It was from the depths of physical, spiritual, emotional and mental hell that the leaders of GuardYourEyes pulled me out. They are nothing less than malachei Hashem. The first step of the 12 steps in any addiction recovery program, is to admit your powerlessness over your addiction and to hand it over to the G-d of our understanding. I handed my horrific and life threatening addiction over to GYE, and they along with Hashem, saved me from a sure physical and spiritual death.
I grew up in a modern orthodox home with very few restrictions placed on TV, internet, magazines, and other such popular media that feed us images, ideas and beliefs which serve to uproot our sense of happiness and self control.
After spending a year in Israel and getting married, I was assured that I was one of the lucky ones that came out of an American upbringing fairly clean and pure. I am now girl in my mid twenties, with several small children in right-wing frum Yeshivot. After a few years of being married I found myself attracted to other men, but did nothing about it, since I knew it was wrong. After several more years, and severe bouts of depression, things started to fall through. I was approached by a married man who was interested in me. I refused at first, but after a year or so, I had a relationship with him. After it ended I was crushed, so I sought other relationships to make the pain go away. I had one relationshiop after the other. Doing this wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be, and I hadn’t realized the grave physical danger that I put myself in each time – and even though I was hurt several times, it was not enough to stop me.
During all of this, one of the men that I approached told me about GYE and put me in touch with their fearless leader himself – (the one they call) “Guard”. I poured out my soul to him, and instead of being reprimanded and told that I was going to go to gehenom, I received several emails from him that began, "Dear Bas Yisroel", Dear Precious daughter of Hashem", "Dear holy neshama". His emails of care and concern pierced my heart and gave me hope that one day I will be more than an addict looking to satisfy my lust. I started to get involved in the GYE forum, and after carefully thinking about my situation, Guard set me up with a GYE sponsor. They even got me in touch with Rabbai Avraham Twerski, which is quite a difficult task.
Rav Twerski diagnosed me as having a lust addiction and told me that there is little hope other than a 12 step program. I sought out therapist after therapist, but the only ones that were able to understand me and to lead me even close to where I needed to go, was Guard and his army. I kept pushing off joining a 12 step program with various excuses, until GYE had to show me some tough-love. They told me that they are ALWAYS there to help me, but I need to attend meetings if I am to be allowed to be an active part of the community. They don’t want fakers, or empty promises on their forum. For a while, I felt dejected and withdrew, but it forced me to go to those meetings. And all along, the Malach of a sponsor (let’s call him Malachi – my angel) that Guard sent to me, watched me from afar and never let go.
Malachi and Guard took over my life and cared for me like no one has ever done. Malachi took over all of my e-mails accounts and social networking sites, and took charge of my life for me, as I was too weak and too addicted to see my pitfalls. My judgment was so ‘off’, that I needed Malachi to take charge of things before I went even further down the road to gehenom. Malachi chased men away and saved me from men who were threatening me and using me. He called, e-mailed and was available to be texted 24 hours a day. Guard and Malachi never, never left me alone. EVEN at one point when I slapped them in the face by falling to a level so low that I didn’t deserve to be taken back, they picked me up, shook me up, and saved me.
I am just one person, and one life that they saved. We all know that if one saves a life, it is as if they saved the entire world. THIS IS GYE!!!! By saving me, they saved my kids, my grandkids and so on. If they wouldn’t have taken care of me spiritually and mentally and made sure the men out there weren’t hurting me physically, I would no doubt be dead. The world is burning, and they are working around the clock to put out the fires in every home and every broken soul that comes to them. While everyone else is sticking their head in sand about this desperate situation that plagues our holy nation (you only have to look as far as Craigslist, Facebook and even some so-called “frum” inapproprite websites that I don’t want to mention here, to see how real this problem truly is).
GYE stepped up and took control. They are not only working with the fringe of our society or the erev rav, they are helping Rebbeim, professionals, and G-d fearing Jews take control of their lives before their lust destroys them completely. I know first hand of over 50 men that live in the frum world and have frum families that are struggling with this, and this is just from my own personal encounters.
For some time I doubted that Guard and Malachi were human, because they knew too much, did too much, and cared only like Hashem could care for a broken soul. "Ki avi v’imi azvuni Va’Hashem Yaasefeni" - everyone else gave up on me, besides for the malachei Hashem that run GYE.