Hi Friends,

I have been browsing this site for a few months and I can only say how much I would have loved for this site to have existed 30 years ago. Oy! How I could have used this site!!

While I have only yesterday registered, merely browsing through the forums, has, in-of-itself, served for me as a tremendous form of "getting out of isolation", and I cannot even begin to explain how enormously helpful this has been for me.

A little about myself and my struggles with this inyan.

I am a 47 year-old married “yeshivish” father.

Phase 1
When I was a young boy of 11 until about 17, I had “mast….” regularly every night and sometimes numerous times.  These were very difficult years for me. I was not an easy child and suffered from on-going, daily, violence and heavy physical abuse from my parents. 

Phase 2
From about age 17 until 21, the “mast….” was joined with “P” and I struggled with huge “shmiras anayim” issues.

Phase 3
At 20, my life “crashed”. To protect my anonymity, I do not feel comfortable giving details. At age 24, after a few years of enormously hard work and tremendous Siyata d’Shmaya, Hashem gave me a new lease on life, and for the last 23 years, other than the struggle in this inyan, I have, for the most part, led a successful life in both the gashmiyus and ruchniyus spheres. 

Phase 4
Beginning about age 23, my daily enormous “shmiras anayim” struggles continuously improved until it reached, what can be considered, “normal”.

The P&M trigger for me is not daily but rather comes when confronted with life's many crises. In other words, I can go for literally many, many months or even a few years without P&M, but then suddenly, when finding myself in some difficult situation and feel very vulnerable or insecure, I would instantly “act out”. I would suddenly go off the deep end. And not simply view porn on the internet. Immediately afterwards, I would be back to my regular self and not really accept the reality of what I did. I would simply try to forget about it.

Phase 5 – In Progress
I am tired of phase 4. No more. Not after I have learnt so much from your site these months. I understand now, that I have conditioned myself – beginning way back when I was 11 – to “medicate my feelings” through "mast..." way before I even knew what it was that I was doing. It has become part of my wiring.

That's it. I have had enough.

Today
I have not “acted out” for close to a year, but today’s earth quake was a huge shake-up for me and it this which prompted me to finally “join” the forum. Boruch Hashem, because of my reading the material on your site these last few months, I was able to recognize the trigger. The truth is that simply having the ability to recognize the trigger is itself very helpful. I am not caught off guard. This awareness affords me the opportunity to handle my feelings in a healthy way rather than instantly going off the deep end.

To the people in charge of GYE: I am mekaneh you. Your schar is enormous! May Hashem bentsh you with all good!

Welcome aboard! You are already on the way up!

Keep On Trucking^TM (I'm sure you know what that means already)

Gevura!

Much Success!!!!!!!!

hi there.
i just joined this week also, and i feel like i have finally found people who can understand me and what im going through.

you are not alone in this.
May Hashem give you so much brochah!

Welcome to this holy place.I had the same feeling when I found this site. As soon as I realized that I was using mas.. As a way to medicate my feelings I was able to focus on working on those feelings without the need to medicate. But we cannot rest on our laurels as I unfortunatley learnt about a year ago. I was filled with tremendous RID which caused me to fall off the deep end. So the yetzer horo is always waiting to pounce.continued hatzlacha.
maalin

how many of us say "Rocka haAretz al Hamoyim" everyday without a second thought, to the point of it being a bracha l'vatala.  Do we think, every day, and express our sincere gratitude to H" that something as simple as the earth below our feet, is such an awesome kindness?  And to think every day we don't act out, is like there has been no earthquake, the land is stable.  we can function. 

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!

Welcome my friend!  It's great to have you aboard!

wow another person like me although im a drop younger it seems when im insecure or just lonly i start to act out i can push off for so long but it allways comes back how do i change this trigger in insecure situations if u have ideas please pass them on