Hello to everyone,

I must admitt that i have been a member here for a while but this is my first post.

For me it all started from t.v, late night t.v to be accurate. I would stay up late watching all sorts of rubbish while my parents were asleep, as well as looking at any thing else i could get my hands on. I must have been quite young when this started maybe 10 or less I cant remember, but I only 'spilled' for the first time when I was about 16. This started a downward spiral in my life of constant Hzl. It continued through high school at this pace, but slowed down when I was in yeshivah as I didnt have acess to the things i used to, but I still slipped. It was during my third year there that I started to become more religious and this only highlighted the contradiction in my life "how can someone who learns all day long do this?". 

After Yeshivah I got married to the girl I met when I was in my second year in Yeshivah (which wasnt good for me as we weren't Shomeh Negia - although we tried very hard to be). I cried my eyes out under the Chupah to be saved from this addiction and it worked for a few months and then I slipped again. This has been continuing ever since, my wife knows nothing of it and neither does anyone else until today. I am ashamed of this as I learn in Kollel and I feel such a hypocrite and hate what it does to me.

The funny thing about me is that it really is such a contradiction in me - I will cross the road not to walk behind a woman who is not properly dressed  or some poster and then will go home and look at smutz!!

Anyway this is just an introduction I hope together we can help each other to be beat this.

A Yid.     

Shalom Aleichem Username24,

You're in good hands now. GYE is the place to be! Boy that was a corny rhyme  :-X :-X . Dont you think for a second that you are alone on this. We all struggle with this very question. The answer isnt simple and cant even be put into a post here. Its a life long question. We are all here for and all here with you. Stay with us and you'll be on the right track in no time. I am sure Reb Guard or Reb Kedusha (ya you get that title now for gettign the Haskamah) will show a formal introduction.

Kol Tuv

-Yiddle

PS. If you would, you can email me or we can do gchat if you ahve that or just PM me 

Welcome username24.  We are all here to help you.  Just remember to take it slow and trust in G-d to get you through.  Just by posting you proved to yourself it's time to take up the journey.  I am inspired by anyone that takes the chance to sign up and start working on it. 

Facing that contradiction is difficult - we have to accept that we're not the person we'd like to be, and work on growing. And that's what we're all about.

Glad to have you join us!

Should we just call you Reb 24?

ITS NOT A CONTERDICTION

THERE IS A PLCE IN YOUR NESHAMA NOT SULLIED BY CHET

GEVALDIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

KEEP ON TRUCKING!!

Dear Username24,

You are the exact opposite of a hypocrite. 

B"H you came to the understanding of what you need to do.

Ever since I made my first post, things have improved for me.
I will be mispallel that the very same success come to you as well.

mekubal

Yep, the other guys had it right:  just ARRIVING here throws the label of hypocrite right out the window.  Just having this one maaseh to wave in front of the Yetzer Hara may be enough to scare him off for a while.  Sh'koiach.

From my limited experience, this is a pretty supportive, open-minded chevra.  (I just got active a little while ago and I'm posting like crazy in an attempt to discover where my next steps in this avodah ought to be.)

One thought I've been contemplating recently might resonate a bit (I won't jump to conclusions; I hardly know your whole story).  It's the gap between lust and love.  There's talk on this ALL over this forum -- just poke around.  When lust screams out loud, it's hard to hear the gentle quiet voice of love.  If you really love your wife and want her voice to be the only one in your head -- an admirable goal -- it might be possible to explore ways to turn up your hearing aid to love and not just insert earplugs for the lust.

I'm not telling you how this happens -- oh, how I wish I even knew for myself -- but I will suggest it as a question to consider in the journey.  B'hatzlacha -- if you think of this work as being just as Torahdik as the Torah you tackle in Kollel, you'll go far.  After all, you already made it to post your story!

PS:  there's a separate married man's forum if you ask the machers for access.

Hey 24, Welcome to the world of posters. Before I got into it I was also hanging out here for a while just watching.
I only started seeing real changes in my life after I got involved.
Not just in the number of days, but my actual way of thinking.
I can almost say I'm seeing things in a good light for the first time.

Help others and you will start to see parts of yourself which you never knew existed - emerge from hiding.
I wish you tons of hatzlacha,
Hope to see you on the 90 day chart soon.

username24 wrote on 26 Jan 2010 15:30:


Dearest Holy Warrior,

this feeling of hypocrisy is straight out of the YH handbook - textbook classic YH baloney-

he is יושב בין שני מפתחי הלב - sits right between both parts of our hearts - we try to go "right" he starts yammering and yodeling, calling us all kind of vile names >>>>>>>>>hypocrite , two faced, didn't you just do this and this?  and a kollel fellow to boot! what hypocrisy!! and now you want to watch your eyes?

yet when we want to go "left" the "bastard" is right there saying the very same thing. telling us there is no hope we might as well buy into his phony baloney that we are no good hypocrites and we are really really a low down  no-goodnik bla blah blah

Anyways warmest welcome to the forum. this place is sorta like

של נעליך מעל רגליך כי אדמת קודש היא  

I always felt just the mere fact that im a member of this holy chaburah  affords me an especial measure of Divine assistance in my quest for purity.  It is my fervent and deepest prayer that you to will share this Heavenly Protection

fiery love to a fellow warrior

Noorah the littlest of the House of Amram

Dear username24,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

I'm so glad another Yid has decided to join us. Almost everyone here who read your story probably saw themselves in it too!

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...

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 get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and 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!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This 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 joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 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. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And 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!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook 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...

May Hashem be with you!

Thanks everyone for your encouragement.

May we grow together!

We will!

Post as much as you feel comfortable with, but I found (and still find) it helpful to discuss my issues, and hear people's thoughts and advice.

Again, glad to have you with us!

username24 wrote on 27 Jan 2010 14:51:
Reb 24, all of us are here for you from now on.
We are your friends, and the same way we all want to solve our own problems - we want to help you get through yours.
Just jump aboard and get ready to sail this monster, because there's no other way to do it.
Airplanes for avodas H-shem have not been invented yet, so if we want to cross this sea, we gotta ride every wave.

Welcome UN24! Im sorry it took this long for me to welcome you. But as you know im sure, old men have a hard time keepin up with all the youngyuns!

Youve come to a great place. So many great people willing to help eachother out. Its a site of pure love for the fellow jew!! Saty with us. Youll get places!!

Have a great shabbos. Looking forward from hearing from you on your progress!

...


Dear friend:

  Don't worry!  You are o.k.!

I remember years ago, seeing a private blog of a frum guy talking about his y"h.  His introduction was: "I won't shake your hand...but, I will sleep with you".!

Is this a contradiction? Yes, the contradiction of this illness.

It is not a contradiction of who YOU are. It is only the contradiction that this illness, in the hands of the y"h makes for us. And then what.....? Then "he", the y"h goes to work 24/7. Look at you, you call yourself a yid, you dress like a yid, you........

This is what Rabbi Nachman worns us about: "The greatest danger of the y"h is the redifat Atzmit (self attacking of oneself) that he causes us to do. He tempts us with aveirah, and then he has us torture ourselves till there is nothing left.

Stay here, and don't worry!