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For over 40 years I have worked in the computer industry.  My father worked for IBM back in 1975 (I was only 8 years old) and later when I was working on my undergraduate degree, I too went to work for IBM.

Thus, most of my professional career I have worked in the Information Technology field and it’s been extremely hard to avoid the DRUG that is so easy to access.  I used to rationalize for years, putting a “filter or anti-porn block” on my PC or nowadays my smart phone is only a Band-Aid.  It I don’t address the root of my disease, my cunning baffling and more powerful disease will always find a workaround.

However, as of Jan 12th, 2019 all that has changed.  I was sitting in church listening to the eulogy of a friend of mine who died with 58 years of continuous sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous.  The words, “Tom was a man of principle; he never wavered” really spoke to me.  So, I left that service and when I got home I proceeded to install www.CovenantEyes.com on ALL my devices.

It was a miracle!  I felt so liberated.

 

 

 

Porn and Your Husband

A Recovery Guide for Wives

A wife who has just discovered her husband’s porn use may wonder if she did something wrong, or why she didn’t notice the signs earlier, or whether she will ever be able to trust him again.

This free ebook answers some of the common questions about pornography use and offers practical strategies for healing the marriage

 

Hope After Porn

4 Women Share Their Stories of Heartbreak…and How Their Marriages Were Saved

Discovering her husband uses porn may be one of the most emotionally devastating experiences of a wife’s life. In this ebook, four women share their stories of heartbreak because of their husbands’ betrayal, and how they found reconciliation and restoration in spite of it.

 

e-Books  //  PornStats  //  Family Protection 

 

“How do you block Google images without blocking the entire search engine?” Recently, I spoke to another SA Member and he asked this question.

In the bottom right corner, click on “Settings” and then select “Search Settings”.  Enable “Filter explicit results” and Save.

google_images

I did some more research and here is what I found:

  • At this time it is not possible to block image search via Google without blocking Google entirely.  Google Images does not load those images from other domains, in fact it is embedded into the HTML for most browsers using a data URI.  This means the image information is actually part of the HTML markup for the page and not something OpenDNS can block without blocking Google Images entirely.
  • Bing (on the other hand) has chosen to host potentially explicit thumbnails from “explicit.bing.net” and we block that domain under the appropriate categories.
  • As far as I can tell, Google is being very irresponsible regarding the way that it displays images in its searches and the fact that it is essentially impossible to block them.
  • Bing allows you to simply block *.explicit.bing.net, which means that no explicit pictures are returned. Google does not allow for this. Worse still, using HTTPS (which is how most traffic is now handled) you cant even append the safe=on switch. Also, that requires proxy software / hardware which the majority of home users simply don’t use or wouldn’t know how to use.
  • References:  Safe search, Net Nanny, Websense, Engines, Robots

There is Hope

Ask yourself, “how much time and money have I wasted looking at pornography and acting out?”

Is it worth $30.00 to eliminate the temptation?  How about $100.00?

We have personally tested and believe K9 is fantastic.  Very easy to use, setup and best of all it’s FREE.  This will get you started until you decide how much money and time you want to spend finding a “full-proof solution”.  However, keep in mind, nothing is Perfect.  Nevertheless, K9 automatically blocks “inappropriate images” and even tracks/logs your web activity.k9

 

Rankings

At this time I have organized a prioritized list of the tools in order of effectiveness and value.

  1. Symantec
  2. McAfee
  3. Net Nanny
  4. K9
  5. Cyber Patrol
  6. Web Watcher

More importantly, give the administrator password to your sponsor or your spouse so you are not tempted!  Get back to reality and focus on the things that matter most – email, work, news feeds, social networking “safely”, etc.

Eight tools to help block internet pornography

Set your search engine to “safe search” mode: For Google users go to http://www.google.com/familysafety/; Bing users go to http://www.bing.com/preferences.aspx; and, if you use another search engine, go to the safety settings and find this feature.  If you child uses services like YouTube, be sure you have set the “safe” mode on those platforms as well.

  1. Use the family safety tools provided by your computer’s/other device’s operating system: Both Windows and Mac operating systems provide family safety settings.
  2. Use family safety tool services: Sometimes called parental controls, these tools allow you to set specific filters to block types of content you find inappropriate. This isn’t just something to apply to youth; plenty of adults prefer to filter out pornographic and other types of content – like hate and violence.  The appropriateness of some types of content will change as children mature; other types of content may always be unacceptable. To find the tools that best fit your family’s needs, search for parental-control or family-safety-tool reviews.
  3. Keep in mind that these tools need to be installed on every device your child uses to go online: game consoles, cell phones, tablets, personal laptops and computers. Some services have coverage for all types of devices, others are limited to just computers or phones. You may find that using a single solution on all devices makes your monitoring much easier.
  4. Periodically look at your children’s browser history. There are a number of phrases youth use to get around pornography filters – like “breast feeding” and “childbirth” – and some fast-changing slang terms that filters may not have caught up with like “walking the dog,” which is a slang term for sex. If you see odd search terms, give the sites a quick look.
  5. Have your children restrict access to their social networking sites to only known friends, and keep their sites private. A great deal of pornography is shared among private albums on social networking sites.
  6. Scan the photos on your child’s cell phone once in a while. While the youngest kids aren’t sexting, by the time they’ve hit their tweens they have begun participating in this type of behavior. Let your children know that every so often you will sit down with them and go through the pictures they have stored on their phone.
  7. Review the applications your child has downloaded to their phone or tablet. Mobile content filters may not catch all the potentially inappropriate apps.
  8. You are your strongest tool. No technical blocking solution alone is enough to protect a determined child or teen from finding pornography online. Have the “talk” on an ongoing basis with your children and spouse about the content your family finds appropriate and inappropriate; this exchange should never be a one-time conversation. Read more

 

More recommended sites:

 

Guard Your Eyes – Maintaining Moral Purity in Today’s World

 

“Pornography addiction has its roots in the viewing and hoarding of magazine and video pornography. However, these days porn addicts have new and frighteningly powerful enablers: the Internet, Smartphones, and social media. Porn addicts today can feed their Internet porn problem by viewing online still photos, downloading porn videos, or by having webcam sex (paid and unpaid). Some use the Internet to simply view images while others eventually end up using the Internet as a vehicle to meet with anonymous sexual partners. The ‘new media’ of smartphones offers some addicts instant phone-based porn downloads along with wherever/whenever live video streaming of sexual activities, while Facebook can leave some cruising images and profiles for hours on end.   What is porn addiction? Similar to someone with a chemical or substance addiction, porn addicts tend to replace important relationships and commitments with their “drug” of choice: pornography. Non-Internet porn addicts can be found in places like strip clubs and adult bookstores, but it is unlikely that they have a strip club addiction or an adult bookstore addiction, but rather that they have consistent and compulsive sexual problems that manifest in different ways”.

For over 15 years, I have been journaling in a spiral notebook.  I use this tool as an opportunity to reflect on my life and get closer to God.  Now, I enjoy alternating my journal entries online for others to enjoy.  Nobody reads my notebooks, not even me.  Rather, it’s like going to a meeting and sharing random thoughts.  Most people can’t remember what I said last month or even care.  However, I know that I must apply the tools of the program every day.  So, I benefit tremendously.  More importantly, I hope others can identify with my feelings and ideas and not feel so isolated, which is what our addiction wants.

The above reading helps me define precisely what my major form of compulsive behavior is.  I didn’t start going to strip clubs until I was about 35 years old, just after I got engaged.  Up until then, I generally thought those places were for losers, because I could always find women to have sex with in public places.  However, for the past 2 years or so, my disease has gone more “underground”.  I am afraid of infidelity (marital disloyalty; unfaithfulness. a breach of trust or a disloyal act; transgression. adultery – voluntary sexual intercourse between a married man or woman and a partner other than the legal spouse).  Thus, if I don’t leave the house I’m essentially avoiding the temptation.

SA has introduced a lot of terms that I never understood.  For example, I was guilty of fornication (voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons or two persons not married to each other) from the age of 18 till 35.  I am turning 45 this year, and thank God I never cheated on my wife.  However, I am ashamed that I lust after other women in my mind.  I get a tremendous high looking at images on the Internet which always leads to masturbation.

I was celibate for the first 18 years (abstention from sexual relations. the state of being unmarried), abstinent from sex with my wife for about 6 months in a row, and totally abstinent from all sex for about 2 months since I was legal age.  More importantly, I went 100 days in a row back in 2010 of sexual sobriety according to the SA White Book definition.

As I was looking up some of these terms, I also found it interesting to note that I have never committed buggery (unnatural intercourse with a man. sodomy refers to anal sex or other non-penile/vaginal copulation-like acts, especially between male persons or between a person and an animal).  There are many forms of sexual acting out that the SA literature describes and the bottom line is — “I AM A SEXAHOLIC”.  One of my biggest problems is beating myself up.  I am very ambitious and I can be very hard on myself.  Just for today, I plan to be honest, unselfish, humble, empathetic, loving and pure.  This next reading below (reference unknown) gave me hope that I feel very grateful that I am still married.

“If masturbation becomes obsessive it will lead to a loss of control in the life just like gluttony or any other form of appetite gone astray.  The young person should be taught to confess the sin of appetite which is out of control rather than to tell them that they are sexually perverted or nasty.  The sin is that of not letting the Holy Spirit lead in appetites.

Another way in which masturbation is, without a doubt, sinful is when it is accompanied by the use of pornography, filthy music, or even mental fantasies of women other than the spouse. This is so common that it is assumed to be the only method of masturbating. Of course, many young people do NOT start out in their first masturbating venture with ANY fantasy. They have no history to work with mentally.

The older a man gets, the more he accumulates a mental history which feeds fantasy, and thus, the more tempted he will be to sin by mental lust as he masturbates. This is why Paul convinces Timothy to “flee youthful lusts.” We said that masturbation is NOT called sin in the Bible, but sexual lust for a women IS called sin by Jesus. To add masturbation to this mental “youthful lust” will insure trouble by and by. So, it IS true that masturbation is easily perverted by fetishes of the mind or magazine. I knew a man who fantasized in lust for a woman in the church fellowship while he masturbated, and whenever he came to church and saw the woman, he blushed with shame. So, this IS a danger for sure.

DOES MASTURBATION SERVE ANY GOOD PURPOSE?

When a husband and wife are separated against their will and one is having severe temptations with lust, masturbation can serve as a release for those drives.  This has saved many men from infidelity.  In that sense, and I suppose I shall be thrashed for this, I suggest that masturbation is a very useful solution.  Masturbation is also a release to young unmarried men.  We just don’t like to admit it.  Many a young man has defused a setting for fornication by masturbating ahead of time.  Cold showers are fine, but they don’t last.  Of course, a young man can further help this struggle greatly by making sure he is only found in modest company.”

 

Web Categories To Block: This contains various pre-configured filter levels (High, Default, Moderate and Minimal). It also contains the options for [Monitor], which will not filter any websites but will log all browsing activity and [Custom] which will allow you to select which categories you wish K9 to block/allow.

Time Restrictions: This contains features which will allow you to block web access completely during the evening (NightGuard) or the time frame you desire (Custom).

Web Site Exceptions: This contains both your “Always Block” and “Always Allow” list which can be used to fine-tune your K9 filter policy. These are generally used to block or allow a particular website without blocking/allowing the entire category. This also contains the feature “Blacklist Without Password” which allows non-admin users to add sites to the “Always Block” list without requiring the K9 admin password.  Read more