"The challenge now is doing something about it," you say. Bear with me please, as I am not arguing with you at all, and some of what I will say seems to be paradoxical. Sorry about that, but here goes...
If I really could do something about it, I'd have done it years earlier! How about you? Is it just new info, or techniques that we need? I think not. Unless you call quitting the eternal escape from the simple truth about ourselves "info" (...technically it is, I guess). Admitting that as I am, I am really unable to win - that all the inspiration in the world will not 'do it' for me...is that "doing something about it?" Not in the way we are used to. It doesn't sound like "self-help" to me. But, as I understand it, it is precisely the 1st answer offered to addicts by the program.
Funny...the flip side of this is how many of us act out with our lust! I remember that my search for the porn, etc., was never a peaceful, calm endeavor. No, it was a relentless and eager search for 'the best image', the prettiest, warmest, most inviting fantasy I could get my hands on. "This one - if I can only get it right! - will save me... maybe it'll fix me up for good and I'll finally be satisfied." The taa'va was not really for pleasure, it was for some sort of salvation. Can you relate?
So, it's funny, no? The way we acted out with our lust, is the same way we tried (and failed) to stop! No wonder it can't work.
For me, 'surrender' means 'hachno'oh'. It requires a broken heart - meaning, my will needs to be broken. I need to come to see that what I have been depending on to 'make it' - both in acting out with lust and with quitting/controlling it, is my problem itself. I do not have the ability to succeed at using lust, and I do not have the power to succeed at quitting, either.
OK, so a bunch of the guys out there on the rest of GYE who are honestly trying to beat this stuff with chizzuk, inspiration, and what they call t'shuva, will say this is craziness, or even apikorsus. They see such thoughts as 'giving up'. To be honest with you, such a perspective never even occurred to me in my wildest dreams (which are pretty wild, being a lust addict...but we won't go there ). I always knew in my heart - especially in the throes of giving in to my lust, R"l - that I was truly given over to this lust thing; that it was way more powerful than I. And that has not changed, of course. When did I suddenly get stronger ? A tall order even for my imagination!
So then, what has changed?
All that has really changed is that (due to lots of humiliation) I finally admitted to myself that as I am (and will probably always be) I am subject to this insanity. I have an allergy that I cannot cure, and that it will carry me away again as it always has. And that my life cannot succeed the way things are.
Maybe there is another way out, make oaths, RR, hypnosis, shots, acupuncture, whatever... but as I am I cannot make it. I need help.