I had a relapse today. It started yesterday when I was driving and I decided to take a different route in order to fill up gas. On the way, I made a wrong turn and I saw a strip club in the distance and I decided to drive by it. This got my adrenaline running pretty high. Throughout the day, I felt the urges popping into my mind, I tried calling a friend and my sponsor but none of them picked up. I started looking for websites that I can find people to meet with with, but my intent was to look for females that might be available. I was about to go further but suddenly my sponsor called me and we spoke it through and the lustful feeling dissipated from my mind. Later in the evening my wife went out shopping and I spent my time on the GYE and I chatted with some other users and I watched some recovery related video clips. Today I had a call with a young woman and I looked her up and she was very pretty and she sounded very nice on the phone. After the call I started looking on websites. I spent a few hours throughout the day, researching ways to act out. I acted out and I just wanted to get the heck out of there as fast as possible. I was taking so much risk, I even have a friend who lives on the same block of the person that I went to see. I am not even sure anymore what I want to get out of these experiences, is it the sex? The adrenaline rush?  

I was making so much progress, I started doing a daily shiur, I started davening longer every day, now I just feel like a major hypocrite. 

hi eli613,i really feel for you about your big fall,whatever you do ,dont give up!believe it or not , the thing that you find yourelf falling in, is the thing that you have the most potential to be pure in,like Reb Tzodek ztl,writes. i dont know what to advise  you on your next steps , ill leave it to the experts here or where ever help will come from.just one thing,the vilna goan ztl  was once put into jail because he had a hand in rescueing a jewish boy from a monastary,while he was there a guard who had foraken yidishkiet for another religion was watching him , the guard took a drink and the vilna goan said ,make a beracha!the guard laughed and said i am over -desecrate  the whole Torah, and your telling me to make a beracha?! ha ha!,the vilna goan said to him achav melech yisroel is going to face judgement on a certain halacha, and you are going to have to face judgement ON THE WHOLE TORAH!!when the guard heard the even though he left yidishkiet Hashem still demanded Torah and Mitzvos from him, YISROEL ,AF AL PI SHECHATA ,YISROEL HU!! the guard broke down and cried and returned to yidishkiet.
all i want to tell you is get help,but never ever think how can i put on tefilin, daven , learn Torah, make zeman krias shema,i know that youll always stay a yid but im afraid of your guilty hypocritical feelings, you have a right and a chiyuv to do Torah and Mitzvos like any other jew!but please get help, youre putting alot of things in danger  as you yourself said,same block as your friend etc. you have your marriage,reputation, and health at risk ! chazak!!chazak!! hoping to hear good news soon!

Well done for not hitting that strip club, brother.
Sometimes sponsors phone in the nick of time, other times they don't.
Are we hypocrites or just sick? Who cares, God loves us still. 
Is the progress the daily shiur or the longer davening? sounds to me the progress was phoning a sponsor, reaching out. That's big. Keep on reaching out; I admire you.

I just thought that because I was working the program and I now had a sponsor and I claimed some nice strides of sobriety that I would be in a safer zone. So, I started adding things on to my daily practice of yidihskeit and I still want to add more, I want to be a respectful earnest Jew. I just feel soo hypocritical, if I can fall so low what is the point of doing all these other things? I just feel like I should focus first on my recovery, I don't know if these other things are helping, not helping, or makes no difference. But either way, it makes me feel very hypocritical.  

I just read the below post in the GYE email and I am in tears, I am daven to hashem that he will help me get out of my mitzrayim, for once and for all. "the Me'or Einayim goes on to explain that this is what differentiates the "nekudah" between Jew and non-Jew. Even when a Jew is on the same level as the non-Jew and is entrenched in the lowest sins, he still wants and believes that he will leave Mitzrayim some day. He wants to leave. He believes that Hashem can and will take him out."

From a religious point of view you definitely should continue growing. Torah and tefilla have the ability to help you as the Gemara says. However anyone on GYE will tell you that we addicts must do other practical things to stop. Listen to the phone conference go to SA meetings. 
On a practical level expanding your horizons is good. If you only focus on this struggle you might just go in circles making yourself crazy, at least that’s what it’s like for me, so my therapist suggested I focus ALSO on other things and hobbies. 
Just think about the time your sponsor spoke and how you thought at that moment. Write it out and save it and read it daily. 

Thank you for your feedback. I feel like I have been out in the ocean facing these huge waves that just kept getting bigger, so I finally just gave up and let it swallow me up and it shoved me all the way back to the beach. Now, I just started to get my feet wet again and the waves are pretty small, but I am hoping that when I get deep in the water and the waves seem unbearable, I will be able to use the tools of recovery to survive them. 

ieeyc wrote on 23 Mar 2018 08:02:

                                                                      

eli613 wrote on 27 Mar 2018 04:46:

On one of the earlier seasons of "Survivor" there was a challenge and the tribe was asked a series of questions. One of the questions was, "How best do you survive a shark attack?" And he gave the options to choose from, "Swim away from it", "punch it in the nose", "Stay completely still", "Don't get in the water", "etc etc" and I was wracking my brain, trying to bring up articles I'd read on the topic, what best stuns a shark or something. Then when Jeff finally gave the answer he said, smugly,
"The smart alec wins here. It's 'Don't get in the water' ".
And that's stuck with me.
So I ask, why are you swimming in the first place?

I was trying to think of a good come back for this but than it really got me thinking, what causes me to go swimming with the sharks? It seems like all is fine now, as it has been less than two weeks since my last acting out episode, but eventually the shame wares off and I am much more vulnerable, I guess not going in the water means really staying away from middle circle and focusing on recovery by going to meetings and working on recovery on a daily basis. 

i had a major fall today as well. i feel like all hope is lost

hey jdac,cheer up!  i know you fell after 1 year,hey,i fell after 11 clean years  ,if im not letting myself give up, im not letting you give up! CHAZAK CHAZAK!

Dear Eli,
1) You are neither a failure nor a hypocrite. Every time that you don't act out is a tremendous victory! Every time that you are faced with a strong challenge, and you fight it off (even if in the long run you succumb) is also a win! These wins can never be taken away from you! They are yours to keep, to cherish, and to strengthen yourself with, when things get tough. If you had 100 diamonds in your pocket, and some of them starting falling out of a hole, would it be hypocritical to close the hole? Would you say, since i already lost 20, who cared about the rest!? Every Mitzvah that you do has a tremendous impact on the entire world! Don't stop just because you messed up somewhere else! Keep going to the shiur, and keep davening longer. Hashem still wants to hear from you!
2) Filter! You should not have been able to access the websites that you described! Ask around for the best filter that suits your needs, but it should be something that you can't de-activate or override. Sorry if this comes across as harsh. But i have found in my own struggles, that until i did get a filter, it was liking fighting with one hand tied behind my back. As much as possible, remove access to all areas that you struggle with.
3) I found the following idea to be very helpful. Dedicate your struggle to someone else. Perhaps you have a friend or family member who can't really make ends meet, or needs a רפואה שלימה, or a shiduch. Say to yourself, that I will not.....(fill in the blank) and in that merit so and so should....(fill in the blank.) A few years back when missiles were coming from Gaza (I live in Israel), i was able to keep clean for a few weeks by telling myself that in the merit of my staying clean, everyone in Israel should be kept safe from harm.

All the best to you!