Ihavestrength wrote on 01 May 2020 03:55:

I love it! Home all day with wife and kids, learning new technologies and working online, no anxiety for nobody speaking to me at shul and no friends at shul, no rushing on shabbos anywhere, just a nice day with the family in our sunny garden. Oh man, our country went from level 5 to level 4 restrictions and I'm getting a bit nervous I might need to return to work!

If I were you i'd go onto udemy.com and learn something you really always wanted to.

Ihavestrength wrote on 01 May 2020 03:55:

Yeah.. the fact that we're all in the same boat does not change anything physically but it does give us a sense of  peace that we're all in this together as a group, supporting & praying for each other.

Keep strong and we'll all get thru this with Hashem's help!

@Singularity I'm happy some of us enjoy being stuck at home  

Day 9: Everything's aight BH. Nothing too exciting to write about. I feel like that is a recurring theme here lol. Not looking forward to shabbos in a massive way, but that's OK I guess. I'm sure it'll be aight. Maybe I need to chill out a bit and stop thinking all the time Wishing everyone a wonderful and peaceful shabbos! 

Like the old-timers say, our best thinking is what got us into this mess!!

Day 10: Pretty strong urges tonight. Not trying to be someone special with no urges or slips, just trying to be better than yesterday and do what I believe is right. For now that means no masturbation or porn. I clicked on a link and got carried away for a second, but that's ok. I'm noone special, just a regular guy, not even remotely infallible, incredibly human and that's OK. Have an awesome night people and a shavua tov/gut voch! 

Hey I think it's pretty special that you managed to click away. Not an easy thing to do at all.
Kudos!

Clicking away is absolute control. YES YOUHAVESTRNGTH!! a lot of strength! 

Hey all, good morning. Need to post an update here, not a super awesome one unfortunately. I ended my streak last night/this morning. Starting again now, although tomorrow will technically be the my first clean day. So we'll be back here tomorrow G-d willing with the post for Day 1.

I feel OK BH. I think this is largely due to the fact that I didn't have an all or nothing approach going in and was more committed to keeping track of how I'm doing vs. reaching x amount of days (I guess I got that approach from reaching 90 and beyond many times and not finding that my urges disappeared ). 

So 10 days clean. That ain't nothin. It's funny cause once I started building up longer streaks, every time I ended a streak, I felt like to gain anything I had to at least get back to the number I reached last time. Thank G-d I don't feel that way anymore  

Ok, last thing: So, what led to me choosing to look at porn and masturbate? 

A bunch of stuff probably. But here are some that come to mind: Drinking two beers last night, which probably lowered my ability to self-regulate somewhat. Being stressed. That almost always is a precursor to a masturbation and porn session. And on a practical level, being able to access porn quite easily obviously made this possible (although, I've been know to be very creative in the past when it comes to finding content on filtered devices). Another thing was that I sort of missed having the regular GYE boost on Friday. It wasn't really practical for me to print out the shabbos pages they posted. I honestly think that made a difference. 

So, what will I do differently? I guess I can commit to no more than one beer at night (if I'm drinking). Also, going to make sure to find time on Friday to read the shabbos GYE newsletter. Honestly, though, just here to try and do my best with this, trying to learn something along the way. 

Peace out and have an awesome productive Sunday! Talk to y'all later.

Edit: Just wanted to mention what was driving my stress. Coronavirus!!! It really upended my life, and last night I was sort of going crazy realizing that it's going to be a while till it gets back to normal and Maybe I'll elaborate more on this, cause this does seem to be an important factor for me. Anyways, if you read this far you are truly awesome. Ok, even if you didn't, you're alright too

Hi Ihavestrength
You're putting up an amazing battle and with Hashem's help you'll win the war...

Your goal is not to conquer a life-long yetzer hora in one day! Simply putting up a fight is a tremendous accomplishment, and skipping this time, or even delaying it a little bit, is still worthwhile. Even if you ultimately do it, there is still value and tremendous sechar for every second you are able to be omeid b’nisayon.

Well done for climbing back. I usually act out the next day as well because well, I gotta get my money's worth while the tables are hot!!!!!!!!!!!

Beer? At this time? Our country is in the eighteenth amendment mode, no sale of alcohol or cigarettes! Personally I don't drink at all, ever, except purim where I did quite okay this year! But I still understand what an alcoholic goes through, a little bit I think.

Please elaborate on your covid issues, I'd like to hear em!

Singularity wrote on 03 May 2020 14:37:

In a different country on your continent, the government was giving out whisky as “throat sanitizer”  (hey it works on hands...)

Flip Flop Africa, that's what they call us...

Day 1: Not much to report. Good day BH. Got to be mindful of the effects of alcohol on my willpower. And no, @singularity I'm not a alcoholic just because I drink lol  

Seems to be important to get in productive days after a fall. It's definitely a horrible plan to try and get my self esteem from success in this area, so I gotta get it by getting stuff done elsewhere. 

Aight, that's all for me. Have a great night people!

Keep on smashing it.

When I chase my self esteem, I always lose it.
My program isn't one of self esteem building. I wish it were but that isn't the reality
coz then it's still all full of SELF