Greetings to all my new Gye freinds out there. I am truly and Old-Timer here on GYE, the infromation and chizuk on this site started my recovery about 10 years ago, before the advent of the GYE Forum. Yes, once upon a time gye was guardureyes.org and there was no funding or forum.

Today I am devorced and lonely, 'shpritzing' once every few days. Wasting the precious hours I could have been sleeping. And being מוותר on a highly impressive life or recovery that I was occustomed to live, for what?.....   a few sleasy pics that internet ETROG didn't succeed in filtering?  חבל 

Today 7/19/17 will bezras hashem mark the first day of my NEW journey. It is my zchus to share with anyone who will want to read, my experience. For your benefit, and MY OWN quality of life.


day 1:   Contrary to the hormones excreted while mas------,  I would like to take a few moments to "bring up" the uncomfortable feelings I had this evening while looking at shmutz. I'm hungry, I didn't eat lunch today, and instead of at least eating supper, I just ran to the computer.     I'm sweating in here, the AC is off, and I can't even bring a fan into the room, because this CRAVING doesn't allow me to think while it is in action.     Not that I CAN'T THINK, but rather that the ABILITY to think is a skill I used to have and recently gave-up (in preference of drugging my feelings with shmutz and 'shpritzes'...). Once upon a [sober] time, I used to calculate win-loss, involved in every "opportunity" to fall or slip. Obviously the 'cost' of acting out was never worth it. I used to consiosly identify 'acting out' as suffering. Not becuase SA littreature ays so but rather because if i look at the situation from an HONEST perspective, it truly isn't worth it.       [עיין בספר אמונות ודעות לר' סעדיה גאון, שם במאמר עשירי] 

Going to bed, looking forward to updating this thread tomorrow, and sharing with you guys how day 1 went for me.

What have you done for recovery in the past and what do you plan to do now?  Do you consider your condition to be a chronic, progressive and debilitating sickness, if left untreated? 

Welcome back

Sorry to hear about the divorce

My condition is an opportunity, for my own quality of live and to enrich the quality of all those struggling around me. i am not being "prophetic"  rather referring my experience over the last 10 years. 

Lust is not cronic, it's part of nature, a necessary part of the physical bond between a couple. [עיין בראשית רבה "ותצא דינה בת לאה" שכל 4 הביטויים של שכם בן חמור לדינה, כך היא גם החשק אהבה דבקות ותשוקה של הקב"ה כלפינו]. There needs to be a spiritual bond built in addition to that [עיין בספר דע את ביתך מהרב איטמר שוורץ, מחבר סידרת הספרים בלבבי משכן אבנה].    Being devorced, I MUST turn down the extent of that "nature", much as I try not kicking people in the groin no matter how irritating they may be (even thought "nature" dictates that they really deserve it).            Cronic-no       Natural-so is marijuana     Treatment-I have a more user freindly approach to this whole thing, that gets the job done just as well, however bypasses as the black/white stigmas that where adopted from AA. With time anyone who reads my posts will get familiar with them.  [in short, there is nothing wrong with an alcoholic ONLY drinking 1 רביעית of whine by kiddush and havdalah.  just like SA had to come to terms with marital relations within the confines of the marital relationship. Baruch hashem SA out-ruled and znus that is not within the confines of a marriage. However according to the philosophy of AA, SA couples must live in abstinence because only that will give true recovery....             Lust must be withheld, withing the strict confines of halacha (shmiras habris, einayim, and no fantasizing), and by being aware of fears-angers-resentments, and by coming to terms with our past (all you need step 9 for according to 12&12), the NEED TO LUST will diminish to the extent that we can FINALLY LIMIT OUR LUST TO THE CONFINES OF HALACHA.            

[size=4]My plans.... to "practice what I preach"[/size].       discover my feelings, and deal with them through אמונה ובטחון because that solves my problems better that any psychological method, or therapeutic process (I am trained and certified in both).

Are you saying that you were sober and helping people for the last 10 years and you had a recent relapse?

Btw, what was it like before the days where there was a forum? Did you have user names, like teshuvah613, etc. What did you go by?

Day 1: Morning, just being part of a group effort, and having someone to share my success with, made all the difference. What’s the point of climbing the Everest if I have no-one to share it with!

Instead of wasting my time and ‘fluids’ trying to look a shmutz (trying=I have a decent filter), I only wasted time looking 5 times at my own thread! The forum is a ‘decent’ substitute ‘drug’.   A typical start to 90 days…..

The YH makes a great effort to conceal the “details” from me, especialy from me sharing it on this thread and letting you guys know.   So here are the numbers.    2:00am I went to bed without even davening maariv because I ‘was tired’ (too tired to go to bed at 11:00pm, but wide awake to waste an evening on the internet)     8:00am woke up, and wasted and hour and a half on ‘kosher internet’. Only then did a start davening ביחידות a ‘shortened’ version of shachris.        …details mark the precise end to addictive behaviors.

Afternoon: My job is aggravating, and I am looking forward to posting on the forum. Using the computer usually makes me feel good. It’s called “anchoring” in psychology, when I subconsciously make and association between a “trigger” and a “feeling”. In this case using the computer is the trigger, and the ‘feeling’ is the empty pleasure I have looking at sleazy pictures. I am simply confused, I look forward to that same empty pleasure with any time I use the computer. On one hand, if I were willing to ‘act-out’, then every exposure to the ‘trigger’ (in my case the computer), would tempt me to act out. Not because the internet is triggering, but because my brain made the connection between computer/shmutz.

                My first day went well as far as sobriety and even recovery (sobriety=holding back raging lust for consecutive period of time.           Recovery=no “unhealthy” impulses/urges to contemplate acting on, despite the ready availability of “addictive pleasures”).   Simply having an empty board to post on (and a few great guys to read it), gives me a greater sense of belonging, and a desire to provide you all with an honest and progressively improving report.

P.S. if you get the feeling that I “know too much”, it’s because I have come VERY far in my personal journey of recovery in the 12 steps. But I simply stopped working the program. Not that I stopped the step-work, because even I can’t stop using those life skills, they are an integral part of my life (I don’t do them on paper, I almost never did them on paper). I stopped ‘being clean’, I ignored the halachik perspective of it, and acted out in ways that only mildly affected my quality of life. Honestly, let’s call it more than mild, maybe medium.  It’s not rock bottom that brought me back to these boards, rather a vividly clear “calling” from hashem that he isn’t willing to tolerate me ‘acting-out’ with porn. How I came to this realization is pretty easy in my case, but as a policy I cannot share identifying information on the boards at all ואין כאן המקום להאריך…..

 If you get the feeling that I “know too much”, it’s because I have come VERY far in my personal journey of recovery in the 12 steps. But I simply stopped working the program. Not that I stopped the step-work, because even I can’t stop using those life skills, they are an integral part of my life (I don’t do them on paper, I almost never did them on paper). I stopped ‘being clean’, I ignored the halachik perspective of it, and acted out in ways that only mildly affected my quality of life. Honestly, let’s call it more than mild, maybe medium.  It’s not rock bottom that brought me back to these boards, rather a vividly clear “calling” from hashem that he isn’t willing to tolerate me ‘acting-out’ with porn. How I came to this realization is pretty easy in my case, but as a policy I cannot share identifying information on the boards at all ואין כאן המקום להאריך…..

before the advent of the GYE forum, we used to waste all our time on 'other' websites (news, humor, stupid, unimportant, and those that are simply a waste of time).   Now we have a kosher outlet of obsesive bahavior, and a kosher online networking website....       not trying to be harsh, but I vividly remember a period of time that I spent mybe 10 hours a day on the forum, every weekday. But better there than "other places".               The forum is a powerful tool, much like a gun, just aim carefully... 

P.S. if you get the feeling that I “know too much”, it’s because I have come VERY far in my personal journey of recovery in the 12 steps. But I simply stopped working the program. Not that I stopped the step-work, because even I can’t stop using those life skills, they are an integral part of my life (I don’t do them on paper, I almost never did them on paper). I stopped ‘being clean’, I ignored the halachik perspective of it, and acted out in ways that only mildly affected my quality of life. Honestly, let’s call it more than mild, maybe medium.  It’s not rock bottom that brought me back to these boards, rather a vividly clear “calling” from hashem that he isn’t willing to tolerate me ‘acting-out’ with porn. How I came to this realization is pretty easy in my case, but as a policy I cannot share identifying information on the boards at all ואין כאן המקום להאריך…..

Old Timer wrote on 19 Jul 2017 17:43:

Funny you should say that, for I actually was not thinking that you know too much.

You sound like you're a bit confused....Should I do the Torah/mussar approach, or should I work THE program?

You also sound like you fought many battles in the past about this and you carry some scars and grudges.

Whatever the case is, hope you find what you're looking for here in this new age; might be time to throw out your free "50 aol hours" disk.

Wishing you all the best.

I'm not insulted, rather amused to be a professor who is confused with a preschooler.     ​אין מילים... ​give me some time, and you will understand what I am refering to. I am not here to preach, rather I was requested to put my practice in words. And the one who will benefit the most, is me (sobriety, recovery, quality of life).

Perhaps a professor confused with a professor.

Why do you think people need help with your practice of shpritzing?

Let's hope you're benefiting.

Just because I choose to express myself with an eloquence of speech, in a manner befitting any average person, should not serve as an indication that I have not sponsored some of SA's gruesome cases.  The חידוש, and arguably the difference between us, may lie in our response to hearing a fellow addict's fond memories of 'acting out'.          Whereas every other member in the group laughs his head off, I lower my head an cry for that member's wife-children-parents-friends-community-and I cry for Hashem. Every time we act-out on our lusts (pardon my soft expressions), we are wreaking destruction on our own lives-our spouces-children-and frankly the whole world. The act, the emotional detachment, the resulting domino effect, and most of all the spiritual destruction and perversion of Hashem's holy world.

I am not naive, nor a 'newbie', am I a true בן תורה and עובד השם that has not replaced or changed his religious valued or ethics... despite taking an active part in SA for years. And as such, I choose to express myself in such a manner.

Trouble wrote on 19 Jul 2017 20:14:

Trouble!

I missed you, nice to have you back honest as always. 

Old Timer wrote on 18 Jul 2017 21:45:

Welcome, my friend.

Your posts are very intellectual and analytical. 

The solution I'm trying to grasp is a lot more simple. 


I found this only slightly contradictory.

I hope I'm within my boundaries to ask, but was the divorce related to the schmutz?