In our struggles to overcome this difficult and oftentimes painful addiction, many of us reach a point where it seems as though we are stuck, as if we have run up against a glass ceiling. It is the point at which after having made some substantive progress in overcoming our addiction, we find that we are no longer moving forward.

It is important that we recognize this glass ceiling for what it is in order that we can more successfully break free of it and continue making progress toward recovery.

This ceiling is a barrier between ourselves and God. Its very presence can prevent us from progressing in our recovery, prevent us from growing in God’s grace, prevent us from reconciling and healing, and prevent us from becoming holy.

What is the nature of this ceiling?

It is complacency and laziness. It is reaching a level of compromise with sin and the ongoing struggle against our addiction, an albeit subconscious interior compromise with God and satan in which sin and virtue coexist in our soul, our psyche and, indeed, in our very spirituality.

Our tacit acceptance of this spiritual condition of "peaceful coexistence" between good and evil resident within us is the foundation of our ceiling.

Growing comfortable in our sin and in our lust is a dangerous thing.

It leads to complacency and a consequential loss of Divine Grace.

This false sense of comfort moves us away from the narrow, rocky and difficult path that leads to the summit of God’s Holy Mountain and draws us into the foggy muck and mire of discouragement and despair – right where satan wants us.

The biggest danger is that it can lead us into a habit in which we begin to presume on the Mercy of God. We must always keep in mind that God’s mercy is infinite, but this fountain of mercy is available only to those who sincerely strive to attain it. It is not available to people who are recalcitrant in their sins, presuming to sin "a little bit" during the week is somehow OK, knowing that they can make confession come each and every Saturday afternoon. Be assured that there is no spiritual growth here, little if any grace, no healing and certainly no progressive recovery from addiction.

Sin and holiness are mutually exclusive. They cannot, in reality, coexist within us since the end result is a person spiritually divided within himself. As our Lord said, "A house divided cannot stand." This spiritual condition is the cause of much anxiety, impatience, internal and external conflict and ongoing struggles and frustrations within ourselves and with others. Again, it’s right where satan wants us.

We can’t go around the ceiling. We have to break it before we can progress through it.

Complete trust and confidence in God is the remedy, the hammer that shatters the glass ceiling.

Most people in this predicament haven’t given themselves or their addictions completely over to God.

That smallest part of the addiction that they retain and cling to is an evil which is so strong that no human strength can overcome it alone. As such, the individual has placed himself in a losing battle – in a fight that cannot be won.

We have to give it to God – let go and let God. That is why this is the motto of the Serenellians.

We recognize that without God, satan can and will freely flail us about like a wet rag. In this spiritual condition we are his helpless plaything, free to do with us as he wills.

The first step toward breaking the ceiling is acknowledging our helplessness, our complete dependence on God’s almighty strength, our complete weakness and the necessity of calling upon God to rescue us.

Ask God for help. Ask God for Grace – Lots of it. And ask often.

Give God all that you are, both the good and the bad, and hold nothing back.

Place this addiction freely into God’s loving hands and He will carry you from there.

May God be always with you in your battles.

Paul, for PornNoMore.com and the Serenellians