So as a newbie...  Now what?  Everything on here seems to hinge on the fact that you need to get closer to Hashem.  What if you feel that this is no longer possible?  What if it has been so long that you just don't feel any connection.  Like siblings reunited after 75 years apart - it's a nice story but their lives are so different that they can never be 'close'. 

In yeshiva, the answer to everything was always: "Learn and Daven.  That will take away your problems".  Well, it didn't.  Now learning and davening has become the most unpleasant chore.  I don't enjoy it (I don't think I ever did).  It is just something that I have to do and if I somehow can get away without it, that's fine too.

Does that mean there is no hope?

Beamer,
Welcome to the chevra.
There are many different mehalechs here.
Some are more focused on staying sober.
Some on connecting to life more.
Some on connecting to Hashem more.
The ideal should be to attain all 3.
Find whatever tools work for you and use them.

I can share my story a bit here cause I think we are similiar a bit in where we are coming from.
I went to one of the most prestigious yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael.
I was one of the top bochurim in my year and was admired by rebbeim and friends alike.
But I could not stop masturbating and falling here and there and going to places i shouldn't have been going to and sleeping with girls I should not have slept with.
Every time I fell i just reinforced my determination to stay clean and grow and focus on only learning and davening.I was sure that if I just became a "complete real masmid" then I would be happy with myself and not be depressed anymore and not have to go sin.
So I shteiged away for months.And I became steadily more and more depressed till once again I hit rock bottom.I was so depressed I almost killed myself.I went out,found a girl,and sinned.
And that's where I stayed.I left my yeshiva.I was nobody now.I could't learn nothing.
I knew now finally that the answer was not in learning and davening.
I was messed up.And I needed help.
After months of intense therapy,my addiction was revealed (yes it took that long).
I was desperate for love and security,and i "found" it in sex.
Now I work in a sefarim store,and learn when I can.I am going to college,and my emuna and bitachon get stronger all the time.I am in intense therapy and have changed in ways i never would've dreamed imaginable.And im a bunch of months without sex and pretty much over it.And mas** much less.
And much much happier and in touch with life and people than before i can remember.
We addicts usually have a messed up view of life,and usually a messed up childhood.
Those problems need to be addressed.
Until then,you can learn as much as Rav Elyashiv.
But that won't change nothin.
Stick with us.
We've been there,and countless people have healed through this forum of some of the bravest warriors this world has ever seen.
Kol tuv
-uri

Welcome, Beamer.

You're here and you want to get better.

Of course there's hope.

Dear Beamer,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community!

We are dealing here with an addiction, which is a disease on many levels; physical, emotional and spiritual. See this article where Rabbi Twerski explains to someone who had gone off the derech from this issue, how a person can get addicted to this stuff from a single use!

On GYE we fully agree that davening and learning are not the solution to this disease - in the same way that davening and learning won't heal a broken leg. Often we are like someone riding an 18-wheeler tractor trailer of spirituality, while we continue to act out on our addiction and our lives are out of control. Instead, we need to get off the tractor trailer and get onto a tricycle, simple, slow, safe and REAL. We need to learn again the ABC's of what it means to be a "sane" human being. This you can learn by joining some of the 12-Step phone conferences or by joining a live SA group in your area. (See Dov's story here for a clear example of what I am talking about). Once you have been here for a while and learn the secrets to finding freedom from this addiction, you may be surprised to find that your natural "soul-connection" with Hashem has become much stronger - without you even noticing it. You may find that davening and learning will take on a whole new meaning. It may and it may not. But continuing with the addiction surely won't improve that, and it will only take us down a dark road of pain and suffering...

GuardYourEyes offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps - which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here...

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best - and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"... See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information...

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk & new perspective and therapy tips - every day.

And post away on this forum. You will get tons of strength and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

Yeah...
beamer, Uri's right. Forget about Chet. Think about sobriety. Forget about being a sinner. Think about being an addict. Think about an illness. Illness has cures, not guilt. Not "if I really could chap what gehenom was i would stop duch d'su ich mein if I fashteyed really what the masgiach said ...". Nope.

You don't heal gangrene in your foot with a mesilas yesharim. You don't remove brain cancer with lomdus. You don't go to your Rosh Yeshiva for a throat culture ( mind you, may have eitzos along these lines or would hook you up with therapists etc. I mean the classic Rosh Yeshiva response).

I remember a Masgiach who was meyatz b'rabbim - people are nichshal in zerah levatalah because they don't know hilchos shabbos and someone who is nichshal should learn hilchos shabbos!

Moron.

You go to a doctor. You do what works. And when you're healthy, you go back to the Beis HaMedrash (never, of course, forgetting periodic appoints to the Docs office, but that's a different story) refreshed and alive.

The "Doctors" are addiction specialist - the forum, the handbooks, the 12 step people, therapists - we'll help you through it and hook you up - and yes, these all exist in Yerushalyim, Brooklyn, Lakewood, Monsey -  or any frum community and how!

Welcome to the clinic.

Ditto everything uri and kanesher said.
Also very important ; your focus cant be on getting closer to Hashem. Not to say this isnt important. Its very important more important than anything else. But its not the focus. It wont get you anywhere like youve proven to yourself over and over. Our focus has to be on our sickness. Its not any different than being physically sick. You cant daven good you cant learn good so you say to yourself let me get better so i can do those things. Ok same here. Lets focus on our sickness. Lets focus on our healing. Lets focus on  what we need to do now. And then all the other things will fall into place. Then youll feel closer to Hashem by default. Anyways kuddos on your choice for joining this great website and hatzlacha on your journey. Stay with us and youll get there.

Beamer,

welcome to the family.
I cant add much to the wise words already posted, but I can add my haskama to them.

Ask Rage; Im one of this sites biggest 'flakes';
Hashem is my best friend and constant companion.

But this isnt something you get without hard work.
And not hard work IN the Beis Medrash.
Hard work OUT of it.
Hard work getting to understand yourself,
to accept your abilities and limitations
Hard work letting go.

But once you do; the even shamayim cant stop you!

This is so difficult.  Almost like 2 separate people.  You know? 

we know

2 separate people

the good one is the real one

get to know him

he's very special

ya - that's what I am talking about.  25 years is 25 years too long.  You kind of want to tell your Rabbi but you kind of don't.  Complicated.

Rage ATM wrote on 17 Nov 2009 21:09:


I am not sure I agree with the "mussar drivel" attitude.  I think that there needs to be a spiritual aspect of the battle somehow.  I am not at that point unfortunately, but that is due to the issues that I have. 

beamer wrote on 18 Nov 2009 12:30:


Dont mind Rage, Beamer; he has a heart of gold and a toughy attitude to hide it. Worked in the bginning, but then we wised up to him.
You are both correct; addiction is an illness in need of a specialist  who can help you cut away the festering wound.
The Rav can help you sooth the process with sweet medicine called Torah.
But dont fall into the trap of drugging yourself with limud to the point that you forget to deal with the source of the illness.
Hashem is very much part of addiction. After all, "let go and let G-d", the addicts quote, reminds us that Hashem is the source of everything, including addiction, and He will be the one to remove this nisayon too.
B'ezras hashem soon!