Hi All

thanks for the inspirational and powerful website.

i have tried many routes to recovery including seeing a psychologist and hypnotherapist but with little real progress. i generally manage about 2-3 weeks clean before falling again. i am looking into the SA option. my local group is Golders Green.

has anyone had experience with SA generally and specifically the Golders Green group. the administrator of that group told me that there are frum people who attend.

i am extremely nervous of taking the step into an SA group and particularly one where i may meet other frum guys.

any guidance or advice is appreciated.

thanks

giboir

welcome giboir. Just the fact yourentertaining the idea says so much about how much your willing to do to get passed this monster.

Now the way i see it. if there are other frum guys there, so what?? They see you you see them. You can either get disgustd from eachother or you cn actually help eachother. So when you go, just walk over to the guys and let them know we are in this together lets get out of it too together. its always easier with friends on your side. esepecially when those friends understand you so well.

Whatever it is hatzlacha !!

Welcome Giboir!

Dov is sober in SA for over 10 years. He once wrote:

The 12-Step program way of looking at the whole business is actually different than what we are used to.
It is even different from what normal people without these problems are used to.
The program is not about answering questions to beat the desire.
It is not an answer to the problem, at all. It does not make one "stronger", at all.
It is about changing myself and the way I think so that I do not have the problem in the first place.
This is done by the steps and by being part of a group of other people with the same problem getting better the same way.
It would not work at all if it was done under the instruction of a teacher or Rav, or shrink, because it is about being together with folks who know you because they are the same as you are in this respect.
Looking at it as a "struggle", I find useless and poisonous for me. To struggle, for me, implies that I can beat it if I only try hard enough and that is how I got so messed up  in the first place.

I got this messed up my way.
Now it is time to do things a different  way.
Because I finally became ready for things to be different.
And yes, the solution is not "long term", but neither is your kabolas ohl malchus shomayim. You can only be mekabel it for today, right? Can you eat for tomorrow? Can you go to the bathroom extra today, so you will not need to go tomorrow? No. In the same way a person can "commit" himself to keeping the Torah/mekabel the ohl forever, but his commitment is actually hevel. You cannot guarantee that you will keep it tomorrow. It says "hayom" in the Kriyas sh'ma, no? It's really really new, each day.

This is how the program's solution works, for me. This is all it means when we say, "One day at a time."

When we get honest about our limitations, like "we are sober only for today," it's not because it is too hard to do a week or a year. It is not about willpower at all! It's because it is just the truth: we are only sober one day at a time, and that is our only business.  Not tomorrow. Focus on tomorrow's sobriety is more shtuyot.
We get honest with ourselves and with others like us, to make it all more real to us. And that is the first step.

If you want to know a lot about the 12 steps I suggest reading the books called "the SA white book", and the book called "Alcoholics Anonymous". (linked on this page)

But what worked for me was not reading or studying. It was attending SA meetings, spending time with other people  with my type of problem who were getting better, and actually following the directions of the steps to the letter.

Thank-you for your patience with me. It takes me a long time to say things, sorry.

- Dov

Dear Giboir,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

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

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum 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.

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!

If you knew it was your only was out, would you still not be willing to do it if it meant other frum guys seeing you?
What's worse, staying with this forever - or dropping with some uncomfortable situations on the way?
Besides, they will be just as uncomfortable as you - which ironically makes it more bearable for the both of yous.

Giboir?? You there?? How ya doin mate??

Hi

Thanks for checking up on me.

I was away from home and spent three nights alone in a hotel room. B'H, with the help of this website I managed to stay totally clean. I'm on 17 days clean and i am aiming for the full 90 days and more!  My current record is 21 days.

Ironically, things are tougher at home than when i'm away. My wife turns me on but then she doesn't follow up with anything and just sends me away with excuses that she is not feeling well. It's driving me crazy but B'H I'm holding out.

Keep up the good work.

Giboir

Wow!!
The malachim and seraphim are dancing
3 days in a hotel
Yoysh was bardy bad bad bad back in the day

Ashrecha!!!!

Hey I am looking to open a bardys pub in London
Can u be gabbeh??

KEEP ON LORRYING
B

I'm looking forward already and I've got some Chivas Regal to kick things off (I know you americans prefer Bourbon but whisky is the real thing)!

thanks for making me smile. :-)

Giboir

By commission of her majesty the queen
Elizabeth Regina

We hereby commission
A new house of worship and a pub for social drinking

Hereby called Bardys of London

This great house will be manned by Sir Gibor

And hid gabbai sheini will be Lord HabaLitaher

Lchaim!!

Keep on Lorrying!!

Bards, you're a riot. How do you do it?  ;D