Agree about going on the offensive. 
First, where does it start? With thoughts, sights, sites, or just urges?
second, is there anything, even something innocent, that coul possibly be part of a trigger?
Third, do you have something else you can focus on? If not, what would you want?

Thanx to all those who reached out to me in emails and pm for support.

I haven't posted in a few weeks cuz I didn't really know what to write, but I decided to just post now anyway.
I've been having a lot of falls recently. As per the advice of Reb HHM (and others who I've spoken to), I'm trying to focus right now more on making sure to not watch porn (which I haven't been doing too well), and to not obsess over falling with masturbating.

I have honestly no clue how I'll ever be able to stop masturbating, but I'm trusting those who have gone through it that the right thing for me to do right now is to let go of the struggle and to not think at all about falling. Until now, I let my successes and failures in keeping clean decide if I will be happy or sad, and whether I will feel accomplished or not. I never let myself put any real energy into working on any other aspect of my life (especially in my avodas Hashem). The only thing that mattered to me was to not masturbate, and when I was successful in that, I would allow myself to be happy and experience life and do something with my life; but when I wasn't successful in keeping clean, I felt like a failure, and I wouldn't have any energy left to put into living life and accomplishing anything in real life. Therefore, what I'm trying to do now (although not in an obsessive way...) is to keep in mind that even though I feel like I can not and never will be able to stop masturbating, there is still a life for me to live. Even if I'm a complete failure in this aspect of my life (I don't actually think that I am a failure, but the fact that I can't break free sometimes makes me feel pretty hopeless), I can still go out and accomplish something with my life. I need to stop letting masturbation take over and be the sole focus of my life, because if I don't, I'm not really living, I'm just dragging myself around waiting for something that'll never happen on it's own to happen, before I let myself start living.

For the past bunch of years I've been masturbating and putting all my energy into trying to stop, and it's a very hard thing to finally, just let go of the struggle which, for years has literally been my whole life. I think that I've been getting better at this, but I still have a long way to go. I really don't know how I can just give up thinking about something which was all I thought about for many years. I guess what I gotta do is just trust those who walked this path before me and follow the advice that helped them to break free.

I had some pretty long stretches of time where I was able to keep my thoughts clean, and I had a positive mindset when I fell (you can look back at some of my earlier posts to see when), but for some reason, now, I'm falling more than ever, and I don't have any clue of a strategy that I can work on that'll help me stay clean in the future, and all the positivity that I had in the past, is just gone.
The fact that even after the times that I did so well, I could be doing so hopeless now, and seem to have forgotten all the ideas that I worked on in the past, kind of makes it pretty clear that I have no control over stopping and it's really a hopeless battle for me to continue fighting. I know that it's not actually hopeless and that many guys who were doing much much worse than me were able to break free, but this is just how I feel, and I do think that there is some truth to the fact that I won't actually stop if I continue doing what I'm doing. Whatever I have been doing until now is clearly not working, and I guess that this is why I gotta just trust the veterans when they tell me what I need to work on. It's hard to accept but I'm trying, and hopefully, with Hashems help I'll be Matzliach, and be a step closer to breaking free.

Yosef Hamevakesh wrote on 28 Mar 2023 04:33:

Hey welcome back, I like your writing/ typing of your thoughts on this matter, I have done similar things like this in the past, it “airs” you out and helps you breath all those feelings and thoughts and eventually try and aim a direction somehow somewhere.

Anyways, as you said there are a lot of people could be way worse, and yet still surpass “this seemingly impossible road”. How? Each with his own ideas. It can happen, it is possible to change. It may be extremely hard but can very well be doable. 

what some “veterans” say may help and some may not.. You can try some mehalechim.. every now and then. Keep at it bhatzlacha!!

You express yourself extremely well for someone who doesn't know what to write and even for someone who does. It sounds like you're a devoted eved Hashem. Everyone only has a limitted capacity to fight and you've been fighting at full capacity, chanelling all that energy into this one area. Now you're trying a new way of being an eved Hashem. You're on the road to 'ubilvad shey'chaven es libam lamakom.'

The path you were on wasn't working for you at this point in time, so now you're trying a different path. Iy'h this will be the one that takes you where you're trying to go. You're not giving up on this thing, not at all. You're being m'vatel your intuition to people with more experience than you and me in the hope of ultimately achieving what you want to achieve. In some ways that's a great sacrifice.

Remember, you're a neshama and a guf. The neshama wants one thing and the guf wants something else. The goal is for the guf to be the servant of the neshama. But it doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes we think if we just yell loud enough at the guf it'll quiet down and listen. And I'm sure there's such a madrega. But for most of us we have to work with the guf. Sometimes that means letting the guf do his thing. In the meantime remember that the part of yourself you really want to identify with is the neshama, and the ultimate plan, "b'akifin," is to bring the guf around too.

I've been pretty busy for the past week so I haven't been having too many urges but whenever I'm not busy, I've been having pretty strong urges. I don't know how I'm gonna keep busy over a 3 day Yom Tov, and I have no more patience left to keep fighting, so I'm not really expecting myself to be able to stay clean, but I'm still gonna keep trying and hopefully I'll pull through.
 As part of me trying to not think at all about keeping clean, I decided that for now, I'm gonna stop keeping track of my streak. Even though I never really put too much attention into my streaks, I think that It'll be easier for me to move on and just forget the falls, when I'm not keeping track of how many days I'm clean for.

In other news, one of my parents recently found out that I at least struggle with porn, and it looks like I'm gonna start speaking to a therapist about this stuff in the near future. Even though it's pretty uncomfortable that someone found out, I guess it's a good thing that now I'm gonna have to start speaking to someone about it. I have absolutely no clue how to work on this going forward and I'm hoping that a therapist will be able to help guide me.

Yosef Hamevakesh wrote on 04 Apr 2023 23:05:

Hey Yosef Hamevakesh,
Sometimes things may be uncomfortable and embarrassing, but the following future of “what’ll be next” arises, will there be a decision to be worked on and help advance yourself or not. Clearly you want to seek therapy, it’s hard to do but will it get you further down the right goal or the opposite?.. One thing although I could be wrong, I wouldn’t view myself as an “addict” with a problem... although when your major a problem that’s how you get it solved. I would use better term like I have a struggling problem as a lot of people with tayvos for girls etc.. Which Hashem placed in me, I need to work on putting gedarim to help advance myself, more and more!

The idea of an addict in porn, drugs, cigarettes... it is very hard to work against it because you have “labeled” yourself and now must push against the grind and work on yourself! As oppose to.. many people have a struggling urge commonly often within the days/weeks and now I must figure out what I can do about it. 
just a change in thought is what I am expressing..
Bhatzlacha Yosef Hamevakesh!!

Hey yosef, I was looking through old threads and noticed you're still online but haven't posted in a while, how are you? Would you want to reach out?