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A platform of recovery for Jews who find themselves struggling with addictions to pornography, masturbation or other sexual problems. Post anonymously about your struggles without fear of anyone finding out who you are. Ask questions, post answers and be inspired! Get tips and guidance from the experts who moderate this forum, as well as from fellow strugglers.

TOPIC: Welcome, New Members! 18831 Views

Re: Welcome, New Members! 04 Oct 2015 13:43 #265136

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Dr. Watson
Broadly speaking there were two types of computer games I used to play as a kid.

In one type you play as a character, fighter jet or something similar and you play a series of levels. You start out with 100% health and if you get hit by the enemy you lose some of your health until you lose a life. The game starts off easy so you can get through the entire level without being hit once. However as it progresses you tend to get hit more and more. The only thing that matters though is getting to the end of the level. At the end of each level you can recharge and get full health again, ready for the next level.

Then there’s the other type. In this game you play as a fighter jet moving through enemy air space. Again it starts off easy and gets progressively harder. The difference is that in this game there are no levels. There is no end point, you can never finish the game. You keep going until you get shot down. The aim of this game is to try and beat your previous high score.

For a long time my experience with trying to get sober was like playing the never-ending computer game. It starts off easy and get progressively harder. You start off with 100% health and every time you get a lust hit you lose a little bit until you lose the game. It’s not a game you can ever win, you just keep going until you get shot down. The only goal is to try to get a little further than the last time.

That’s what sobriety was like. All my effort was going into trying to stay sober a little longer than the last time. “Oops I lost it at 21 days, let’s see if this time I can get 25 days.”

It’s very disheartening to put so much effort into a game you can never win.

There is another way. It’s a game with levels. It’s not possible to get through the entire game without boosting your health levels. The designers never expected you to. That’s why the game is broken down into levels. If you can get to end of the level, you can always get back to full health.

The game is winnable, but only if I take whatever actions are necessary to get back to full health at the end of every level.
Last Edit: 04 Oct 2015 13:48 by skeptical.

Re: Welcome, New Members! 12 Oct 2015 01:35 #265631

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stillgoing

Everything in life can be learnt from. Here is a short piece about day trading. It is so similar to what we talk about here every day. Just replace a few words and it could be a quote from the gye handbook

"Trade valid setups, and don't let the last trade create fear or greed. This trade is an independent event, trade it how your strategy and trading plan dictate. Past losses can't make you afraid to trade (assuming you have a profitable strategy and know how to day trade), and past winners can't make you arrogant. Trade one trade at a time; that's all we have control over."

one day at a time...that's all we have control over..
Last Edit: 12 Oct 2015 01:36 by skeptical.

Re: Welcome, New Members! 14 Oct 2015 03:37 #265881

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Skeptical, in response to a question about wet dreams,

What works for me is to view it in the following way.

When we give up something we've learned to depend on, part of us, whether you want to call it our yetzer harah or subconscious,doesn't really want to let go of it.
When we are awake and in control of our faculties, we are not indulging, and part of us is going crazy - How can we give it up?? We need it!
So our Yetzer Harah/subconscious tries to trick us. As a last ditch attempt, it inserts fantasies into our dreams.
There are 2 ways our YH/subconscious wants us to respond to these dreams.
1) Self-Torture/Guilt. Ugh, how can I have allowed myself to dream such things?? What can I do to prevent it from happening again? Did I fall? Oh no, I must've fallen! I'm a terrible person, etc...

These kinds of thoughts bring us to actually fall, and to keep falling.

2) Obsession/Entertaining the fantasy. We think about the details of the dream, and get lost in the fantasy, unable to let go, sinking lower and lower back into the quicksand.

But really there's a 3rd way to respond and that is to smile and say, "Boruch Hashem, it was just a dream! I didn't do anything! I'm still clean!" and then promptly let go of it completely by thinking about other things.

Hope that helps. Hatzlacha!
Last Edit: 14 Oct 2015 03:41 by skeptical.

Re: Welcome, New Members! 01 Nov 2015 14:29 #267458

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This is a fabulous list of strategies. ישר כחך.

I would like to point out that as of right now the statistics for this website are:
In total there are 898 users Online: 28 Members and 870 Guests
If you are a guest and you read this post, please consider becoming a member. It's anonymous, and it gives you the chance to speak about what you are going through. In my recovery experience, sharing my addiction with others was the first step to coming to terms with my affliction, to sobriety, and to ever growing happiness in life without acting out. No one but you can decide to become a member, but it's the first step towards walking in the light and getting a handle on acting out. The fear is there until you actually do it, and then it disappears. בהצלחה.

Re: Welcome, New Members! 03 Nov 2015 03:51 #267623

  • peloni almoni
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WELCOME TO GYE

b68ea3d00fce45ca9400698105f5cd50.jpg


RECOVERY THROUGH HUMOR
#what_works_for_me

check out my blog:
guardyoureyes.com/forum/23-Just-Having-Fun/261537-FREE-HARDCORE-CORNOGRAPHY
Have a corny day ... and if you do have other plans, change 'em!!
peloni_almoni@hotmail.com

None of us has it all together, but together, we have it all.

we always put our sobriety before our ego -
מוטב שאקרא שוטה כל ימי ואל אהיה רשע שעה אחת לפני המקום

לפעולות אדם בדבר שפתיך אני שמרתי אורחות פריץ. תמוך אשורי במעגלותיך בל נמוטו פעמי. תהלים יז
__________________________________________________________
LINKS:
- SOLUTIONS: WHERE DO I FIT IN TO GYE
- DOWNLOAD GYE HANDBOOK & READ AT LEAST TWICE
- OVERDOSE OF DOV: READING MATERIAL TO KEEP ME SANE
- THE BEST THREAD ON THE FORUM; READ, POST, AND HAVE A GREAT TIME
 

Re: Welcome, New Members! 24 Nov 2015 20:30 #269544

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Yesod

Someone whose name shall not be mentioned (in vain) has requested that i share what worked for me in hitting 90 days.

Well I told him there aint nothing new. But he persisted, the stubborn guy he is.

I wrote all this stuff before here and there.

But here it is.

1) ACTIVE POSTING (or the equivalent ie chat, partner, calls etc) So the core strategy, which is keeping the defensive awareness up and running and HOT at all times. That was through a lot of forum posting, and getting positive feedback. I go on like 10 times a day to check for msgs just in case someone left one, and to read something that might be inspiring. So guarding my eyes is always on my mind.

2) The goodnight Calendar has probably saved me outright. Regardless of Shmiras Einayim during the day, being on the computer late at night is an exposed and enduring attack, and the defenses eventually break.

3) No lust is too small to take serious, I have tried and succeeded to an extent to cut thoughts IMMEDIATELY, i find a thought is easier to stop than a sight believe it or not. Cut the thought right away, don't give the SOB free lodging in your mind. You'll get in the habit, and its doable and eventually they'll peter out.
Last Edit: 24 Nov 2015 20:37 by skeptical.

Re: Welcome, New Members! 01 Dec 2015 18:03 #270033

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Thank you so much for this while program it's helping me grow... and gain awernness... hashes should repay you all and give hatzlacha and brocha to all those who are trying

Re: Welcome, New Members! 09 Feb 2016 23:09 #277279

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Dov wrote:
Dear Obbermottel (but never oiverbottel),

Thanks for sharing your own powerlessness with me! And my answer to you is "yes, and no".

As I keep saying, I am not a guru, nor an expert. All I can share with you is my experience - it is the SA way. And in my experience yes - I ask Him to take it away, dump the entire struggle on Him to alleviate from me, and it works. Period. Tehillim says, "Sh'lach al Hashem y'hov'cho, vHu yichalkelecho," and it means just that.

But I said "yes and no." The "no" part is this:

I was never successful at living free of sex with myself (and all my other forms of lusting and acting out), by doing that in a vaccum. My surrender was fake, fake, fake for years in yeshivah, marriage/kollel, etc....until I finally took the actions of true surrender. Those actions were:

1- Going to meetings, and not wimpy 'phone talk sessions' where I am not really there with real people, but rather, safely and comfortably hiding behind a telephone. Though I have heard of people being sober that way and believe that it is possible (just as I believe that the 12 steps are not necessary for all people and some people out there actually can beat this addiction with willpower or mussar or even just getting married - very unlikely, but who am I to say "it is impossible!"?). But as I have no personal evidence that it would have worked for me, so I cannot advise it to anyone else with confidence. If I did, that would be making myself some sort of teacher, rather than just a recovering Pervert that Hashem is using to help others - I'd be the expert then, doling out my advice, and I would fall flat on my face. And I would lose my sobriety. And for me, that means I'd die for certain. That is the 12 th step - sharing, not telling. People here generally do not even see the difference on their radar, so they read my sharing of experience and take it as 'telling and teaching'....too bad for them.

So, maybe you can do it just between you, your G-d, and the 'forum'. I do not know.

2- Having a sponsor and hanging around with really, truly recovering men like me - whether they were Yidden or not. What I needed more than anything else was to learn how to depend on my own G-d. And I learned that from my Catholic sponsor and from my other not-at-all-frum recovering Yidden-friends (and from other recovering goyim at the meetings) as much as from other recovering frum yidden who were in the meetings. And the input from those people was far, far, more essential to saving my sobriety, my yidishkeit, my marriage, and my life than was the input from the rabbis and roshei yeshivah I had over years of frum life. For those rebbis were not crazy addicts like me, were they? So how could I expect them to teach me how to really depend on G-d? They didn't need Him as I did! Of course, those rebbis who had gone through real suffering or loss R"l, could have helped me perhaps....it's all the same. For at some point in the trip, when addicts are really giving up our precious porn, fantasy, and masturbation, it feels like we will die without it. It is suffering and loss.

That's poshut. And again, hard to do with just virtual relationships on a forum.

3- I needed to have people to call up whenever I felt (excuse me for lack of a better word) 'horny'. And I needed to actually call them up and admit it befeirush - if they were smart, they'd respond with their own weakness rather than warning me "don't do it! Gevalt! It's osur! You'll be sorry!"....or other drivel that I had already been telling myself for a decade with no result at all...

Sharing our weakness and sharing our dependence on  Power Greater than ourselves with each other is where the magic is. We get that by doing it for eachother as the hopeless addicts we really are
My Story---------Dov Quotes




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Re: Welcome, New Members! 26 Jul 2016 04:30 #292695

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hello i should stop wish me luck

Re: Welcome, New Members! 26 Jul 2016 15:30 #292722

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Welcome!  Why don't you start a new thread in the "Introduce Yourself" section.  Tell us some more.  We are all in the same boat.  There is nothing to be afraid of here.

Re: Welcome, New Members! 21 Jun 2017 02:25 #315777

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Im skeptical about your whereabouts skeptical. Im also skeptical that people on this forum couldnt use you. Im very skeptical. Im very skeptical that you have no more tips for us. Im very skeptical that you left us. 
I am happy to speak on the phone. Please email me at dms1234ongye@gmail.com

My name is Daniel, I go to face to face meetings and I work the 12 steps with a sponsor. 

Re: Welcome, New Members! 21 Jun 2017 02:32 #315778

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dms1234 wrote on 21 Jun 2017 02:25:
Im skeptical about your whereabouts skeptical. Im also skeptical that people on this forum couldnt use you. Im very skeptical. Im very skeptical that you have no more tips for us. Im very skeptical that you left us. 

And what about dms that was mia??
My Story---------Dov Quotes




FREE LUST TRUCK TOWING
Click HERE to checkout;
100 Day Success Stories: cordnoy, Dov, Gevura and more...
• Awesome Threads Saved for You
• Cast Your Vote

GYE Plenty Solutions
➣ The Mark of Torah - Lust Chizuk

➣ Nice Trucking Story

Re: Welcome, New Members! 16 Jan 2018 07:01 #325558

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Hello. I am not sure this will work for me but I hope so. I'm new here never saw anything like this before so it's nice to know there is some place to talk about it

Re: Welcome, New Members! 16 Jan 2018 07:10 #325559

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:like:this was eye opening video I kinda had this idea. But I am a loner so hard to meet the right people

Re: Welcome, New Members! 16 Jan 2018 07:28 #325560

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Welcome! You're not alone! I'm also a loner. Sigh. Why don't you create a thread in "Introduce Yourself" and tell us more of your story.
"Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his sobriety level?"
"... It's over NINE-ZEROOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

One day... At A Time :-D


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