Hi Emunah -

Its good to hear that you are at least battling it. One thing I can say to you is that it is easier to stop now than when you are older. Physically you may be less in control but you are not habitual like you will be when you are 35.

later

ninety

Im only mid twenties but I can say for sure there are certain psychologically damaging lines that once you cross you become an addict. One of them is pinning a lot of hope on marriage and then failing miserably. After a while your mind can't just overpower lust or really fight like normal.

You sound to me that you're not that far into addictville. You really need a nedarim system to fight  against your mind viewing m as an escape and stress reliever. Emunah mentioned taphsic method.basically just make sure that the nedarim are done right with the consequence afterward not the swear off before.

Its actually funny with this whole mo thing because when one really yeshivish rebbe was explaining this mindset of the budding addict he called it a "yeshivishe yetzer hara"
Presumably because of the stereotype that yeshivish people are looked at as" creative" in their shittas and deyos.

Good luck

Welcome my new friend. I do not know if I am MO chradei or chasidish. I do know I am an addict and if I do not have Help from Hashem in this matter I will lose control of my life and it won't matter what brand of orthodoxy I might like to call myself.

As a side note we have at least one observant muslim on the site (that could be MO also :-))

Dov taught me that my struggle is about having a life not about keeping halacha. If we live as out of control addicts then we don't live life period. If we get in recovery we will enjoy life even as a muslim :-).

I did not see anyone add this point so I wanted to share it.

All the best and I love you dearly even if you become breslev.

Your new friend
HY