Hello Everyone!
My name is Abe. Well, not realy..
I'm 27, live in our lovely holy land Israel and married for almost a half and a year to a lovely lady.
I'm Hebrew speaker so sorry if my english has some glitches ???
I've found this site last week and was overwhelmed! How I missed it? It's not very old but it must be spread over the net and media so people can find it and use it!

About myself. I think my first fall was around the age 14. Since then its fall after fall after fall.. there was about 2 years break.. dont remeber why and when exaclty but after that... so help me Hashem..

We didnt have filter on our internet so Hell was open to me. I was on Yeshivat Hesder and every time I went back home was sacry.. I was sacred to come home! When I went to the army the same thing has happened!

And then marriage.. It was very hard to do but I told her before the wedding about this becaouse I didnt want to live in a lie.. She was shocked of course but accepted to marry me! Since the first time I met her I was clean for about 4 months! After that i fell again..

And again. I promised her promises that I didnt fulfill and she was angry. We thought many bad thoguhts but we love so much so we decided we will stay together and deal with it.

So here I am, clean about 8 months from masturbuting but still dip in the mud when it comes to Shmirat Haeinaim (Its very funny when all of you use hebrew words with english letters ;D )

We have Internet Rimon but it too have its glitches... and on the street its very hard to Guard My Eyes.
I GOT CLEAN OF MASTURBUTING AND I WANT MY EYES TO BE CLEAN TOO!!!!

I'm still scared I will fall again.. and and fear how my wife will react becouse I promised to tell her..
Sometimess I feel like shivering and goosebumps over my body and the will to sin growing inside my. like i'm possessed! Then I try to search for porn on the net and to bypass the restriction of Rimon.
Sometimes I reach some picutres and then close the whole PC and heart beating loudly.
I still have a monster inside me! I dont want to trap it forever. I want it DEAD! >
Its so hard to live with this feeling.. Like something eating me inside :'( :'(

WOW! I wrote too much.. so.. I want to continue the journey to purity! and I think I found some nice guys on the same way! Bless you all!

Baruch HaBah! Welcome and hatzlacha rabah in your recovery. Sounds very noble that u told your wife b/4 the chatunah.
what did u tell her..about p* ? m* ?
and what happens when u fall? do u have to tell her about it? what does that do for your relationship? the monster inside of u is of course your yetzer harah! how about limud ha musar?

Abe, welcome.

Keep it up. 8 months clean from p__ & m__? That is great.

There is a book on shmiras einayim. I believe it is called, Windows of the Soul. It is a free download on this site. Put it into practice, little by little. It's a discipline and you'll get the hang of it. When you despair because it's all too tough, that is the perfect time to plead with Hashem to help you, silently, in your heart. Or loudly if you are able to. All of this serves for us to grow.

It is great that you were able to be honest with your wife. That is quite an inspiration.

We're glad you made it here. Please make yourself at home and be encouraged. Hatzlocha rabbah. 

Welcome Abe!!

You sound like an amazing person.  It's great to have you here.

Check out the Sexaholics Anonymous website.  There are meetings in Israel and I personally know at least one person who got sober through his contact with SA in Israel.

About your telling everything to your wife.  It probably feels like the right thing to do but the experience of many others who have gone through this before you would indicate it might not be the best idea. 

Not sharing everything with our wives is different than hiding it.  For most women it is in the long term very unproductive to get the play by play of the husbands recover.  I have been practicing keeping my own mouth shut for a while now and have gotten better about it in the last month or so.

Keep coming back!

Dear Abe,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Did you know we have a Hebrew forum as well over here?

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.

One of our goals on GYE is to help people "hit bottom while still on top" so they will take recovery seriously. To explain better what I mean, please see this page. If you're here, it means you're already taking serious steps in recovery, so keep up the good work!

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. The lay down the cornerstone of all our work at GuardYourEyes. Before the GYE handbook people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, someone with a low level addiction wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences", putting in filters etc... For the first time ever, this handbook details all the techniques and tools dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now, anyone can read it through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook to the next tools, as the suggestions become progressively more "addiction-oriented".

We suggest printing out the handbooks and reading it them at least once. Then, we suggest going back and reading them again slowly on the computer, and this time pressing on the many links that are found in the different articles.

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.

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 for your replies guys!
Jooby, we are all amazing persons! We are Jews! Sometimes we forget what it means...

I started to read the attitude and handbook pdf's. they are realy great!

I tried yesterday and today to walk the street with my eyes down. It is very difficult.
I tried it before and at the end I fell and then I just dont care anymore and get loose of my eyes...
I want to get to a position that even if i look at someone, I wont get loose of my eyes for the rest of the day.

Do you have some advice?

Abe wrote on 23 Jun 2010 19:26:


www.guardureyes.com/GUE/Tips/GuardEyes2.asp

Advice:  What you resist, persists.  As long as you give your resistance to looking power you will
keep thinking about it and will never reach a point of indifference.  Use the 3 second rule.
Lift your head up so you don't look like a nebech and look for three seconds and look away.
Think of it like this:  You're not going to get anything from this person you're staring at, so
what's the point.  Write a list of good memories that you can occupy your mind with and
think about those things, plan, get creative, think, learn.

There is no law that says that once you look at a person you have to look constantly the
rest of the day.

In this disease we tend to crave out self worth and meaning from other people.  We crave
that girl to look at us and smile, but few ever do.  But when we feel good and confident
inside - when we're living in the present - today - then we don't need external stimuli
to make us feel better.  We trust G-d that today is the way it was meant to be.

Practice  - Elya

Abe welcome. It sounds like you are off to a great start.  Sign up for a partner this way you can have someone to contact when you are feeling weak.  Also post and give others chizuk.  The fact that you will be helping and encouraging others will give you strength to overcome your own y"h. Hatzlacha Rabba and keep in mind that by joining the site you have taken a major step in the teshuva process.

Abe,

As I read your post, tears started rolling down my eyes. What a Holy Neshama, what a terrible fight with the Y"H. You call him a monster - he is much worse than a monster, but the good news is that you can control him - do not let him control you.

That you are clean from m****ing, it is tremendous! Take some heart and pride from this. Guarding your eyes in the street is harder, I would work at it as hard as you can with the tips the Guard gave you, but do not expect results immedeately on that. What you must focus on hard is the Internet use.

My first piece of advice, spend all your internet time on GYE. Make friends on here - we are all here to help, read lots, post lots, see if you can help others on here. With a neshomo like yours, I'm sure you will have a lot to offer. I'm amazed you were brave enough to be honest with your wife about all this. I know I cannot be.

My second piece of advice is let her be your help. There can be no better example of Eizer K'negdo than this. Most people translate this to be "a help against him" and the Rabbanim darshan it to mean that if a man is worthy she will help him and if he is not, she will be against him. Let me try to darshan a different way. She will be a help against Him - against the Y"H. If your wife knows you have this problem, not only can she monitor your behaviour, but she can also help distract you from the shmutz.

Last piece of advice, let me recommend that you find a buddy on GYE who you can call upon at your time of greatest temptation. Agree with him that when you feel the urge, you will not act out until you have communicated with him and he will help you to control it as you will help him when he is in trouble. I don't know if you have a Blackberry, but I have found it very useful to have a Buddy who has BBM and so we can communicate anywhere in the world at any time.

Finally, let me wish you a brocho to be Mazliach, to be strong, to understand that you are a beautiful Jew and that H" loves you as he loves us all, let go and Let G-d.

Kol tuv,

Haleivi

Abe!

Awesome! 8 months!

All I have to say is-  b'derech she'adam rotze leileich, molichim oto  ;D  - and clearly you want to strengthen and purify your neshama very much, so you can expect to get what you want.

We all have a lot to learn and you picked the right place to do so.

Looking forward to hearing more from you.