Well it's come to the point where I gave to start my own thread 

So I will give you some background, and hopefully you will all help 

In Short I had issues for about 5 years. When I started dating I stopped, and I was clean for a few years. In the last half a year everything has been coming back, and I don't think I need to enumerate here on this forum, everybody knows what its like, you struggle you fall you fell terrible yada yada yada. Just goes to show once an addict always an addict.

Anyway that's not the point. The point is that coming here and reading the forums has opened up great insight about myself, particularly reading some of Dov's long posts.

I feel like I'm in a place right now where if I wanted to stop myself I can ( and I do much of the time). The problem is I know what will stop me and I choose not to use those tools? I guess in general that's the problem, it boils down to how much do we really not want to do it. Do we not want to do it just because it makes you feel terrible afterwards/don't like the consequences. If that is the case I think we are doomed to fail, but unfortunately that is where I feel I am right now:cry: As dov put it best in the following quote

Anyway I know it was a long rant (for me), I guess the question how do you open yourself up and truly change the way you think? Especially when it's not a lack of knowledge but a change of perspective?

I like your rants

KOR!!! 

That's one loaded question

IIt's all about realizing and admitting that we can not do this with out hashem. Not with knowledge but really realizing it. Once you believe that then you will be primed to begin the humbling journey of rewiring yourself 

Welcome, hi. Change requires change.

Markz wrote on 19 Feb 2017 12:47:

But It's my first!

tiger wrote on 19 Feb 2017 15:34:

Please elaborate 

If something is important to you, it is worth spending time on.

Hakolhevel wrote on 19 Feb 2017 04:23:

I guess in the shortest possible way I would say two things

1) we first need to realize that we are unable to fight this OURSelves!!
2) here comes the whooper!!!!!!!

Lol,number two got cut off but it's the most important!!!

2) we need to share our struggles from a to z with somebody safe, that will suck out all the sheker and make your struggle  real!! That is your introduction!!!

Hakolhevel wrote on 19 Feb 2017 04:23:

Great question, something that bothered me for years.

Was it rhetorical, or are you interested in getting responses? 

I think Shlomo24 said it all when he wrote that change requires change.
And Shteeble said the truth when he wrote that if it's important to you then spend time on it.
And I agree w Tiger who wrote that opening up to a safe person who understands is the way to go.

All that stuff says to me that if I look at how I conduct myself during the years of acting out, I will learn how to do things right...by basically doing the opposite. Isolation is king when I act out. Heck, even when I'm not acting out, the worse I feel the more I tend to isolate. If I am lusting or angry or sad, boy do I make myself lonelier by trachten un trachten, etc. and 'figuring it all out'...cuz after all, nobody can really understand me, right?

So if I wanna get right, then I need to do the opposite and start learning how to make friends, how to share myself without cleaning off all my dirt first, and to practice doing those things. Thinking about them will not help me. Thinking is a great part of my problem itself because it increases my fantasy of self-reliance and 'salvation through havonah' - and those things lead to one thing: more masturbation (in private, of course). 

And I have learned that fake named friends are not really real friends. So what you really need ain't happening here staying on any forum. But it's a sweet intro.

And I have learned that self-honesty is the fruit of being honest with others. Kind of like na'aseh venishma works...counter-intuitive. The silly brain tells me that I need to first be fully self-honest so that I will know just what to say to others...and that's a lie.

So, continued hatzlocha you are on the path with us knuckleheads!  

Dov I have seen you say many times that these fake names are not real fiends.... 
Forgetting addicts or not I have been helped through these people alot is this a blanket rule or just your' statistical judgment? 

Ani hakaton will try to explain what dov meant,

Of course you can feel like you are being helped here as we are definitely being introduced to new concepts we never heard of, but we all know what real freinds are!!!!

Freinds are,

People who can hurt your feelings and tell you the truth.

Freinds are,

People who you feel ashamed of because they know your struggles

You ain't getting that here!!!!!