I just keep on falling with looking at porn and can not control myself.
People are telling me that's it's not a porn issue, it's a lust issue. Can anyone explain to me what the difference is and how in the wide world am I supposed to not lust after every woman on the internet and especially every jewish woman which dress way way too well and are all over the street. I also deal with lots of woman with my business.
Can someone tell me that if my wife would dress like all those attractive jewish woman out there it would not make it any easier for me. I really know that it won't make a difference but I keep on thinking that I wish my wife would wear that long wig or that skirt....
Please help me I need chizuk

I can't tell you that it's not a porn issue for you. Maybe it is. For me porn was merely a symptom of a different issue. (Without discussing when and how my addiction started). I became addicted to lust. That means that I don't react to it like a normal person and (when I was not in recovery) I was obsessed with the notion that I could react normally. So despite losing control time and time again, I was still convinced I could control it.

That doesn't exactly answer your question and I will try to, but first let me define lust. "Lust is an attitude demanding that a natural instinct serve unnatural desires". SA White Book.

Rather than me answer the question, let me paste a few pages from the White Book.


Lust
Why in Step One do we say we are powerless over lust
instead of sex? Is not some form of sex what we are addicted
to? Yes, we answer, but our problem is not simply sex, just as
in compulsive overeating the problem is not simply food.
Eating and sex are natural functions; the real problem in both
of these addictions seems to be what we call lust-an attitude
demanding that a natural instinct serve unnatural desires.
When we try to use food or sex to reduce isolation,
loneliness, insecurity, fear, tension, or to cover our emotions,
make us feel alive, help us escape, or satisfy our God hunger,
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we create an unnatural appetite that misuses and abuses the
natural instinct. It is not only more intense than the natural but
becomes something totally different. Eating and sex enter a
different dimension; they possess an unnatural spiritual
component.
The addiction is thus to lust and not merely to the
substance or physical act. Lust-the attitude itself-becomes the
controlling factor in the addiction.
This may be why people exhibit lust in more than one
area. Often, those of us addicted to substances or forms of
behavior discover we are also addicted to negative attitudes
and emotions.
"I remember that when I came off lust, alcohol,
and tranquilizers, resentment burst forth like a
dammed-up volcano. I remember thinking that
controlling lust must be like trying to control a
piece of jello; you press in here and it bulges out
there. Or like trying to rout a gopher; you plug up
one tunnel only to have the beast go to work in
another."
People may not be allergic to food and sex in the sense
some people are allergic to pollen, strawberries, or cats, but
we do become "allergic" to lust for food and sex. Misusing
the natural instinct of sex for an unnatural end over and over
again increasingly sensitizes us to the triggers of that
association, until a simple thought or look elicits the
compulsion.
For the sexaholic, lust is toxic. This is why in recovery,
the real problem is spiritual and not merely physical. This is
why change of attitude is so crucial.
What Is Lust?
A Personal Point of View
It's pretty tough to get a handle on it, but here's what lust
looks like in my life. It's a slave master that wants to control
my sex for its own ends in its own way whenever it wants.
And it's like mental-spiritual noise that distorts and perverts
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sex, much as a raucous radio interference distorts a lovely
melody.
Lust is not sex, and it is not physical. It seems to be a
screen of self-indulgent fantasy separating me from realityeither
the reality of my own person in sex with myself or the
reality of my spouse. It works the same way whether with a
girlfriend, a prostitute, or my wife. It thus negates identity,
either mine or the other person's, and is anti-real, working
against my own reality, working against me.
I can't have true union with my wife while lust is active
because she as a person really doesn't matter; she's even in the
way; she's merely the sexual instrument. And I can't have true
union within myself while I'm splitting myself having sex
with myself. That fantasy partner I've conjured up in my mind
is really part of me! With lust, the sex act is not the result of
personal union; sex doesn't flow from that union. Sex
energized by lust makes true union impossible.
The nature of the lust-noise interference I superimpose
over sex can be many things: memories, fantasies ranging
from the erotic to revenge or even violence. Or, it can be the
mental image of a single fetish or of some other person. Seen
in this light, lust can exist apart from sex. Indeed, there are
those who say they are obsessed with lust who can no longer
have sex. I see my lust as a force that apparently infuses and
distorts my other instincts as well: eating, drinking, working,
anger.... I know I have a lust to resent; it seems as strong as
sexual lust ever was.
In my experience, lust is not physical; it is not even strong
sexual desire. It seems to be a spiritual force that distorts my
instincts; and whenever let loose in one area, seems to want to
infect other areas as well. And being nonsexual, lust crosses
all lines, including gender. When energized by lust, my sexual
fantasies or acting out can go in any direction, shaped by
whatever I experience. Thus, the more I indulge in sexual lust,
the less truly sexual I become.
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Therefore, my basic problem as a recovering sexaholic
is to live free from my lust. When I entertain it in any
form, sooner or later it tries to express itself in every form.
And lust becomes the indicator of not only what I do, but
what I am.
But there is great hope here. By surrendering lust and its
acting out each time I'm tempted by it, and then experiencing
God's life-giving deliverance from its power, recovery and
healing are taking place, and wholeness is being restored-true
union within myself first, then with others and the Source of
my life.
Lust Is ....
Not being able to say no
Constantly being in dangerous sexual situations
Turning my head as if sex-starved all the time
Attraction only to beautiful people Erotic fantasies
Use of erotic media
Being addicted to the partner as I would be to a drug
Losing my identity in the partner
Obsession with the romantic-going for the "chemistry" The
desire to make the other person lust
Another Personal Perspective
Lust Kills. Lust is the most important thing in my life; it takes
priority over me.
Captive to lust, I cannot be myself.
Lust makes me its slave; it kills my freedom; it kills me.
Lust always wants more; lust creates more lust.
Lust is jealous; it wants to possess me.
Lust makes me self-obsessed; it drives me into myself.
Lust makes sex impossible without lust.
Lust destroys the ability to love; it kills love.
Lust destroys the ability to receive love; it kills me
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Lust creates guilt-unavoidably; and guilt has to be expiated.
Lust makes part of me want to die because I can't bear what
I'm doing to myself and my powerlessness over it.
Increasingly, I direct this guilt and self-hatred inward and
outward.
Lust is destructive to me and those around me.
Lust kills the spirit; my spirit is me. Lust kills me!

Thank you Serenity. You're the best!!

Rav Butterfly,

Please allow me to share my own expeirnece, I can only discuss my problem in the hope that maybe someonelse shares my probelms and both him & I can be helped. Others don't share my problem and so they may feel differnetly and I respect that.

In my case, I was not depressed, lonely, desparate or anything of that sort. I simply grew up in a televison home where magazines of pretty women were all over the house. I started dosing on lust just like a kid tests cigareets. Not because of depression or despair or lonliness, rather because why not it looks cool. The more I go into it the more I continued and developed a test. After all its addictive. Now its hard for me to falll asleep without my dose of lust jsut like an aadcited ciagreete smoker needs his cigareets. A smoker always wants more and is never satsfied with just one a day. A luster always wants more and more. I always takes things one notch above the prior one.

Now to the crux of your question, at first I said ok no porn but I can still masterbate. After all porn is far worse. But there is a big problem with that approach. Lust is a beast. The day after I masterbate I itch a little more. My mind is constantly on the itch and thinkng about women. I sit all day fighting my mind not to view porn. But on days when I don't masterbate the night before, my itch levels are far lower. So my mind doesn't have to battle the notion of porn all day.

The differnece between porn & lust is that pron is the outcome of a more stronger inner desire.

Re how am i not suppose to lust. Thats a hard question. I share your battles. I try to make gedorim and build fences. I try to see what are my triggers. if i got to store XYZ will i see lots of pretty women there? If yes can I avoid it? If I masterbate at nite aside from the negativity of the moment how will that affect my next day? Its about planning ahead and being on my toes. Re business, that a tough one. I thank hashem that I have a minimum amount of interaction on a daily basis. Hatzlocha. And rembember Rome wasn't built over one nite!

Bump.

I think the only way you'll be able to know what lust is, is if you stay away from it for a while. I find that when I look at porn, every woman becomes a sex object and then I lust after them. When I don't look at porn, I can usually be around attractive women and not feel triggered.  I also think it's normal and healthy to be attracted to women, so I don't think the goal is to kill that drive, rather it needs to be channelled correctly, which probably only can be done with Hashem's help.  Hatzlocha, may Hashem help you with your shemiras einayim!