Hi everyone, I’m 24 and in my fourth year at university, but I feel lost. My dad passed away when I was in 8th grade, and since he was the main breadwinner, my family has struggled financially ever since. I’ve been dealing with compulsive masturbation since I was 15, sometimes twice a day. I used to smoke weed, but I’ve been clean for three months. Still, life gets hard, and the urges come back, though I resist. I’m broke, spend most of my day scrolling social media (around 13 hours), and feel like I’m accomplishing nothing. I’ve tried the gym and church, but I couldn’t stick with either for more than a month. I hope for advice on how to get control and move forward.
Sep 06, 2025One basic thing is you shouldn't be ashamed about your sexuality or the compulsive acts you have been doing otherwise you will just stop for a while and then indulge in it whenever you get back to it. If you want to stop it you gotta hate the act and only the act, you should detach it, the hate, from yourself because you are a sexual being (it's your biological identity as a human to reproduce and ensure your species doesn't go extinct) and try as you may you can't just deny that and live without any consequences of that denial. Same with the weed usage BTW. Your brain's main purpose is to keep you safe so that you live longer and reproduce (keep humanity going forward) and for that reason it rewards you whenever you do things that make it feel like you are safe, in this case, the relaxation from smoking weed. So it pushes you to do it again and again, it becomes a routine and since it's a "foreign" substance that literally attaches to parts of the brain to manipulate it's normal functioning so that you get high or feel relaxed: it is powerful enough to be addictive. All of this is to say there's nothing wrong about you getting addicted to weed (if anyone you think as righteous tried it they would be too, it's just human physiology) so don't be ashamed of it BUT as you don't want to keep doing it (because it has side effects of "numbing" you resulting in: you don't work toward your goals with your full potential) you have to hate the effect it has on you, the cap it puts on your potential and the current situation it is leaving you in and by extension hate IT. Then you will be able to quit without having to indulge in it whenever you slip (it's normal to slip because you're breaking a powerful habit here; you're fighting with a powerful enemy, so to speak) Same for social media. And this introduces another dimension to the situation (it applies for both the masturbation and the weed too). The remaining piece, which is accepting things as they are, don't give into the easy route of denying that your problems exist and distracting yourself with social media or releasing the tension with masturbation and/or smoking weed. Embrace them and think about how you can work towards solving them. At this point your mental model is much better and your execution will follow. If you don't already know what you should do i.e. execute on, don't worry. Shoot me a reply and I will give you some pointers. You got this, my brother or sister in Christ! And I'm rooting for you.
Sep 07, 2025