Official Blog For Author Fred Stoeker

          I can remember back as far as ten years old at how awesome it was when I would get a boner. It would make me feel so good and feel like a man. I was twelve when I figured out was masturbation was, and I was soon doing it three to four times a day. I then had sex with a girl for the first time when I was fourteen. After that, it became my mission to sleep with as many girls as I could while still continuing with the masturbation.
          Masturbation had become so normal to me that my buddies and I would go to adult stores together for new material and then exchange it between ourselves openly. Girls and sex were my number one priority, whether it was with real ones or just in pictures. Throughout my teens and twenties, I worked out hard in the gym, as well, because I knew that the better I looked, the more I could attract girls into the bedroom. Sex was a game to me, even when I was in serious relationships. I always had to have someone new, and she had to look good, too. But once I got into my mid-twenties, my beauty standards began dropping, because the pretty girls were no longer going for the fit, handsome guy who was still living at home with his parents, with no career. It was getting difficult to find girls to have sex with, since going to the bars by myself was not an option and I was getting a little old for the clubs.
          Masturbation became an even a better friend during this time, as I could have any kind of woman I wanted and didn’t have to leave my room. I grew even deeper into this bondage, and didn’t even have a clue yet that it WAS a bondage. That soon changed. I was gave my life to Christ at the age of twenty-eight and from the first moment, I was convicted in my heart that masturbation and porn were wrong. I tried to change, but everything you said about the battle in your books was true. I would go clean a couple weeks here and there and fall right back into the trap. I was praying about it all the time and asking for forgiveness, but I kept struggling.
           I then met my wife Michelle three years after my salvation. I began feeling even more guilty about my masturbation because of my love for her. I hoped marriage would take the sin away, but it didn’t, just like you said it doesn’t, and even though she is an absolutely gorgeous woman. Our first-year-and-a-half of marriage was such a struggle, and there is no doubt in my mind that my sin had a lot to do with our marital problems.
          About three-and-half-months ago, some things happened in my life that forced me to take a serious look at where I wanted my relationship with the Lord and my relationship with Michelle to go, and I wanted to go much deeper in each relationship. From day one with the Lord, I never wanted to just be an ordinary Christian, but to be a true disciple of Christ and a great spiritual leader in my home one day. After being laid off from my job, I enrolled in school for Christian Ministry/Biblical Studies. I then began leading a group of fourth-grade boys at my church and, for the first time in my life, I am now in men’s Bible Study Fellowship. I want to be a youth minister one day and to help young adults grow in their relationships with Christ, so I began regularly asking myself, “How I can I do these things for my Savior while continuing to hold onto my sexual sin?”
          I began praying with a true heart for guidance and freedom. Sitting on the couch one night, I googled these exact words, “Men of faith who struggle sexually”.
          It led me straight to your book, Every Man s Battle. I knew I would have to bring my struggle to light in order to have my wife on board with me in this battle.  I remember I had such peace when praying about telling her and, once more, I found out what an amazing God we serve. My wife already had an idea that I was struggling in this way. She understood, and chose to work on it with me.
          Over the next couple weeks, we would lay in bed together regularly as I read Every Man’s Battle out loud to her. It gave us both such insight as to how deep this issue is and how many men struggle this way. Our eyes were opened to what the wives struggle with emotionally, as well. Because of that, Michelle is also reading your wife’s book called Every Heart Restored, and she’s become so supportive in my walk for purity as a result. Naturally, our relationship is getting much better, too. During the time I was reading Every Man’s Battle, I did masturbate a few times. It wasn’t until I began reading Tactics that my heart changed even deeper. Tactics put the final nail in the coffin, and made me want to be completely free of this bondage in order to be that man of God He calls me to be.  I was really challenged when you talked about how the Lord will forgive us and love us when we stumble with this issue, but He won’t be able to take us to where He wants us to be in our walks with Him. The verse you mentioned in Luke was a punch to the gut as well. “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say”? 
          Today my joy and excitement for His plans alone overcomes any urge to masturbate. I hadn’t stumbled for a while when I read those words and it has been about two-and-a-half months now of pure freedom, mind and body. I continue to bounce the eyes and I am careful what I watch as well. You were right about the urges coming when we quit cold turkey. Even though my first few weeks were hell, though, they are no longer strong enough to pull me down. Last week I did a three-day fast and I my heart is even more changed.
          Fred, there are no words I can come up with that I am sure you haven’t heard in thanking you for these books. Everything I read led me to feel you were inside my head and life with me in my struggle, right down to the father issue you spoke of in Tactics. I thank the Lord every day for working through you to help men like myself. I am thirty-three years old and have never felt this close to the Lord in my life. The blessings in these last couple months have me in such awe with my Savior that I finally had to share my story with you and those who may read it on your website. I pray the Lord will use me one day in helping others overcome this issue, too, so I can show them why my life WITH Christ is much more of a joy than WITHOUT Him. I already have a couple brothers in Christ that I want to share your books with. May God continue to spread your books throughout this world in order to free men of these so-called unbreakable chains.

            Hey Fred! Um, I’m not really sure where to begin, but my name is Kyle, and I hear you talked to my girlfriend Megan today at the end of your talk at our church. I just want to thank you for writing Every Young Man’s Battle and Tactics. I’d also like to thank your son, Jasen, for writing Hero with you. Those books have really helped change me. I was born and raised in a Christian home, with very loving parents. I grew up with both my parents together, and they are still together, but my dad had to work hard to support us so I almost never saw him. In addition, his dad was never an open man, and now my dad is that same way. He was never very open with me, especially when it came to sex. I remember he gave me just one very basic talk at home after a basketball game in junior high.

            My teen years were a really tough struggle for me, as I almost lost my sister, and there were a lot of other difficult things going on in my life at the time. I turned towards porn and masturbation, enjoying that comfort and false intimacy it gave me. Soon I was getting sexually intimate with girls, too. Before long, I was completely caught up in the world’s view of sexuality, and I hated who I was and I was constantly angry at myself and everyone around me. I knew I needed to change, but I just didn’t know how to do it.

            Early this year my friend told me about your book, Every Young Man’s Battle, and told me about how it had changed his life. He told me I would benefit from it if I would read it, so I decided to check it out. I read the first three chapters and then I just stopped for a while because I got involved with another girl and it got hot fast. This past summer I was hired to work at a Christian camp in Ohio. During this time, I was still dating this girl I mentioned, and something inside of me was stirring where it didn’t feel right to be dating her anymore. So, when I was packing I decided to throw in your book and to hopefully start reading it again. At camp, I was automatically cut off from TV, Internet, or anything that could have any sexual images on it, which was helpful in focusing on God. I slowly started getting back into your book and also began reading God’s Word. During that first week of camp, I ended up finishing your book, as well as finishing the book of Job in the Bible. Both helped me a lot to realize that I needed to change my lifestyle and engage the battle for purity. 

            During the second week of camp, the girl I was dating broke up with me. It didn’t hurt a bit because I felt like I was slowly being freed from my prison. I decided that I wasn’t going to date for a while, and instead just focus on God that summer. But then I began to spend more time getting to know Megan, and I had an attraction to her. It was a physical one, sure, but it also felt like it was a lot more than that, and I noticed I didn’t think about her the way I thought about other girls I was attracted to. I tried so hard not to fall for her, but I felt something drawing me to her, something I’d never felt before.

            Towards the end of the summer, I went to her dad and asked for his permission to date her. At first it came as a shock to him because I’d only met him once or twice before. He didn’t give me his permission then, but I understood he needed time to think about it, and I headed back to camp to go to sleep for the night. Sometime later we had a nice chat, he asked me how I was doing with my purity and he asked me to share my testimony. As I shared my testimony, I told him that I was fully engaged in the battle for sexual purity with all of my heart, and I told him about your book. He was already familiar with the book, as he is going through it with his youngest son, Megan’s brother.

            After this good talk, he gave me his blessing to date his daughter. At 11:00 pm the night before my birthday, I asked Megan if she would be my girlfriend, and she gladly said yes. So we have been going out for almost three months now, and I have never been more close to a girl emotionally. We have been focusing on God in our relationship, and she is the best birthday gift I could ever receive.

            After I got home from camp, I learned about Hero and Tactics. I decided to buy both, and I also bought Hero for Megan as well as Every Young Woman’s Battle. Hero has helped teach me how I should really treat a girl, how I should fight for her heart, fight for her purity and fight to know her heart. I’ve done just that and, because of it, I feel a very strong emotional connection between Megan and me despite the distance between us (we live apart because of school). Anyway, this is a feeling I’ve never felt with any girl I’ve dated in my past. Tactics is really showing me how I can guard my heart, as well as how to help my brothers get out of their sexual sin. I let a friend of mine borrow my copy of Hero, feeling that he needed it more than I did since I’d finished it and I am already applying all the strategies. This is a lifelong battle that I plan to never give up, because I have a strong yearning to be Megan’s Hero. Thank you, Fred, for writing these books.

     I would like to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I recently found out that my husband was having an affair, and i was very disappointed and hurt. And I felt betrayed because at the time this was going on I was pregnant. My husband is a Pastor and he is very active in the church, and that did not make it any easy because I thought he knew better. 
     I confronted him and he confessed everything and he said that he was very sorry. And he was remorseful about this, and I could see the guilt in his eyes. I prayed and asked God what to do, and I believe with all my heart that the Lord directed me to a bookshop to buy this book, Every Man’s Battle. My husband confessed to me that he fantasises a lot and, in the end, he entertained those thoughts until he would act on them.
     I read your book before I gave it to him, and I was so happy to see that there was hope after all. This book is a must read for every man, and I am recommending it to every family I know. My husband is so excited that he can relate to a lot of things in the book and he is reading it daily. I believe that my marriage will be restored and one day we will look back and see the goodness of the Lord. God wants us to be holy and I know that this book is encouraging that.
     Thank you so much for being obedient to God, because it is through your obedience that today we have this book. Please send my gratitude to the other men who wrote this book with you. God bless you all, may you continue to serve Him all your lives.  –Reader from South Africa.

          Question: I am a female sex-addict and I am struggling. I was wondering if you would recommend Every Man’s Battle for me, even though I am a woman? Are you having any more seminars about sex addiction in my area? I missed the one you recently held at my church, but I saved the ad, and now I need help. I have been to all the 12-step groups for sex addiction and I’m not sure which one is for me. I can’t seem to manage the abstinence in any strict recovery plan, and besides, it seems like maybe the plan is inherently flawed because it is repressive: No sex outside of marriage and no masturbation. Do you have any thoughts or advice?  
          Answer: Yes I do. I would suggest that you read Tactics, which is the most important book I’ve written for any woman in your situation because it explains the relationship between orgasm and a release of pleasure chemicals in the pleasure centers of the brain, chemicals to which you are currently addicted. Tactics also explains how our emotional wounds drive us to use our sexuality as a “medication” to our pain. I’ve had women read this book and finally see the connection between masturbation and the chemical side of their addiction, and once they’ve understood that connection and understood exactly what masturbation is doing in their brains, they’ve been able to change their approach and have found freedom.
          Making that connection is vital. You made this comment: It seems like maybe the plan is inherently flawed because it is repressive: no sex outside of marriage and no masturbation. Actually, the “rehab” plan isn’t flawed, but because of the way our sexuality is discussed in the media and in our schools, your understanding of human sexuality and masturbation is flawed. The entire concept of “repressiveness” tied to sexuality is a flawed one. There is no such thing. You are not “repressed” if you aren’t currently expressing your sexuality, and you aren’t somehow damaging your psyche or your long-term sexual capabilities. You are simply choosing not to use your sexuality at the current time. It is nothing more than that, and nothing less.
          But the issue here goes even deeper than that. Modern science shows us that the affects of masturbation and orgasm on the brain’s pleasure centers is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction.
          In light of that, let me ask you a question. What would you say to the heroin addict who came up to you and said, It seems like maybe my rehab plan is inherently flawed because it is repressive: I get no heroin at all during my time of rehab? Wouldn’t you call him crazy? Isn’t that absurd? Of course you need to stop the drug entirely to break the habit and the cycle! That isn’t repressive. That is necessary. Stopping the use of heroin is simply a reflection of an understanding of what is going on chemically inside the addict, and everyone knows that abstinence from heroin is critical to the rehab process.
          Since the addiction to sex is chemically nearly identical to a heroin addiction, it isn’t at all repressive to say “no sex” or “no masturbation” during your rehab. Given what is going on chemically inside the sexual addict, it is simply necessary to cut off the drug impact on your brain. Just as it is with any other drug addiction, you are currently dealing with your wounds and issues by using sex and masturbation as a medication. You are depending upon your drug—sex drugs—instead of building a healthy connection with God and healthy, non-sexual connections with people and, frankly, building a non-sexual connection with yourself. Obviously, those orgasmic drugs need to be eliminated, and until you understand clearly that your sexual addiction is actually a “drug addiction,” you will not approach it properly or think about the programs properly. What’s worse, it is unlikely you’ll get free.
          After all, any good sexual addictions counselor will tell you that they can’t get to the issues underneath the addiction until the addict stops medicating herself and her pain with masturbation’s pleasure chemicals.
          So, I would highly recommend Tactics to you, which will explain all this more deeply. It will be especially important for you to put into practice the principles in Chapters 13-15, and especially Chapter 14. As a follow-up, you might also read the book Hero, which will help you to re-define dating and it will help you see that it is very possible to date and relate to the opposite sex in very electric ways, even without the sex. You need to put sex in a different place in your life and relationships. Sex has been a crutch for you. You don’t need that crutch.
          When I came out of my sexual morass, I had to re-think how I viewed everything in regards to my sexuality, because much of what I’d been taught about it by society was flat-out wrong. That re-thinking is especially necessary now, in light of the discoveries of modern science about the chemical basis of sexual addictions.
          You will need to re-think everything, too, my friend. After all, right now you can’t even conceive that it could possibly be healthy to “repress” your sexuality. You’ve been deceived on that issue. It is not only healthy, it is the only way you are going to get in touch with yourself and the pain that is driving your addiction, and it is the only way to break the cycle of addiction.  
          The bottom line is pretty simple. You can live easily without sex, indefinitely. You can live happily without sex, indefinitely. Maybe you’ve never tried living without it, so this may be hard to believe and maybe you can’t even imagine it. But if you read the books Tactics and Hero, you’ll not only be able to imagine it, you’ll be able to see why abstinence can actually lead you to freedom, rather than repression and bondage. You can learn how to own your sexuality, rather than having it own you, as it does now.

          I’ve emailed you a few times over the past several months, but I had to write today to let you know I had a “revelatory” moment while reading Every Heart Restored for the second time where I think I finally understood something I didn’t really get the first time through the book.  I just finished the chapter entitled “Chilling Sex”, and when I read “Obstacle 6” about how men can compartmentalize their sex lives, I just had to read it again, because it really meant something to me this time. You see, when I first realized that my Christian (and almost perfect) husband was viewing porn I just could not comprehend it. I was so startled by the revelation that I never said anything to him about the porn for awhile. Instead, I just started checking up on him, only to find over and over again that he was viewing soft porn (no sexual acts, only nude or partially nude women) on and off for years before I really said anything to him about it, finally calling him on the carpet about it. 
          When I found out about it, it tore me apart because I always thought of us as being so close in every way, more so than other married couples. I couldn’t believe he would let anyone else in our little “love” circle. I always felt we had this private and perfect relationship that was so wonderful. Surely he was the most satisfied and luckiest man in the world and he would never even think about looking at another woman!  I felt this so strongly that I didn’t even consider that he might look too closely at my lingerie catalogs that I left carelessly around the house.  In my mind, he just couldn’t ever be interested in these women in these ads, because our relationship was so good.  Surely he couldn’t be interested in internet porn, either, right? And yet he was! It never made sense to me until I read that chapter and section again this morning. Finally, something clicked and it all finally made sense to me. All these years I have been agonizing over this broken “circle,” because I was only looking at it from a woman’s point of view.
          I never realized that from my husband’s point of view, he still sees our marriage the same way as he always has. Because he has compartmentalized the porn somewhere else, there is still no one else in our circle, in his mind. He is still just as happy with our sex life and is perfectly satisfied as I always thought.
          That doesn’t mean viewing porn isn’t sin after all. It is. That doesn’t mean I don’t expect him to stop and it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t expect him to stop. We do. But it does mean that I needn’t agonize over all this in the same way I had been agonizing over it. We can discuss this and work it out together, and remain a tight love circle. It isn’t all as dark as it seemed.

          Fred, I want to say thank you for opening the door to God again for me. If you recall, I emailed you about a month ago about my break-up with my girlfriend and how that emotional pain started me masturbating again. Sexual sin was overtaking me completely.
          You suggested that I should immediately read your book Tactics. I ordered a copy off your website and took it with me on vacation to the coast. I’d been reading for a few days and was somewhere in the middle of the book when an amazing thing happened. I was reading one day on the beach and was about to put the book down for the day when I sensed God telling me to go ahead read the next chapter, Chapter 14, on worship and prayer. So I did, and as soon as I finished I went back to the house and started worshiping God and singing praises to Him in the way you suggested to try it. I had the most passionate and emotional prayer time I’d ever had, and soon I was crying as I finally realized that God hadn’t ever left me at all, but that it had actually been Satan tricking and blinding me the whole time. God pulled me through, and personal, one-on-one worship has now become a part of my life! Thank you for your advice. I know God was with you when you wrote these books!

          Fred, I want to say thank you for opening the door to God again for me. If you recall, I emailed you about a month ago about my break-up with my girlfriend and how that emotional pain started me masturbating again. Sexual sin was overtaking me completely.
          You suggested that I should immediately read your book Tactics. I ordered a copy off your website and took it with me on vacation to the coast. I’d been reading for a few days and was somewhere in the middle of the book when an amazing thing happened. I was reading one day on the beach and was about to put the book down for the day when I sensed God telling me to go ahead read the next chapter, Chapter 14, on worship and prayer. So I did, and as soon as I finished I went back to the house and started worshiping God and singing praises to Him in the way you suggested to try it. I had the most passionate and emotional prayer time I’d ever had, and soon I was crying as I finally realized that God hadn’t ever left me at all, but that it had actually been Satan tricking and blinding me the whole time. God pulled me through, and personal, one-on-one worship has now become a part of my life! Thank you for your advice. I know God was with you when you wrote these books!

     Question: I am worn out by my husband’s sexual sin and his affairs. I have been trying to change myself, but am having so much trouble with the bitterness. I want to live in a world of mercy. I have started the Every Heart Restored workbook, but when it comes to the part where you ask us to let God wrap his arms around
me and to let him speak to me, all I hear is condemnation. I know that is from Satan, but I can’t get through this. I live in constant fear and panic of what I do not really know.
     The few friends that I do know, I do not disclose any more of this to them. They don’t really understand and I think they think I should leave or just get over it. I don’t think they know what betrayal really feels like, and I hope they don’t ever have to know this. I feel like God has deserted me, even though I know he hasn’t.
     Do you have an online partnership for women like me?  I have been a great submitter in my marriage, but not a help-mate. I haven’t stood up to my husband and called him out on his sin anywhere near enough through the years. I need extra help to understand how to be an effective help-mate. Can you help me with this request?
     Answer: We absolutely can help you. Susan Allen is  a good friend of mine and has co-founded a great organization called Avenue Resource with her husband Clay Allen. Through Avenue, you can become part of a regularly meeting small group by phone via 800-number, where you can talk to the same people each week and get some serious help along the lines of what you need. Susan also co-wrote my other book, The Healing Choice, and wrote The Healing Choice Guidebook, which I heartily recommend and which you can get on my website. Feel free to call her at the number below, or write to her at the email address below. Susan and her organization Avenue is exactly what any woman needs when it comes to small group help.

SusanAllen@AvenueResource.com

Susan’s Cell:  (925) 837-1187

          I just want to give you an enormously huge thank you. I have so much to say, and I won’t be able to get it all out, but I will try. I just finished reading Hero two days ago and it has already changed my relationship with God and my girlfriend. She and I have been going out for a little over ten months and although we hadn’t yet fallen over the edge sexually, we had sure pushed the boundaries a couple of times.

          The trouble is, I hadn’t set any boundaries with her and we had not spoken about it. I guess I sort of assumed that we both knew about God’s standards, since we were both Christians. I finally realized that this kind of assumption is a mistake, so yesterday I asked her out and we went shopping, and then to the park. While we were both sitting on a set of swings, I raised this purity issue with her and I laid out everything that I wanted to say, even saying that I didn’t think we should be kissing while dating. Even though I realized that you don’t specifically ban kissing for everyone in Hero, I backed my argument by using the numerous reasons that your son Jasen and Rose outlined in making their decision about this in the book.

          I was so worried that she might reject my arguments and refuse to go along with me in this, but I had already accepted that if she refused, then I would know that God didn’t want us to be together anymore. After about twenty minutes, I stopped and asked her what she was thinking. To my surprise, she said that she thought it was a great idea, and that she had been thinking the same thing! WOW!!! God is so amazing!

          We continued to talk about the topic for another two hours, and discussed everything from “A to Z.” I mainly brought up things discussed in your book and eventually told her how I’d read Hero and that it had brought about this huge change in me. Even after one day of looking at the bigger picture, I feel that our relationship has moved forward and that our commitment to each other has grown overnight. The feeling of letting go of sin is indescribable.

          You know, when you told the story of Jasen’s first kiss at his wedding at the beginning of the book, I thought it was impossible to do something like that. But not anymore! Now that I’ve taken this step and talked it out with my girlfriend, it now seems so simple and possible that I don’t know why I hadn’t thought it up on my own before now.

          In Hero, you spoke of the fighting spirit that all men have inside, but I wasn’t so sure I had that. But there was a moment while reading Hero that everything suddenly made sense, and now I am embracing that fighting spirit that God gave me from the beginning. I will protect Gods girl’s for as long as I live. They are really fine china, as the Bible says. Can you please tell Jasen and Rose that their testimonies were the best stuff that I had ever read, and it made everything possible for us as a couple?

          They even helped us in the simple things. One of the problems that my girlfriend and I were having was that it felt like we were running out of things to do together on dates as a couple, so we grabbed Jasen and Rose’s idea of making a list of things we could do on dates, and now it’s always easy to find something to do together.

          I can’t express how thankful I am for your open attitudes in Hero. Your books are making a difference in the world and I just wanted to let you know that it is especially true with us. My girlfriend and I are still young, and it is so important that we have let God into this part of our lives. We are now reading the Bible every time we are together as a standard part of our dates so that we can make sure we are allowing God to continue to work in our lives. Thanks again, and thanks to Jasen and Rose. They really gave me an example to follow.