So you will really be bringing down lichtigkeit l'mata mei'asara tefachim...

This story is an expression of your desire for living the positive life , choosing the benefits of Shmiras Enayim not as a determination to avoid negativity, but because life is so much more meaningful and joyous this way. Please share with us other benefits you are experiencing…

youre an inspiration. Thank you . 
Keep Shteiging!! 

My friend, you make me cry. So beautiful!
I hope you let your tears flow freely, and you use the emotional moment to talk to Hashem, to ask of Him to stand by you, to hold your hand, to keep you strong, to protect your family, and to help all of those who so desperately want to be free, whether they recognize it or not.
And I hope your wife DOES ask you! And share with her that you are crying from happiness for all you have, you don't have to tell her details, just say "and chiefly, I'm happy because I have you!". And then tell her about Chanuka, the pach shemen Tahor, and how you worry about your family, and you hope and pray at this auspicious time that they all find the strength to pass the nisyoinois of thechnology
In much admiration,
Eerie

Dude you're a rockstar! So happy for you!!!!!

Amazing, I'm so happy for you and how far you've come along this journey. 

Over the past few months, I had the opportunity twice to meet with a fellow gye member. I saw in the eyes of these two wonderful yidden the fire that was burning within, and it ignited a spark inside of me. I saw in their eyes the excitement and the happiness of living a life without porn and masturbation and something spilled over to me.

Today, I met with a yid. This yid was similar in age to me, and has similar struggles as me. We live near each other, and we have similar daily schedules. I saw in his eyes the yearning to break free, yet I also saw in his eyes the pain from struggling and fighting for so many years. I felt his pain and I felt his struggles. They are all too familiar to me. I hope I was able to pass on the fire I received, and I hope I ignited a spark inside of him. I hope I was able to properly give him chizzuk and offering him support as a friend.

iwannalivereal wrote on 06 Dec 2023 19:53:

Where’s the ❤️ emoji??

Markz wrote on 06 Dec 2023 20:52:

Devarim hayotzim min ♥️ nichnasim el ♥️

It's hard to overstate the power that is connection.
You're a Koach. 
You're mamash ah fire 

Baruch Shehechaynu Lazman Hazeh

Thursday was my 90th day clean!

In all honesty it feels really weird. Me? 90 days? No porn? No masturbation? I didn't think I'd be 90 days without porn or masturbation till I was 90 days in the kever. I'm pretty certain that I had good reason to think this way too... After all, I struggled for 15 years and I really tried hard to stop and yet nothing worked. Not the various tools I worked on, not the 3 different Rabbonim that I'd spoken to and not the 2 therapists that I went to. At some point I just gave up. I didn't give up on life or get depressed about it, rather I just accepted my fate that I will forever live with this cycle of porn and masturbation, and yea my acting out might very likely get worse, might bring me to bad places and bad people. It might get me divorced, it might be the end of me, but - that's life. Sometimes things happen that are just out of my control. And so I continued with porn and masturbation... enjoying it while waiting and watching how life might crumble around me. Oh well...

So... it seems I was wrong, and here I am 90 days into this amazing journey! For me, the main excitement of 90 days is not "the streak" of it, rather the excitement of a new life that began 90 days ago. 90 days ago I started a new journey, with a new understanding of life, and a new understanding of my struggles. I have learned how to appreciate this struggle for what there is to gain from it. I have learned how to work on motivation, and instead of wishing that porn would be muttar, I now am able to appreciate living without porn. I have learned how to deal with an urge, and I have learned how to overcome that crazy draw and desire. To me, this is the accomplishment of 90 days. Having a streak is a "nice bonus" but what really makes me excited is living real, and living free. Living with the knowledge that I can overcome my struggle, and that I can do it. I have proved it to myself that I was wrong, and I have proved it to all of you my friends out there that I was wrong.

Although I had tried numerous tools to try and break free, something that was tremendous to me that I had never tried was making connections with people. Being able to shmooz on the phone with someone who understands my struggle and who cares about what I'm going through is an unbelievable feeling. Another thing I gained from making connections was being able to feel part of a group of people who pride themselves as being non porn watchers. This has helped me change my identity to an extent, as I used to consider myself a heavy porn watcher which sort of "allowed" me to do what I wanted. I now identify myself as a non porn watcher and I live my life as such.

I wanted to add that in my previous life, when reading through stories of guys making it to 90 I sometimes would get this feeling that all they did was come to gye, and bang 90 days later after opening an account here they'd have hit 90 days. It sometimes seemed to me as if they had an easy time making it to 90, while I have this really strong drive for porn and masturbation and there is therefore no way I can do what they did. If anyone got that feeling from reading through my story - which would almost make sense being that I didn't fall at all since I really started posting and I have therefore never really discussed much of my struggles - they should know that it was absolutely not easy. I have had an account on gye for a few years and I would come and go without having gained much (for whatever reason...) At the beginning of my journey I was in the worst place I ever was in my life. I was doing things that were getting close to "advanced stuff" past porn and masturbation. I was having a harder time stopping than ever before. Throughout the 15 years I struggled, I was always able to stop for a month or so, and it would usually be a month on and a month off. In this recent stretch I was struggling straight for close to a year with no breaks. Straight porn and worse every day. I couldn't stop... and worse than that - I didn't want to stop. I was having too much fun. Stopping was not easy, and not fun... but I did it!

P.S. if you want to know what happened when I lit my menora shortly after shkia at the end of 90 days... I started getting emotional in the middle of sheasa nisim, then took about a one minute breathing break before shehecheyanu, then barely squeeked my way through that bracha. Was quite an emotional event! Hope my wife isn't too scarred...

I hope someone gets a chizzuk from my journey - I certainly did!

iwannalivereal wrote on 08 Dec 2023 03:36:

MAZEL TOV!!! UNREAL!!!


I'm totally mesmerized as I'm reading this - the power of your proof is ringing in my ears!


Thank you for writing this! I totally have the same feeling as you had often when I see people flying through to their success here - thank you for מפרסם the נס as in נסיון!!!


Chizuk is an understatement - inspiration, direction, clarity, insight, motivation, empowerment (this appears to actually be a word according to spellcheck) - I can't thank you enough for posting this and the rest of your journey!!!

Got emotional, tearing up as I read this. Thank you for sharing and being so candid. 

I know you won’t mind me writing this here - 
After our first conversation my feeling was that you had little interest in change. You did not really need or WANT to, or at least I couldn’t connect with and feel that you had any compelling  drive or motivation to change. I felt the conversations were worth continuing, (especially because you’re a great guy), but I had my personal doubts...
(Maybe all that shows is that I dont have any clue ).

And then you unfurled your massive wings, and took flight. Soaring, reaching for the highest, purest crystalline heights. Battling at the black gale and driving tempest that seeks to cast you down, to throw grit in your face and dust in your eye… You rise, like a phoenix, like a lion, like a 
….Heilige Yid. 

Because you teach us, Chaver:
that there is always a small, pure Pach Shemen  buried under the rubble of destruction. And it’s sealed with an unbroken seal of Tahara, waiting to be ignited. And it can start a forest fire of Kedusha. 

You go on, now. Keep soaring and climbing! Don’t be complacent, but keep it up. And burn up the whole town with the conflagration of your Heiligkeit. 

Shehechiyanu indeed!!! 
My Oigen are full of tears, and looking up to REAL, living, Chaim.

Good for you keep on growing!

(As always, I arrive super late to the thread : )

IWLR Shlit"a, I believe that we spoke by phone several months ago...and I am amazed at how far you have come from those feelings of despair.

I relate to the unimaginable joy of 90 days because I too, had all but given up. I remember feeling that 90 days was nothing short of a miracle - as I recorded in my personal thread.

One more thing: I barely go on GYE, but tonight I felt a huge urge (despite being over 1100 days clean) and so I was searching for chizuk.

And chizuk I received.

Thank you, my dear friend.

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In honor of tonight being day 100... I thought I'd share something interesting that I discovered about myself.

A few days ago my chavrusa call up, he's not gonna make it to first seder today. Perfect I think to myself, after all I am forever behind on writing notes and having an entire first seder to myself should just about bring me up to date. As I'm getting ready to leave to Yeshiva, I'm reminded about how it's really so much easier to just stay home to learn. Really. I have all the Seforim I need here, and it's so much quieter here. No chance of getting distracted and shmoozing with anyone - there's no one here! And so it was I stopped getting ready to leave to Yeshiva and set up shop at home where I had all my seforim and it was oh so quiet!

I sat down to learn, and a few minutes later I stood up for a cup of coffee, then some food, then I checked up on GYE to see who's on... and then... and then... and then... before I knew it first Seder was just about finished and I hadn't written even one word.  I had a very ichy feeling inside of me... Had this happened 3 months ago I would have surely been on porn by then. 

A few interesting points:

1) The feeling that I had was a feeling of being unproductive and a lack of accomplishing. It was a feeling of not being able to accomplish something that I was supposed to be doing when I had all the time I needed. Now that I am not living the porn lifestyle, I am able to recognize exactly what this feeling was. In the olden days, when I had these feelings I would embrace them as feelings of desire and urges that needed and wanted the pornography to satisfy it and I would go straight down that path, I now recognize the feeling for what it is. Being that I'm able to recognize this more clearly I hope to be able to plan in advance to be able to avoid such situations.

2) A few months ago, had I had these feelings, I would have been watching porn before I even had a chance to register what was going on. This time however, being that I recognized that I was just feeling grumpy because I was being so unproductive, the feelings didn't lead into watching pornography. Somehow being out of it for a nice little bit kinda cut off that automatic thought process that watching porn will make me feel better when I'm feeling kinda down.

3) I now realize just how smart the YH is, and how well he has me down to a science. In the olden days when the YH had me in a real strong grip, all he needed to do was put me near a device, and bang I was gone. Now however that trick doesn't work that well. Instead he just distracted me... for hours and hours until he knew that from the wasted time I would feel really nasty. He knows just how much I hate wasting time and feeling unproductive. He was hoping I'd "need" that numbing feeling so badly because of the tremendous pain he just dropped on me that this time I'd at least give a little look. B"H he was wrong!