Hi everyone.

I found this site from an e-mail that I have no idea how I received but Baruch Hashem it came at just the right time.

I am now 6 days clean and that is the longest for me in a great many years and it's largely down to this site.

Just to give you a little of my background, I am a ger and although I used to sin fairly regularly as a teenager it was only once I converted that the Y"H really got a hold of me and sucked me into a destructive cycle that I have struggled to get out of in so many different ways but always without much success.

I felt constantly ashamed to be dragging down the beautiful people who I joined and for so often acting in a way that made a mockery of all that I had studied throughout the conversion process. Also my yetzer hara would often make me feel that my sins were invalidating my conversion and would tell me to just give in as I'm not a real yid anyway so teshuva won't work for me.

Thankfully I have now found this site and although it breaks my heart to see so many good Jews struggling in this area I am sure that together we can pull ourselves and each other out of the grip we are in.

WELCOME!
you've come to the right place!
just by making the effort and joining the forum, you show that improving isn't just something that you want to do in your heart.
your doing something about it!
welcome to the family!

letakain21

Dear MBA,

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!

We have another Ger on our forum who is doing really well... You can read his inspiring journey to 90 days on this thread over here. (Maybe I'll put you guys in touch with each other, if you'd like)...

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...

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.

Make sure to read them, they contain a wealth of information on beating this addiction! And I'd love to hear your feedback on them...

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!

Welcome, welcome. Please tell us more about your struggles(no details, just stories) try to take a risk in what you share. I mean that you feel it's frightening to share that. It will do you wonders.

Dear Moshe,

A royal welcome!  Or, maybe I should say "welcome home!" 

Please read my post entitled "Post Yom Kippur Encouragement for those Holding Strong."

rehab-my-site.com/guardureyes/forum/index.php?topic=1046.0

WELCOME REB MOSHE!!!!

welcome

lets drink a lachaim!!!!

Moshebenavraham,

Welcome! Welcome!

You are a warrior. It's great to have you here.

Nishmas

Thank you everyone for your warm welcomes. I am ashamed to say that since first posting I had a rather spectacular although thankfully brief fall.
It was all the more upsetting because I had done so well and had resisted so many temptations that seemed to be ever more prevalent. I think that I became so proud that I was resisting that the Y”H sneaked in and took advantage of my pride at how well I was doing. It was a very sneaky trick and I shall make sure to look out for it in the future.
One big positive however is that GYE has helped me ‘get back on the wagon’ much quicker than I would have done, and not to despair of the previous work I have done. Of course this doesn’t mean that I am saying my fall meant nothing, but rather that I will not allow it continue as I would have done previously. So thank you again and hopefully I’ll last a bit longer this time! Luckily living in the sukkah all evening is helping a lot.

Moshe Hatzadik the main thing is not to let the Y"H drag you down further,

Even is Chas Veshalom you do fall , dont allow him to pull you in stay with the great attiitude that you have and YOU WILL WIN.(just need to ask Hashem for some help)

Good luck WE are all behind YOU



Bestrong

Thanks Bestrong. Although I am deeply ashamed and angry at my fall I have found that since spending time on this forum and reading everyone’s stories I am becoming much more aware of how my Y”H tries to trip me up and it is helping a lot at the moment so I am able to recognise what is happening before it’s too late. Of course I expect that the further I get the more devious methods the Y”H will use so we must never let our guard down and as Hilel says (Avot 2.4) Do not be sure of yourself until the day you die’

And of course ‘Do not separate youself from the community’ – Seeing how often people fall when they are absent from these forums for a long time, it seems like he could have been talking about the GYE community!

Holy Reb Moshe. Getting angry at yourself about a fall is the voice of the Satan. He wants you to be mad at yourself because then you are more likely to fall again. Being honest about a fall is very special. It is a bit step out of the mud. The fall is an opportunity for growth in its own way. Will you resist the temptation to get mad at yourself or will you get steaming angry and hurt yourself more. Will you give up hope and let yourself keep falling or will you move forward. Also pride is a big sourse of falling. We must never forget that we are addicts and we must be on gaurd.

Here is a quote from a post on my thread "In a chat with Holy Yid today he disclosed to me that he's reached a streak of 50 days! He didn't want to write about it himself because he's afraid that his pride might get the best of him and shlep him down. With his permission I write about it now."

You are doing great keep it up

Warmest Shalom Alichem to a noble soul who proudly goes  by the name of MoshebenAvraham,

looking forward to hearing more from you!!!!!!!

POST AWAY

Love and prayers for your continued success

Noorah

Last night was very very tough. My wife had to go out shopping which would have been absolutely the right time for me to act out previously. I won’t say I wasn’t tempted, but I looked at my personal printout of my 90 day chart and that helped a bit. Still the Y”H kept tempting me though so I literally ran into the Sukkah (even though it was raining) and sat there studying Mishna Sukkah until my wife came home. I can’t say I completely lost all desire to act out, but it certainly worked for me this time. I think that the chizuk e-mail is spot on when it talks about how useful the physicality of the sukkah and arbah minim is so vital after the spiritual high of YK. I find even just smelling the esrog can be a good antidote if I start to lust.

I’m now getting a little worried about the lack of chagim coming up as I find it really useful to have them to focus on. Maybe I’ll start my Pesach preparations really really early!

ACE!!!

(Another Chizuk E-mail)