simchastorah wrote on 19 Feb 2023 22:07:

Yes. Although I was only able to understand that in hindsight. Not saying I'm free. I'm Baruch Hashem a healthy male, but that's when the Inyan changed into a more manageable place.

Me: I feel great about having been clean for two weeks!
Yetzer Hara: Great! Lets celebrate with a little masturbation!
Me: But then I'll feel terrible...
Yetzer Hara: No you wont. You only felt terrible when you were a slave, now you're free
Me: First of all, I am not yet free. Second of all the thing itself causes me terrible pain. You are not my friend. You are not wise. You are my enemy, and your advice is terrible.

My friend, you are a real tzadik! you are like the nazir from the south who called out his yetzer hara knowing it was NOT HIMSELF but a foreign enemy talking with his own voice (ayin nazir daf 4...not a shas yid, just looked it up now for the post!!)

Thank you for the divrei chizuk. The other thing in common I have with the nazir from the south is that I need a haircut. Wish I could say I had the good looks too

Yetzer hara: It's really hard for you to resist this urge right now, you should just do it, it'll feel like such a relief after depriving yourself
Me: But then I'll have to admit that I fell to my friends on GYE, that would be really embaressing
Yetzer hara: Why should it be embaressing? They'll still accept you and give you encouragement, you see how people respond when others have a fall
Me: You're right, people would be nice about it. Though there's one person who probably wouldn't be nice about it at all. And that's you. You would make me feel like garbage about it. You're acting like you want whats best for me, to give me relief. But really you're the nastiest one of all. 

I'm having a painful day today. I spoke to a family member about sensitive family dynamics, and I was left feeling quite sad. To cope with the sadness, I smoked marijuana. That left me feeling fuzzy and lethargic, and I didn't get any work done. 
I don't feel so good about myself right now. This is a feeling I often 'treat' with P&M. I have to be extra on guard for attacks. I have to be vigilant in remembering that it will really not help, and make matters only worse.
I think I really need to get off of marijuana as well. It is undeniable that it provides me temporary relief from suffering, but the cost is really high. Maybe in the future I'll make some sort of public commitment over here about not smoking for x days in order to have some sort of accountability.

i am sorry for your pain. sadness can be difficult to fight through. In moments of sadness, i find that healthy physical connection and a good listener to express my feelings work best. I also recommend that you keep a list of goto activities to do when you feel sad (even if you don't feel like it in the moment). Lastly, i rely heavily on music to keep my mood in the right place...

Thinking of you,
vehkam

I just had a wonderful heart-to-heart with a friend who lives in my neighborhood. In the process, we drank quite a nice amount. In my current state, my yetzer harah seems to think that I'm easy prey. 

He's wrong.

simchastorah wrote on 21 Feb 2023 22:11:

I'm so happy you found the things that really helps with sadness. And it's not the bottle that was on the table. It's the having someone sitting at the other end of the table listening to you open your heart. Keep up the good work, my friend. I found that being on this journey helped me a lot in other areas as well, probably by virtue of confidence and peace with oneself that fighting back gives, so I'd venture to say that on your journey here you'll have a great chance to break some other bad habits too. Keep trucking, my holy friend!

100% it's not the bottle, it's the connection. However the bottle helps to open things up a bit. It also helps to give a a geshmake head ache right now. Thanks for the words of encouragement about other areas. I do feel hopeful that being on this journey will help with these other bad habits iy'h.

Gut Chodesh everyone! B'h I'm halfway through my first rosh chodesh without falling in some time!
I'm having some difficulty not fantasizing this morning. An attractive woman came up on my Linkedin
feed, and I clicked to get a better look. This lead me to struggle about my identity, am I a kadosh refraining
from arayos? Or am I a dirty guy? 
Then dropping off my son at gan there were a few attractive women along the way. B'h I didn't gaze at them,
but I felt a very strong urge to fantasize about them. I didn't fantasize b'h, but the urge is still with me.
I need to learn to not be so hard on myself. Yes I clicked on that profile. Yes that's an aveira. But I've
also had a thousand wins in the last 2.5 weeks.

Personally i think you are a kadosh for being in the fight. I know just what you mean about trying to get a better look...it doesnt mean your a dirty guy, it means its a struggle when something pops up in front of you. 

simchastorah wrote on 22 Feb 2023 06:26:

great post.  keep counting the wins!

simchastorah wrote on 22 Feb 2023 06:26:

So beautiful, how honest you can be. The identity crisis is a life-long work. The truth is that "YOU" are your Neshama, and your Neshama wants only to grow, do the right thing,to  cleave to Hashem. And you were given a YH to contend with. HE wants you to get a better look, and he wants you to believe that it's YOU who wants to get a better look. Straight up identity theft. So it's up to us to keep reminding ourselves, we are at war with the YH, and we won't let him fool us into believing that we don't want to change, that we want to do the wrong thing. No, absolutely not. WE are heilige Yidden, and we have the privilege of having Reb Simchas Torah  inspire us, and share his experiences with us. You are amazing, you have so many wins! Can you rename this thread to "Everyday and happiness"?

Thank you Reb Eerie for the divrei chizuk, it really helps. Y'yasher kochacha!
Well put on the yetzer hara performing identity theft. It's mamash such an avoda to find the 
'seam' between the I and the yetzer. Especially after having fallen so many times to the
melech zaken u'ksil, he has put up his flags in many areas of the city. I have to learn to recognize
the flags as foreign. He was 'kovesh' the city but not 'loked'.

I like the idea of renaming the thread to something more positive. Maybe "v'tov lev mishteh tamid"?

I have a challenge this morning, my attractive cleaning lady is here. I have to stay strong not to fantasize.
Tbh honest, I'm not sure if it's ok for her to be here from a yichud standpoint, I never learnt hilchos yichud.
I leave the door unlocked, my wife is in the city (though very unlikely she'll show up), it has happened that
my son showed up unexpectedly but only once. I tried last week to leave my door a bit ajar, but she ended 
up closing it, I'll try again this week.