I apologize for starting a new thread, and especially so close to Shabbos, but the last few days, something has been gnawing at me (and it wasn't a nana monkey hangin on to a giraffe's neck). I wake up in the morning and from the first things I do is open gye forums to see what the chevra has been up to. During work, GYE is opened on one of my screens (the one that is not visible from the doorway). I keep my eye on the clock to see if I can listen in to part of a phone conference. I am private messaging, chatting, emailing, posting and even talkin on phone with many of the chevra throughout the day. At night, again the GYE website is opened. Yes, I am addicted, and that is a good thing. I have been moved to change my ways and others are being helped as well. Thank God it is this addiction, and not the one that I have given up, the one that infatuated my brain with filth for 30 years.

my point is that I am beginning to feel removed from the real world. It is not my conversation with my co-workers. This is not the topic with my neighbors. It is especially this way in the house and with my darling wife (of 24 years, who even cried when I presented her with roses for our 24th engagement, which she had completely forgotten about...one up for the menfolk!) and family. How was your day? I would love to tell them. I have been in contact with people from the East coast, Mexico, London, Israel, Costa Rica and elsewhere. It has been an exhilarating day, but I respond with other things. Thankfully, I am busy and accomplishing in many other areas, so there is what to talk about, but in someway I feel that I am floating in space in a different world that those who surround me, especially my close loved ones.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? No. But it is weird. It is now an integral part of my life, but it is hidden inside. And yes, like I pointed out above, this was similar in my previous life (thank God can say previous; with the help of God above this will only continue... returning to that sick life will not be pleasant at all), but then, I never convinced myself that the lust was my life. I was swallowed in the filth, but I regarded it as a mirage, a fantasy. Here, I am scheduling my trips to the park with my kids around Dov's phone conference, or the shemiras einayim conference call. The answer is not to tell my wife, for she is not ready. She is dealing with too much stress as it is.

in conclusion, I am not complaining or kvetching; simply stating that the feeling is weird, and I would love to hear if anyone shares my sentiment, or if anyone has ideas as to how to live with this duplicity any better than I am.

thank you so much and Good Shabbos

I definitely know how you feel.After I found this place I was obsessed with it, constantly thinking about what I should post next,feeling like this is such a big part of my life and it's secret etc.

It was weird and frustrating.After a while I felt like I should leave since I was being too obsessed with it.

After a long while probably about five+ months, it calmed down, and while I do think about pretty often, I no longer feel that intense urge to come on every time I'm home.

Maybe it's normal, when you lose one thing that kept you busy then you get obsessed with the next thing.Maybe when you meet such nice caring people you just get obsessed with it.Maybe it's the right thing to leave now that you learnt some tools to deal with this issue.Maybe it's a trick of the yetzer to get you cut you off of the gye lifeline.

I don't know.For me realizing that there is a certain element of fakeness to the site helped.I don't meant to say that the love and caring isn't real, but the attachment and closeness you feel to a person after just one chat is a bit, not fake but artificial (hard to describe it).

Whatever the case I do think that for most people this infatuation is only temporary albeit for a long time, but after a while the newness wears off and it's allure fades a bit.

good shabbos

I've been on porn addiction forums for about 18 months and I do use them less than i used to, but still a lot. I hope my use of them will go down once I've been sober for a while iy''H. That been said, I'd much rather 'waste' time on GYE than waste time looking at porn. I'd rather schedule my life around a phone conference than have my life controlled by my urges.

Been there done that, yes I too think ( I think) too much about GYE but surely that's what it's there for, so we can all give each other the help and support we need.

thanks
all true
it is even the time that I am not on here that is part of my 'other' life

I know it is for the good; it's just difficult or somewhat at least to pretend to others as if everything is normal

once again....not complaining

thanks

cordnoy wrote:


It is noteworthy that although I'm still pretty much addicted to GYE and all that comes with it, this weird feelin' doesn't really exist anymore, and that is because recovery HAS become part of my life B"H, and therefore, although there are different sets of people, I am able to bring that which I am engrossed in durin' recovery into practice with the real world.

Said another way: I used to think that GYE and recovery was about lust, so how can I bring that into my real world; I now realize that recovery is about life.

Although this has been said before, it hits home thru this thread.

Once again, I thank Guard and his team of devs. They still have me at 458 new replies, so i end up goin' to the old threads.

Cordony
Your are one of the greatest people here on the site, and you respond almost to every post
But if it starts to disturb you, you should make some kind of cheshbon nefesh.
Why are you here? for yourself or for others

we addicts have a inner urge to be addictive to something, it can be even to something good.

We have to be true with our self, why are here? why are we spending so much time here? are we running away from real life? (are we lusting on gye?)

stay strong

doingtshuva wrote:


Thanks for the advice.
I never said that bein' here disturbs me.

My point was something else completely.

B'hatzlachah

cordnoy wrote:

Great quote.

I definitely relate to wanting to share my GYE life with a friend. Or if I do share something with a friend or family, being asked, oh where did you see that? um, online somewhere .

Oh, and bite the bullet. Open all those links and then close them. You will be back to normal. (hold ctrl and click. it will open the link in a new tab. Then just close all the tabs you opened.)

cordnoy wrote:

Thanks for the advice.
I never said that bein' here disturbs me.

My point was something else completely.

B'hatzlachah[/quote]

So what was your point?
You would like to share it with your wife

I relate. For me it's also b/c of SA. i relate so much to SA members that sometimes the outside world doesn't seem so real. Also with GYE. I am not at the level that you are cordy in terms of the obsession but I do post fairly often. I have been tapering off spending so much time b/c i kinda am getting a little tired of the whole GYE matzav. I don't have to check every unread thread, it's gonna be ok if i miss a couple of lines here and there. My life doesn't depend on GYE, even though it has gained a lot from it. But i'm starting to feel a little thought in the back of my mind that maybe I'm growing up from GYE.

doingtshuva wrote:
Last time I checked, this thread had a title - check it out, also cordnoys last paragraph
"I now realize that recovery is about life"
That line is worth a million $

My latest point was a simple one (for simple points are all I know, and it had nothin' to do with a gye obsession): true recovery does not effect lust alone; it effects one's entire life (and that is why bein' on gye and workin' the steps is not a contrast to the rest of one's life).