Starting to feel better B"H.
B'chasdei Hashem another day clean.

BHYY wrote on 03 Mar 2021 03:45:

YES you can!

happyyid wrote on 03 Mar 2021 01:31:

I am in contact with him. I just don't live anywhere near him so I can't meet him in person (at least yet)

Just had an urge to act out. A lot going on, my head is in so many different places. It would be nice to escape and get that high.
My initial thought was "I can't let everyone on GYE down!"
So you guys saved me!

BHYY wrote on 03 Mar 2021 22:21:

The high may seem high, but the low is so much lower! Keep it up! 

I'm home...and have such urges.
Not going to give in! It's just not what I do anymore.
I will not touch an unfiltered device.

I am being misgaber. The urge is lessening just a tiny bit. Time to go to sleep.

A gutteh voch.
I had a fall on Friday but I feel positive. I spoke to the SMART facilitator and we discussed some of the scenarios that cause me to fall. He told me that there are tools for all of the things I mentioned, we just have to get there in the meetings. B"H, looking forward!
Also, after my last fall I turned off my count. My facilitator (anyone have a better name for the ehrliche yid? He's not active on GYE) mentioned that he doesn't count days and I've been thinking about it. I know Dov has mentioned in the past he doesn't like the idea of the streaks. The streak works great for me when it's working, but after my first fall it destroyed me. A few days clean after which is a huge accomplishment but all I saw was the number mocking me. Ha! 5 days clean? You had 43! For me at least, in order to truly work one day at a time I can't count days. It's really fun and a tremendous chizuk when you get to click "I'm still clean" and watch the number go up and get all sorts of medals but after one slip it isn't worth it for me. "It used to say Eved Hashem, now I'm not?"
Baruch Hashem I've been clean over Shabbos, but for now I'm going to keep the count off. This is a journey, not a streak.

If every day is day 1, what's the incentive not to "fall?" Tomorrow is just day 1 regardless.
This is something I have struggled with. When I do keep track, it ends with a binge, and when I don't keep track, I just act out whenever I want.
How do you plan on countering that thought?

BHYY,

I'm impressed with the work you are doing. May it be with Hatzlacha.

I also felt the same way about counting days. I felt it doesn't help me and instead makes me think about how little time I have or how much days have past and I deserve a break.

Recently I had a theory that perhaps the count can be used as a motivational tool to keep me accountable. So if one of my friends notice the count going back down to zero they can reach out to me. I'm currently going to be updating not on a daily basis. Not sure if this will help. Just figured I'll share a different perspective.

Hatzlacha Rabba!

There is definitely a strong opinion against counting days and it applies to some people. 

Here is something "Dov" wrote about counting days:

Counting Days Can Backfire for Real Addicts
A string of clean days once in a while is very nice, but this business of counting the days can sometimes be one of the strongest weapons that tayva/lust addiction/the YH/self-defeating behavior (or whatever you wish to call it) has against you. I believe that the one thing that some of us can do to practically assure that we will fail again and just shlep along till we get really messed up, is to count the days clean. We are just letting the pressure build up without making any true inner change.

I am not posting this to you because it sounds good, nor just because it makes sense to me...but only because I have experienced it myself. Counting seems to be helpful for some people - yet total poison for others.

It starts with one ... and it ends with one .

The days we stay clean do not really 'add up'. They are over as soon as it is the next day. I have never seen a pile of days anywhere? Have you? As the sefer Gesher Hachayim tells us (and as Hashem tells us in the Sh'ma when He says, "Hayom" a few times), our time here is made of one thing: now . The past is over and the future hasn't happened to us yet. So there is no such thing as "being clean for two days," at all. It is just a fantasy.... and fantasy is apparently not your friend, nor is it mine.

It does seem to help other folks, but we need to look at what we are doing and admit if it works, or not, for us.

  

I don't know chevra, I don't know.
I miss the count when I'm not actively counting, but I experienced the depression of resetting it.
I guess we'll see......

BHYY, did you ever try "Alternative Fulfillment" ?

More often than not, an addiction is a psychological escape that we learned to use as a way to flee from the realities of life. If we can manage, in the early stages of the addiction, to keep ourselves occupied with healthy and fulfilling activities that we enjoy, and find more meaning in our lives, the addiction will often fade away of its own accord. Fulfillment often comes from finding realistic challenges and reaching the goals that we set for ourselves.

We should try to find new jobs or projects that will enable us to express our creativity, find enjoyment, and reconnect with life and the world around us. This will help fill the "void" that we were subconsciously trying to satisfy with unhealthy pleasure seeking.

Other ideas to help us start living "outside of ourselves" and feel more fulfillment in general, could include Chesed projects or involvement in the community in various ways. If you are a Bochur in Yeshiva, you might try and get the job of organizing the Otzar Haseforim, running a canteen, providing dry cleaning services, haircuts, etc... If you are not learning and also unemployed, try to find a job! The main thing is to keep busy, reconnect to the world around us and find fulfillment in a variety of ways that will counteract the "false fulfillment" that the addiction tries to provide us with.

I B"H have a great chessed organization that I volunteer with locally.
As I mentioned before, I am taking some college courses online which involve a lot of boring lectures and coursework. Sundays particularly I have a 6.5 hour class sitting in front of my computer.

I am really frustrated.
I am hours into this class, he is a terrible teacher, I'm not learning anything and have a big exam coming up. I'm going to have to teach myself everything. On top of that he just reneged on something he told me in the beginning of the course and I have to redo a whole bunch of assignments "maybe you misunderstood me..." sure.....
All I want to do is masturbate.
But yet I don't.
But I'm stuck in this ridiculously pointless lecture.
So frustrated...