I therefore came up with a crazy idea. To celebrate my completion of 90 clean days, I would throw a massive party for all first and second year Bochurim, and all my friends from other yeshivas - to celebrate. The point obviously being, to make it a public event and to be a source of encouragement and inspiration to others. I collected money from avreichim and even bochurim (in addition to my own money), a date was set, invitations were sent, and B"H the party was an enormous success. Together with the beers and l'chaims, it became a public event, and most of the 80 or so people took it upon themselves publicly to be shomer for a certain period of time, some more, some less.
For weeks afterwards, even until today, people come and tell me about the effect it had on them, and how long they were clean because of it.
Due to its tremendous success, I planned to make another, even bigger party. After 5 months, a date was once again set, random friends and bochurim representing nearly every foreign yeshivah in Jerusalem were invited (on condition that they would be clean until the party). I started collecting money from Avreichim, but due to the large scale of this party, nowhere near enough money was raised. I nevertheless decided to go ahead with plans and took out a loan, naively hoping people would gladly want to have part of such a tremendous z'chus.
10 large crates of beer, many bottles of vodka, lots of food and drinks, a speaker system plus generator, and loads of GuardYourEyes handbooks were printed and distributed. The GYE booklets were the very same booklets that helped encourage me. Immediately when boys received these booklets, they had the potential for the same source of inspiration.
B"H the party succeeded beyond all my wildest expectations. Around 200 guys turned up (from word of mouth only), there was loads of singing and dancing, there were very inspiring speeches, the atmosphere was of real simcha and indescribable joy. The main part was that, over a l'chaim, nearly every single person there genuinely promised with utmost sincerity to be clean at least a month. Furthermore, bochurim from a certain yeshivah who all took it upon themselves at the party to be holy, spread it into a wider group yeshivah effort, IM"H may they succeed - and they are still clean today! I personally think that the party the angels were having in heaven must have been a thousand times bigger than the one we made down here.
News of this party spread like wildfire, and the feedback was extremely encouraging. I've had many thankful bochurim calling in saying what a chizuk this party had on them. Every day bochurim tell me how they and their friends are still clean as a result of the inspiration they got at the party, and the fact that that it became a public team effort rather then a seemingly hopeless one-man fight. Boys asked me for more GYE handbooks, thanking me that it was a huge source of help; they also described how useful the website was, in particular the daily chizuk e-mails.A prominent mashgiach of a top yeshivah in Israel thanked me personally over the phone and told me that he is now helping several bochurim from his own Yeshiva, who, before attending the party, would never have entertained the thought of approaching their Mashgiach over such a private and embarrassing topic. Some bochurim have thanked me, saying that it's the best z'man they've had in their lives!
I would like to take this chance to thank all those involved with GYE. Without the website and their source of help, I wouldn't be where I am today - clean for so long. And as seen from my friends and those in the party, the website is for all and can help all; the work and effort of GYE is invaluable. May they continue being a source of inspirations to all Jews. The mitzvah they are doing is done by no one else, and they deserve huge credit.The reason why I wrote this is to show everyone that it's possible. Just yesterday, a bochur who I promised a gathering/l'chaim if he reaches 90, approached me telling me he's almost half way there, his longest streak ever, and he is eagerly awaiting. (We're talking about a boy whose entire life was consumed by this disease; he had a massive porn addiction and would masturbate on average at least 5 times a day!).May we be zoche to purity and may Hashem forgive us for all our sins. Amen.