im clean still but barely holding on.in a terrible mood and im surfing for anything triggering cause i have a filter and im that desperate.im having trouble getting hold of myself.i was so good this week.i feel like crying  :'(
where is everybody?

Shalom aliechem my sweet beautiful friend Jerusalem,

I went thru some tough times fighting lust. Here is what worked for me--r u ready?
BUSY BUSY BUSY! !!!!! If I wasn't busy I would bust - to my wife's surprise and delight I was helping her in the house doing all kinds of things around the house to lend a helping hand- another key for me  is the strongest filter possible!!! No way around that! Without a filter I'm a gonner ;(

what about getting a live sponsor? Maybe guard can make a shhiduch 4 u?

With prayers and tremendous respect for hero warrior
I remain you newest friend

Noorah

Dear Uri, It is past 1:30 in the morning and I should be sleeping but I had to write this. Please know that I feel what you are going through right now. Try to relax and rejoice in the fact that you have discovered this site which has the tools to help you acheive lifelong recovery. This does not happen overnight and many of us have fallen c'v and continuedon the journey to complete recovery. Please try to allow this trying moment to pass without falling. However, do not convince yourself that your entire success is contingent opun passing this test. If you put to much pressure on yourself, the YH will use it against you. Please keep me posted on how your day goes and I will try to read every word.

Your new friend,
hoping

bs"d

Hi Uri,

shavua tov!

i am so happy that Shabbes went well, and my heart broke when reading about your motza"sh struggles.
Hopings advice:
"Please try to allow this trying moment to pass without falling"

has helped me many times in all areas of life. I imagine it as a ship on a storming sea... I imagine just sitting still and trying to let it pass. That doesn't mean doing nothing. Noorah's advice of getting "busy busy busy" is priceless. I especially like to workout. After 1 to 2 hours of a good workout (just by myself in the kitchen) the world looks different.

Also now is the Three weeks, the 9 days... sometimes it gets a little heavy around that time of the year.

As i have exactly the same feelings as you concerning the center of town, i just avoid it when walking to the kosel.

I hope you're feeling better, and keep you in my prayers.

thank you very much chl,hoping,noorah.your encouragement and advice is what keeps me going.i really need the chevra right now.
i have been informed that some may have found a few of my posts a little descriptive and potentially triggering.for that i humbly apologize.i find it a little difficult to express my need and desires sometimes without a detail or two.but i understand that i have to be aware of everyone on the site and not be selfish.i hope those i have offended can give me a second chance.
im now starting day 10 of my journey...and my sister is taking the computer from me lol.ill continue this post in a bissle.

Dear Uri, I'm not sure I know how to say this, but it's obvious from your posts that you have a very special Neshamoh and you're on your way to real Gadlus. The y"h will not let you get there without putting up a good fight, but you just got to stick it out.

Within a short time you'll be a totally new person. You will be SO MUCH HAPPIER and the ONLY feeling that you'll feel for those street kids is very sincere pity.

One of the main tricks of the y'h, is to spotlight things that cause stress. He makes a whole lot of noise, like it says וְהָרְשָׁעִים כַּיָּם נִגְרָשׁ כִּי הַשְׁקֵט לֹא יוּכָל -he makes you feel all desperate.

That's what the meraglim did. Thay got all dramatic and made everyone feel extremely desperate. ("Guys we're  dead meat etc.") It works really well -they managed to get everyone to cry the whole night. You have to try to use Kalev's tactic וַיַּהַס כָּלֵב אֶת-הָעָם  Kalev came and said: SHHHH calm down let's be rational, if Hashem got us till here, He'll also get us in to E.Y. But they were so busy crying and screaming that they couldn't even listen to Kalev. And that's the source of the churban that we are now mourning over (אתם בכיתם בכיה של חינם ואני אקבע לכם בכיה לדורות).

Let's learn the lesson and try not to let this trick work on us. Take a deep breath and then another one and a bunch more. Calm yourself down as much as you could and firmly tell the y"h "I'll be just fine, Hashem runs my life and takes very good care of me. I most definitely don't HAVE TO act out"
In fact that can only make things worse. And if I'm feeling stressed then אדרבה this is my oppertunity -given to me as a gift from Hashem Himself- to show my true loyalty to Him, to fulfill the purpose of creation in the truest sense and to merit unfathomable pleasure for each and every second of holding out!"

This is not allways easy to do, but it's well worth working on it. With time and effort, it will get easier and easier.

CHAZAK VE'EMATZ!!!

bs"d

Thanks, battleworn, beautiful post as usual.  may HaShem help us to follow Calev and the Tzaddikim amityim...

on the other side i was thinking (i actually said it out loud to HaShem), why is it that every time somebody messes up or shows a negative mida in Tanach or other sifrey kodesh, i can identify with it??? is there nothing good in me???

Dear chl, it's so important to realize that we are made up of two parts. Our neshomoh which is really our essence is totally good -טהורה היא. Our guf (including the nefesh habihami) which is really only a "levush" (something like what a car is to it's driver) includes in it all the traits of all the nations and all the animals. R' Elchonon Wasserman said that each of us has a whole zoo in him. R' Tvi Meir adds that we also have the whole U.N too (I don't know which one is more dangerous).

If you are fortunate enough to realize that you have these traits and you are fortunate enough that it bothers you then you are in very very good shape.

Every time you fight one of these traits, you are bringing a sacrifice to Hashem that is far more precious in His eyes than any physical sacrifice that was ever offered. This is spelled out very clearly in a quite a few places in Tanach. So when you see in yourself a good fat "Biheima", you should rejoice over the oppertunity offer such a "korbon mehudar" to Hashem!

CHAZAK VE'EMATZ!!!

battleworn wrote on 26 Jul 2009 11:23:


:D :D :D

im on day 11 technically.i say technically becuase i have had a few slips but nonetheless have not done my bottom line acting out.having my need unfulfilled has triggered off a depression that has been with me for the past couple of days.is this wat beating the ytzer hara does for u?ive been trying to daven at the kosel as much as possible becuase for some reason i cant daven anywhere else.but at the kosel i cry every time.i rarely cry,to say the least,so this was surprising at first.but it felt so healing that i returned the next day and the next.i also folded last night and called a girl i have done bad stuff with,but thank G-d her phone was off.Hashem saved me at the last second.thank you G-d.im not sure if everyone here has bad experiences with sexual relationships or jsut p**n and "m" but let me say that if uve never been involved in a sexually illicit relationship,consier yourself very very lucky.very hard to break awa from.anyway,im off to eat lunch,but my best to all the holy warriors on the site.ive noticed its grown so much in the last week alone.keep encouraging pple.Heaven knows we need it-Uri

bs"d

Go Uri! I am so happy that HaShem seems to save you so often! Concerning withdrawal, a lot has been written on this forum, and i am sure people will give you good advice how to hold on during that time. HaShem is with you Uri, he wants you to beat this thing, that's why He saves you at the last second. It's like a parent letting go to see the child walk or climb by itself, and catch it just when it was going to fall. I love when that happens to me.

I once heard a story about a Tzaddik who had an aliyas neshama (or maybe he was niftar, i don't remember exactly). He saw that HaShem and himself were looking at his life, the good and the not so good times. The not so good times looked like a desert with huge dunes, and two sets of footsteps - HaShem's and the Tzaddik's. Then they looked at the times when the Tzaddik was completely desperate. Again it looked like a desert, but this time with only one set of footsteps. The Tzaddik saw that, and thought that HaSHem had abandoned him in this most difficult period of his life. He turned to HaShem, and said to Him, "Where were you?". And HaShem turrns to the Tzaddik and says, "This, my child, was when I was carrying YOU..."

That's how i heard the story, maybe there are other versions... but i get a lot of chizuk from it.

kol tuv!

Uri,
I get nothing but inspiration from your posts. Pure inspiration. Please keep them coming, and please remember that your actions and reports are like dominoes to the Y'H... each one you topple causes many others to get knocked down.
Here I am in the middle of the NYC summer. My family is 108 miles away. I go into the street, more low than the beaches were 50 years ago. What is helping me keep my cool?
Uri!
You are fighting your yH for 11 days already! With so much garbage trying to pull you down. and you don't let yourself down, keep bobbing and popping up and fighting again.
And I should look at a warped lady who in more normal times would be arrested for walking like that?
It makes my fight easy!

Uri, one more note. I learned from R' Guard, the number one thing that I learned from his handbooks, and this site, is that the key to winning this is not self control (hey, that doesn't hurt, but it is not going to work long term), its turning off the lust.

I used to think that 'lusting', as R' G calls it, is natural and unavoidable. Just need to keep working on self control.

But that is a recipe for weariness and inner friction.

The most wonderful thing that this site has taught me, and for which I'll be forever grateful to R' G. and Dov and London and all the rest, is that I do not "have" to lust. I can dodge the lust, rather than the action.

It takes humbleness and honesty and a reliance on Hashem. And a real desire not to lust. But it really happens, and when it does the power and beauty and simplicity is truly amazing.

Uri, my shoes are different than yours, but our neshamos are the same. I can very much relate to how you are feeling. Keep davening your eyes out. Hashem loves us and wants nothing more in this universe than our genuine tears. The Kotzker, who called a spade a spade, would say "there is nothing more whole than a broken heart".  Please keep working at it, and important, keep reviewing the handbooks, especially the 'attitude' handbooks. When we (I mean me and you) succeed in internalizing the attitudes, we will be very happy men!

Chl,

Ive heard the mashal before, but it never ceases to inspire me because it is just so true.

Uri, listen to Kutan. The only 'small' part about him is his ego! What beautiful words from the heart of one brother to another!

Uri- You are on the right track. Just hold on! If you follow some other threads in the forum (mine included) you will find very similar complaints along the way. Just remember, your Sechar is even greater when you don't feel inspired. Hatzlacha!

Uri, Thank you for bringing out so much beautiful Chizuk on the forum. I shared your struggle and battleworn's reply to you in today's Chizuk e-mail to 620 members! There's nothing like a little "darkness" to bring out the most blinding LIGHT (as the Zohar says "there can be no light that doesn't come first through darkness")!

Keep strong, the withdrawal symptoms get a lot easier as you put more distance between you and the addiction. When you reach 90 days, you will start to feel a real freedom, be"h! This is your eternity we're talking about. What's 90 days against that?  :D

Read this PDF file for more about the withdrawal symptoms.