Hi Everyone

Iam in the mid 30's Yingerman with 4 Kids BL"H, beautiful wife, dosent look the same as she was in her 20's, This is the first time iam trying this, i am so addicted that i cant work, everytime i am alone in the office i go straight to porn, i go to the mikvah the next day and promise myself that this was the last time, 2 days goes by and a fall thru again, at night as soon as my wife falls asleep, i start looking at porn till 3-4 in the morning, i have tried different filters it helped for a week, then i reformated my computer to erase the filters and started again, how can i stop its ruining my life, every time i have a spare minute i do it again, i try not to mzl but once a week i cant help it anymore and do it again. since iam a bucher i have looked at magazines everytime i had a chance, i really want to stop for good, so i came here. to see if anybody can give me some advise or chizuk, and i hope hashem is going to be me mochel after mzl so many years.

Dear Teshuvah,

Boy does your story sound familiar...

Welcome to our community, you have finally come home!

We're all in the same boat here. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama   Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up with them!

GYE Program in a Nutshell: (Right Click the link and press "Save Link/Target As" to save the PDF file to your computer).

'Guard Your Eyes' offers a unique approach to helping people by recognizing that there are many different levels in the struggle for "Shmiras Ainayim" and "Shmiras Habris". After studying the experience of hundreds of religious strugglers over the past few years, we put together the suggestions and recommendations that we feel are best for the various levels. We divided the tools, features and services that GYE offers into 8 different levels. This "GYE Program in a Nutshell can help people quickly identify at what level of the struggle they are at, and which tools and features would help them most at their particular level.

Here are some quick things you can do to help you jump straight into recovery:

1) 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 also highly advise installing "Reporting Software" such as webchaver.org to give you some accountability, because filters alone are usually not sufficient and they can often be bypassed.

2) Join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day.

3) 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.

4) 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!

5) GuardYourEyes also offers many free anonymous phone conferences where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See www.guardyoureyes.org > Tools > Phone Conferences for many different options. Our conferences are taking place every day, morning, noon and night… Joining a phone group 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 the daily call will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

6) If you need more general guidance, write to our e-mail helpline at gye.help@gmail.com or call our hotline at 646-600-8100.

7) Download and read the "Guard Your Eyes Handbook". This handbook outlines the GYE approach in detail, and makes our network much more effective and helpful for people. The handbook has two parts:

A) The first part, "Attitude & Perspective", 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…

The second part, "The 18 Tools", detail 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. 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!

May Hashem be with you!

Elazar ben Durdayah

Welcome your in the right place read the hand book well, your story is a common one and don't worry you make a complete turn around if that is your rozen. You got to get a filter AND web chaver or else there is nothing to start with you have access you will fall.

hi  teshuvah it is so amazing of you that you are reaching out like this,and not wanting to just go on.just a few years ago i was in a similar spot and my heart goes out for you. I was an addict for 18yrs.I seem like the ultimate yeshivah youngerman but  inside i was a mess.I would have porn binges  and spend any money to satisfy my cravings.There are 2 things that helped me.One is to schedule an apointment with  a therapist,before you do anything it is important to get a professional opinion of what is going on they have training and great experience  .The second thing which saved my marriage,is to go to a trusted rav or  rebbi and tell him what is going on in your life.It is hard  but it can take a load off your shoulders that will help you so much.

mechazek wrote on 12 Jun 2011 21:53:


of course a trusted rebbe is important
but be very careful due to the lack of knowledge in these areas most rabbis mishandle them
go to rabbis and/or therapists that are really familiar specifically about sex addiction

welcome tshuva!
you came to the right place!
you will have much hatzlacha here!

Forget completely about whether Hashem will be mochel you - that is His business and His business only, and always will be. Your business is, as you said it so well, not to keep on throwing your life away. This does not get better by itself - it only gets worse. He has a tremendous nachas Ruach from every drop of anything good you do even if it is very, very imperfect. So get on with living better now, that's all that matters, period.

What you have been trying before was everything that has not worked for you. It's obviously time you tried something else and you seem to agree. Ashrecha. Your post was a fantastic start, because it is diametrically different than anything you have tried before.

Until now, you have tried to hide your problem as much as possible so that you will be able to really focus on fighting it without distractions of other people making you tzorress. Am I right? Isn't that what we feel inside at the time, while we fight our "yetzer horas" tooth and nail? For years and years...And the secrets just grow, and the burden of maintaining a double life becomes bigger than we are and starts to take up all the oxygen in the room.

You know what I mean about hiding, for I remember all those secret rendezvous with my fantasy women on the bathroom floor on my knees, sneaking out of class for some fun with more private porn, or secretly meeting some other lost soul for some fun - very secretly, of course. Like James Bond...debonair indeed.
 
Of course, keeping our precious (and it is surely precious to us) porn and masturbation as secret as possible is really just that - protecting it. Secrecy (we feel like it's "privacy" at the time) is actually the single most powerful preservative for our acting out adventures and for maintaining that whole lifestyle. It's stronger than our desire itself! So we cannot let go of it until we let the cat out of the bag and start to get honest with others about it. The more safe people we get honest with, the easier it generally is to let it go and stay away from it and the easier it becomes to live. Not because of the humiliation, but because of the humility that living in the truth brings. The awareness of just how childish and stupidly self-absorbed our porning and sex with ourselves (masturbating) is helps us let go of it. It's not a moral thing, and never will be, for addicts. It's about getting right-sized and sane.

You wrote a lot of important things already. Consider taking the next step and continuing this openness. Continue doing the opposite of your habit and you will see some change. Continue doing what you were doing before and you'll get the same exact thing, no matter how sincere and l'Shem Shomayim you are, nothing will change.

Is that useful to you?

hi Tshuvah, welcome
you did a good thing coming here and there are a lot of resources here that you can avail yourself of. read the linked pdf's in the welcome package and browse around the forum. You will see that you are not alone and many have similar stories. There is so much to be gained by having the support of other like-minded people.
wishing you lots of hatzlocha
zs

Hello Tshuva 5771,
Your story is my story and the story of many tortured souls on this forum. Keep posting and reading the replies and you will see changes.

Welcome Reb Tshuvah!
You are now on the path to recovery from this makkoh we all struggle with.  I'm so happy you are here, because now you are embarking upon a proven path to sobriety.  Each of us has found his own way out of this, and you will too.  There's a lot of information here and you do need to read a lot.  Let me make 2 brief points that maybe can give you a jump start.  First, you're not going to fight this Y"H, you're going to turn the fight over to Hashem.  Second, start with shmiras eynayim at all times -- on the street, in the store, magazines, newspapers, etc.  You are always in control of your eyes.  If you see less during the day, you'll be able to resist the temptation better at night.
Hatzlacha.  And keep us posted.  Start with one day.
Alex

Blind Beggar wrote on 13 Jun 2011 17:31:


YES tortured by ourselfs totaly

Thanks very much everybody for your chizuk, today was much harder then yesterday, the day is almost over and b"h iam still clean.

baruch hasehm!
the main goal is to be clean JUST for today, tommorow is a new day that has nothing to do with how i do today. once we start worrying about tommorow and later on, we loose track of today and start to fall.

btw i sent you a PM do you know what that is?

Welcome to the forum.  That's already a good step that you have joined.  Keep on posting.

--Eye.

B"H 4 days past and i am still clean.

I want to know if this is normal, i have a test to pass in about 2 weeks, i keep on thinking that i am holding back, in this zechus i will pass the test, so this gives me a real good push every time i think about sining.

Now here comes the weird part, in the back of my mind i keep on thinking that if i fail the test (C.V.) it means that hashem dosn't love me anyway and i will sin.

can someone tell me if this is normal.