors—making their imaginary lovers real or adding substances or violence to their deadly elixir of sin in order to feel something—anything at all.

Addicts always end up mixing and adding new addictions until they become poly-addicts. Poly-addicts are truly desperate—they eventually get busted, or overdose and die. They become like 57 year-old Wally Schirra, son of the famous astronaut of the same name. After finding felony kiddy porn on his computer, federal agents recently arrested him boarding a plane in San Francisco. He was on his way to Thailand to engage in sex with children.  ARE YOU HEADED IN THAT direction? Are you there already? Don’t deceive yourself with lies and lust! Your unregenerate lust pulls you invariably toward temptation. And temptation not turned from—that you willingly turn toward—always conceives sin (see James 1:13-16). And sin, reveled in, always produces death. It is no different today than it was thousands of years ago. But God is also just as alive now as He was then. And His call of redemption is just as sure! Yes, it does seem hopeless. You have tried to quit in so many ways, have done it so many times, but have always come crawling back to your drug of choice. And you might do so again—there are no sure guarantees.

Then again, this could be the day it all ends—the miraculous day of redemption that seems too impossible to even contemplate. It may not work, but you can sure count on it never working unless you reach out and grasp the hand of the One who is Hope. Yes, you cannot control it any longer by yourself.  The long, habitual pattern and the physiology of addiction have overwhelmed the power of your will to say no. You do need help and it will take several people to do so, but you must reach out and ask. Yes, the road to full recovery may be painful, more pain than you probably want to face. But looking at the whole journey is a fool’s game—you only have to travel it one day at a time. And God has promised to be there, and to not allow more trouble than you can handle. Recovery, in fact, is an opportunity to know God—and to be known by Him— at a level you never have before. It truly is relationship, not religion… remember? Web counselor plays a vital role for the welfare of society.

IF YOU ARE AN INTERNET PORN addict—or a poly-addict—death is the path you are on now. Depression, self deceit, and debilitation are what you live day-in and day-out. Haven’t you had enough? Aren’t you ready to forsake your desperate double life?  Get honest with yourself and get the porn out of your life. Get accountable— remember you are as sick as your secrets. Learn to get close to God and those you love—real freedom will come as you move beyond false intimacy to real intimacy. And true intimacy is the sweetest honey of all!  Tim Clinton,Ed.D., LPC,LMFT, is President of AACC, Executive Director of the Center for Counseling and Family Studies/Professor of Counseling and Pastoral Care at Liberty University, and co-founder of Light Counseling, Inc., a clinical practice serving children, adolescents, and adults.Dr. Clinton is author and co-author of Before a Bad Good-bye, Attachments:Why You Love, Feel and Act the Way You Do and Competent Christian Counseling.He is executive editor of The Soul Care Bible.