haha tryingtoshteig, thanks. I'm really happy with my last post because I think i've got a lot more clarity on my problem. Maybe that's all it is for me, however much i want to quit permanently, I do still find it relaxing and i use it as a quick relief. I actually feel relieved to be thinking about it this way.

You're right, i need to develop better ways to relax quickly in a muttar way. I'll have to give it some thought. The biggest problem i find is when i'm working on the computer i open up a new tab and check GYE and a couple of work-related sites. If there are no updates I look at pictures of porn. And if there are updates i read them and then look at pictures of porn. My job is intellectually demanding and i find myself needing regular breaks, even if it's only 30 seconds. So i need to find something relaxing that i can do for 30 seconds that's not porn. I'll give it some thought.

actually, studies have really shown that chocolate, mango, almonds, (oysters) and other stuff increase testosterone in women and help reduce stress in general.

Doc,

I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time following your posts.

You say that porn is just something you do for relaxation. You can do with it or without it. It has zero effect on your life. It's just something you enjoy.

You also say that you don't have withdrawal symptoms. Are you sure about that?

Have you ever seen a heavy smoker when he can't have a cigarette? How does he act?

When you hear the clopitty clop of women's shoes going past your window on a Shabbos afternoon, why can't you hold yourself back from looking?

When you're out with your family, are you enjoying your time with them or are you checking out all the girls wherever you are? Are you looking forward to getting back to the computer and are you irritable if there are delays?

I would just like to add one more thing,

My life was not unmanagable, just as yours, doc, but I want to get better, just like you.

Now I know about %1 of the 12 steps. But the 12th step is to use the 12 steps in all aspects of life!! are we addicted and powerless to ALL dificulties in life?

I think the answer yes, I wrote it in my ladder. but even if the answer is no, then the 12 steps itself says that it can help for things that we are not addicted to, and therefore we can also use the 12 steps.

so why not give it a try?

@sketpical, the thing with hearing the women's shoes and going to the window was just this shabbos. I wrote it because i felt particularly bad this shabbos, it doesn't normally happen.

Sometimes i do look at women when i'm out with my family, sometimes i don't.

I often go a few weeks without so much as peeking at any erotic pictures, let alone naked ones. I don't suffer withdrawal symptoms during that time. My internet connection often fails and I find it a bit irritating when I'm busy, but i only get irritable if it happens while i'm actually in the middle of browsing naked pictures, or if my wife interrupts me.

The relaxation thing makes sense to me. A couple of weeks ago i posted from holiday saying i was totally clean and didn't even have the urge to look at pictures, but my shmiras einayim could have been better. Now I'm back from holiday and under a lot of stress from work and i look at pictures for about 45 seconds several times a day. I think that to say it's stressed related makes a lot of sense.

@pidaini, yes i think i could also benefit from the 12 steps

All I'm saying is to be honest with yourself.

Try to examine what is really your motivation. When you feel the urge, try to figure out where it's coming from. When you can't satisfy the urge, try to figure out what your real feelings are.

Is it really just recreational? When you're feeling the urge, can you just shut it off if you wanted to, or do you just simply have to have it?

Is it really not having any effect on your relationships with your wife and family? Is it really not affecting your work at all?

After you take a good honest look at yourself, try to figure out what has worked and what hasn't worked for you in the past. What do you need to do from this point forward?

cordnoy wrote:

Enjoy, and have a stress free day!!

Maybe you just need some good relaxation techniques. Maybe close your eyes and listen to some music. Learn meditation or something.

I don't think the 12 steps are only for addicts. It's about self-honestly and letting Hashem into your life. Everyone needs that - no? It's just that addicts are the only ones willing to try it (usually) because they have no choice. They hit bottom and they are desparate.

gibbor120 wrote:

I'm no 12 step boki (bookie?) but it would seem to me that the first step, realizing that your life has come to a screeching halt due to your problem, is only for addicts.

But I agree that the other 11 steps, which are just letting Hashem into your everyday life, are for everyone.

That is more or less how I see it as well. Everyone should replace themselves with G-d. Addicts, however, need to.

tryingtoshteig wrote:

i had similar experiences.
a few years ago I joined a gye phone conference and started doing the steps. actually the call was up to step 4 so i started from there. step one was not 'clicking' for me either. probably because i was doing the steps out of choice, rather than necessity. i did not feel that my life was unmanageable or that it was spiraling out of control. i tried convincing myself that my life was unmanageable but that felt manufactured and not real.

I had a similar struggle when I began here as well. While I concluded I was not an addict, the crux of the matter is so what. What is really important is are you getting the results that you want. If you are not than you need to change your approach. Maybe that approach is SA, maybe Shaarei Teshuva. You need to find that for yourself. No one can give that to you. We can only share our experiences and hope you learn from them.

someone asked me to post this correspondence he had with Rabbi A.J. Twerski

With all very due respect to the good Rabbi, many recovering addicts have learned that 'unmanageable' does not necessarily mean arrested, fired, divorced, or whatever. Changes brought onto us, in fact, are often NOT seen by addicts as proof of unmanageability, precisely because they were done by others to them. So we tend to blame those things on them, and not on ourselves or our behavior.

So , having experienced the living hell of being an addict with nowhere to turn, I am much more comfortable understanding 'unmanageability' as a thing that is inside me. As in: I cannot possibly tolerate life this way any more or ever again - but there is no way in hell that I can ever stop living it!. In other words, every addict I know who is sober, describes their problem as being living hell.

One man's hell is not the same as that of another man. Some of us simply have far greater pain tolerance than others do. I figure that is the only difference between the low-bottom drunk and the high-bottom one. If it is repetitive, progressive, and drives you mad to the extent that you are ready to do anything to stop - even though you cannot believe you could let it go and really stop doing it cuz you need it so badly - then you are quite possibly an addict. Sorry.

And not a 'low-level addict'. An addict. I do not accept at all that there are different levels of addiction. I see addiction as you see pregnancy. A woman is no more pregnant in her ninth month than she is a day after conception...she just shoes more. Same exact deal, here.

I did not say you are an adict, mind you. I just said you may be one. There is evidence. I NEVER tell anyone they are an addict. Ever. I am not any expert or anything like that. And clearly not everyone who masturbates or uses porn, is an addict - just as not everyone who gets drunk sometimes, is an alcoholic. Even Jews can do those things and not be addicts - last time I checked therte is a thing called the Yetzer Hora, you know. If that is your problem and you think you are not an addict (or maybe just 'a little addicted')...then talk to your trusted rabbi. But if you use silly terms like 'I come to zera levatola c"v', or 'I have troubles with tayvos', do not expect to get any real help. It does not work that way (even if he has a clue what to advise, he can't do much with nebulous data and half-truths).

Addicts need real help. Their problem is as real if it is 'just' with a computer and their privates, as it is if it is with a prostitute. Virtual recovery does not work - unless the problem itself is just a virtual problem and not real! But the last time I checked, what foes on in the mind, heart, hands, and body of a hiding frum masturbater, is real...not virtual at all. They are really desiring it, not just 'virtually desiring it, right? They are not virtually masturbabating, are they?

No. It's real.

So help needs to be real. Define that however you want, as long as it is really real.

That is how I am experiencing this thing, with at least five new guys calling to talk this week and last week and about fifty newbies over the past year. Each one terrified, each one frum, most married with kids, and almost every one of them desperate to get away with fixing this issue in the comfort of their own skull...except for the five or six who were already sufferring enough that they were really ready to do whatever it takes and had no desire to hide anything at all any more. Whew, what a hard place to be.

I never want to go back there....

So I share this recovery that was given to me by addicts in SA, who Hashem loves so much just as He loves all of us.

- Dov

Thank you Dov for your post, I always appreciate what you write and the perspective you bring here.

I'm still a little unclear. Not everyone who has ever done this aveiroh is addicted to it, that seems obvious. And yet every yid who has ever done it must do teshuvah for it. So clearly there is huge scope for people who are not addicted but want to stop entirely just because it is an aveiroh, not because their lives are unmanageable.

So the question becomes how do these people help themselves to stop this aveiroh entirely. I don't know how to do that or I probably wouldn't be here at all. You keep talking about being real, I'm still not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean speaking to a Rav, my wife, being honest on GYE? Would it be a different story if you knew my real name, even if you wouldn't actually know who i was? If it's not (always) an addiction, why does the method of teshuvah have to be different for this particular aveiroh?

Truth be told, I have never described my problem as a living hell, nor have i felt my life was unmanageable. But i want to live a life the way Hashem wants me to live it, and feel clean from any aveiroh as serious as this one. That's what i'm working on, nothing more, nothing less.