How do prayer and fasting help against lust?

Prayer, and any time we talk about prayer we really mean prayer and fasting. These are the spiritual disciplines that bring the grace of the Holy Spirit. Every day for a person struggling with these temptations needs to be started with prayer and ended with prayer. I often use this analogy: it's like you're bench pressing, and when the bar gets too heavy and you're going to fail, you call out for the Holy Spirit to grab the bar and lift it up with you, to give you the help you need in a battle that is beyond your strength.

Staying sober, meaning not engaging in pornography and masturbation, is a miracle. One day is a miracle. But it happens through the power of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit sees us fasting, using self-control, engaged in prayer, beseeching him daily for help, crying out to him in moments of temptation, he comes to our aid and he strengthens us. But we need to be absolutely regimented about it.

We can't pray for an hour, skip two days, pray for 15 minutes, skip a day. It doesn't work like that. Every single day is the battle of our life for the preservation of the purity of our soul.