Dear Guard,
I just want to let you know that B"H I am 172 days clean on the internet and I owe you and everyone involved with this great organization a tremendous hakaras hatov for helping me get started. Just to give a little background since my childhood I have always struggled with this problem and like many, once the internet took off my problem grew out of control. I had particular trouble at work being exposed to a computer with no filters at all. Over the last 5 years this problem had begun to get worse and worse. I had many ups and downs, and over the years the "up" periods were becoming shorter and shorter and the "down" periods longer and longer. I began to feel that my life was just going to go this way forever and there was no way out of it.
Sometime last summer I stumbled upon the guardyoureyes website and I signed up for the daily emails and I read the Attitude book and the Handbook and I began to absorb the idea that there is hope and that breaking out of this is not impossible.
Around last Elul my road to recovery really began as I had a 29 day clean period, then a stumble for a few weeks, then a 42 day clean period, then a stumble for a few weeks, and then finally the 172 day clean period that I am in now which I hope will last ad meah v'esrim. I asked my IT staff at work to filter my computer, and this has made a huge difference for me as well.
I think the main thing I have gained from guardyoureyes is that THIS CAN BE DONE if one wants it enough.
Something else that I also know is true for me - I can't just give up the "real bad stuff" and still read secular newspapers and think everything will be okay. The secular newspapers have to go because little slips tend to become big falls. I have also noticed, probably like many, that my learning is much improved. Instead of secular newspapers I listen to Rabbi Shafier's Shmuz pod to and from work and I am getting tremendous chizuk from that as well.
While I am quite happy about these successes I know I still need to work on my eyes when I walk in the street. For just the last few days I have begun taking my glasses off when I get out of the subway (as my eyesight is "Baruch Hashem" quite bad) and I think this is helping as well. I pray that Hashem continues to give me the strength to fight this battle.