Today is a special day for FOUR reasons.
Firstly, today is Yesod shebi'Yesod of the Seffirah. Everyone knows that Yesod represents the area of Shmiras Habris, so today is a very auspicious day for progress in these areas.
Secondly, today is the Yartzeit of Rav Shlomkeh Ze'viller who worked his whole life to strengthen the "Yesod" of Klal Yisrael by building Mikva'os and the like. See this page of our website for more about Rav Shlomkeh. And see the bottom of this e-mail for an antidote from Rav Shlomkeh. May his merit stand for us all today.
Thirdly, today the membership of this daily Chizuk e-mail list ("Breaking Free") just topped 500 members! Please help us continue to spread the word to even more Yidden that can be helped. There are probably thousands of religious Jews around the world who struggle in these areas, sometimes suffering in pain and shame for years, never having heard of GYE! See our new "Monthly" donating options below, it's easy, fast and secure! And in the merit of your help, Hashem will surely help you in your own struggles in ways you never believed - especially today on Yesod shebi'Yesod!!
Fourthly, today is Ano-nymous's half a year mark! "Ano" (for short) is a Bochur who struggled for years with these issues. On the day he wrote us his story we decided that the time had come to make a "90 day Wall of Honor" chart, and he was the first one up on the chart. So the chart is a half a year old today as well, and Ano definitely has a large Zechus in it! We are very proud to have him as part of our community. He has shown himself to be a man whose actions match his words, and a great source of inspiration to many of us on the forum, especially to other Bochurim who believed they could never break free from this. We hope to make our next announcement about "Ano" at his FULL YEAR mark in 6 months from now, and we hope that he sticks with the GYE community for many years to come!
Tomorrow is 20 weeks for me! My goal is no more lusting and I feel like I am almost there. When I say lusting, I am referring to the act of thinking bad thoughts or staring at women for the sole purpose of getting that 'tingly feeling'. What I now realize, is that doing those things and looking at porn online are essentially the same thing: food for my addiction to lust. And if you stop feeding the addiction, he dies. I'm living proof to the truth of that statement :-)
We don't need to just stop acting out. We need to stop WANTING to act out. Replace the giddy feelings you get when you decide to act out, with the feelings of pain and despair that you know you will feel afterward. Then you will not WANT to act out. I simply don't want to lust anymore. It's disgusting to me. Looking back just a few months ago, I can't believe the filth I wasted hours downloading and watching. Tomorrow is 20 weeks for me, and I'm never going back. Think about WHY you want to quit, and focus more on the 'wanting to quit' than on the 'quitting'... I'm rambling, I know, so I'll stop now. Have a great and clean Pesach!
I've passed the 23 week mark! I remember when I first posted here and Guard put up the Wall of Honor right then, after reading my story. I didn't know how I would do it, but I knew I couldn't let him down. It's been almost half a year, and it's indescribably great to not have to worry about what disgusting porn I'm going to watch in order to feed the addiction, or how I'm going to masturbate when I don't have access to porn. For those of you who still don't think you can do it: IT'S NOT TRUE!!! Get started today, and never give up no matter how many times you slip up. Never allow yourself to believe that you're hopeless and may as well give up. It's all the Yetzer Hara feeding you lies. That's how this addiction works. Lies, lies, and more lies. Ignore them, you can beat this!
Hey Ezra, I just thought I'd pop in and say how amazing it is to see someone as young as yourself taking the steps to break this addiction. I don't know if you've read my thread on the forum, but it's been almost half a year for me. If I can do it, I'm sure you can too. By the way, the way you write reminds me of myself. I only wish I would have started as early as you did. I could have gotten so much more done in the years between 17 and 20... I'm rambling a bit now, so I'll stop.
Trust me, I was in it neck deep. I felt so low and dirty. I looked at so much disgusting garbage. Now when I think about what I used to do, the main emotion I feel is disbelief. I feel like that "couldn't have been me". Maybe someone forced me to do it, or I never did it and it was all a dream. The shift in attitude is really that extreme. Think about how you will feel after you get the brief pleasure of giving in and acting out - and you will succeed. Keep up the great work!!!
The "90 days" is a leap of faith. It really does get SO much easier. I'm 20 years old now. I'd never gone a whole week clean since age 12. I went pretty much cold turkey with the help of GUE and a Rebbi at my yeshiva. The 90 days helps give you something to look forward to, and that already makes is so much easier. Once you get there, it is much easier because you are in the habit of NOT acting out. However, by the time you reach 90 days (it took me a while, but I got there) you should not be allowing lust to take hold of you at all. If you are at 90 days "clean" but you are constantly clicking links which you are driven to by lust, you will not be able to hold out. All the filters in the world won't help if you aren't sincere. The lust is a poison, and once you have 90 days without it, it is much easier to see that. And with the clear realization that it is pure POISON, how COULD you click on it? That is how I see it.
I saw in the sefer Mezkeinim Esbonen from the Slonimer chasid Reb Yakov Yisroel Kastenlitz, that he once asked the great Tzadik Reb Shlomko Zvihler zatza"l; why isn't anybody who transgresses the dvar Hashem considerd an apikores? After all, if he believed in Torah m'sinai how could he transgress? But Reb Shlomke didn't agree and he explained with a parable of a person whose hand has to be amputated. Although the person knows it is good for him, he still has to be tied down so that he shouldn't fight the doctors. The same - explains Reb Shlomke - is the person who stumbles in a sin. He know's he is wrong, but often the Yetzer Hara forces him into it. (Not to say that he is not liable for his sins, but to explain that we would need another post.)
Today I got my fourth week clean. I haven't felt like this in a long time. How can you compare this sweetness of holiness to the sweetness of taavah? I beg you Hashem, please help me keep this perspective. Since about two years ago when this whole thing started, I have had long clean streaks but never was it with a conviction of avodes hashem as I feel now. Thanks to this site, I feel I may have turned my life around. Just four weeks ago I had this helpless feeling of "where am I heading to?". Well, now I see there is future of kedusha ahead and there is hope. Thanks "rabbi guard"!