Just came across this post - same point explained so well : guardyoureyes.com/forum/19-Introduce-Yourself/406231-The-Real-Me?limit=15&start=210#421325

Hashem Help Me wrote on 12 Sep 2024 20:49:

I am totally maskim that it is the same front. Turning to the news is often* coming from the same drive to escape my current reality that motivates a substantial chunk of my porn usage. My GYE usage is also driven by that - I spend too much time on this site and it's not healthy.

But these substitutes for porn are working. So I'm scared to try a week of not using technology except for necessary things because when I've tried that I've failed miserably and slid straight into acting out. I've tried before using "torah" sites as the alternative but it didn't work either. Would love advice on how to make it work. . .

The only area (though a very important one) I've made gains in this area is not going online after night seder. Just come home and go to bed instead of sitting around on the computer "unwinding". That was a pit into hell right there. I'd like to extend that to the whole time I'm home at night, but there are legit "online errands" that need to be done and it's tough. This I can work on though.

*People, men especially, generally have a very intense drive to know what's going on in the world, and a drive to not know the hock that other people know. That's definitely at play too.

Checking in.

Smooth going for the most part over Shabbos b"h. 

It's been going pretty well and I find myself worrying over the future. When Elul ends, when more difficult times come, when the motivation is gone and the lust comes raging like the tide. Trying very hard to take it just one day at a time and not let those thoughts perturb me. I am wondering though if there is more I could be doing in the good times to prepare for the bad?


I was in a seforim store the other day and I saw a new book out. It was called something like "Break Free" by Shaya Ostrow (might be misremembering the name of the book and the author). The cover said it was about "technology addiction" but I opened it up for a quick peak and it seemed to be explicitly about porn addiction. Anyone seen this? Read it? Can comment if it's a good book? 

I think it's amazing mainstream Jewish bookstores can put out a book like that and don't hide it away behind the counter.

Great schmooze today with a deep-thinking chaver I hadn't spoken to previously (and was sorely disappointed to hear his lack of a British accent).

One important topic that came up was motivation. Sometimes it feels like smooth sailing and calm seas. So much so that motivation isn't really required. Other times it's all thunder, whirlpools, Scylla and Charybdis. And then there's no motivation. Many times fall somewhere in between. 

The issue is that there's this paradox in that the really bad times should need the most motivation to get through them, but often those times also come along with a complete lack of motivation. What's to be done?

Some people keep up their motivation through a daily dose of chizuk - vayimaen, a daily read of TBOTG, whatever. But the problem is the really low times also come with no motivation to get motivated. 

This is something that concerns me, as I've never really gotten long-term sobriety and am fighting off worries that my current clean streak will dissipate at the end of Elul. 

And so but thinking about that, it's not really true. I did have a clean streak for a couple years when I was newly married. Yes it disintegrated like wet ash when life got a little more complex. And there were still issues of lust in my life. But by and large it was a long clean period. So what was the difference?

I was living a life. Busy with kollel, new marriage, stuff. I was also set up in a way to minimize challenges as much as possible (dumbphone, no consistent internet access etc.) 

So maybe the idea is after some real change, motivation won't be needed day to day. If we can build functional lives, build connections (to friends, to our spouse and to G-d), set up smart gedarim and stick to them. Maybe we won't need the same motivation, even when the going gets tough.

At least, this is what I'm hoping. Because motivation always fades.

chosemyshem wrote on 17 Sep 2024 21:13:

Ask if you can share this elusive Englishmans number, I'd also like to chat with him.
We come around to the idea that to really fix the porn/lust problem, we need to focus on other things. Like getting a life. No biggie. And then, when you already have a life and it's normal for you, and you get comfortable, the work is still to get a life. It's just a different level. Ya?

chosemyshem wrote on 17 Sep 2024 21:13:

Great question. 
I can’t talk about what will work for you, just about what has worked for me. 

I have two thoughts: 
1. It’s my experience and conviction that often the problem isn’t lust in-and-of itself. The problem is what we have become accustomed to use lust for, how it has become a solution to other problems and discomfort in life.
In the state of living where lust is a solution , one needs significant motivation to overcome the need to use lust. 
If a guy learn to make the changes, shvitz a litttke, and start living in a way that changes those patterns, the equation changes. You don’t need the same kind of motivation to overcome the urges, becuase they aren’t coming from the same kind of needs. 

2. Rewiring your patterns of living and acting really does make a difference. Psychologically (with a “p”), behaviorally, habitually, perhaps neurologically, and spiritually. 

Anyways, you’re thinking too much about more than today.

Today, dammit, today!!! 

I think you’re crushing today. 

love, 
Chaim 

Checking in.

Last week was technically sober, but a lot of white knuckling. Which comes out in ogling in the streets, which was pretty much unrestrained over the weekend. Friday I wanted to act out, but motivated by some Elul streak ego motivation I didn't. Instead, I distracted myself the whole workday with a stupid novel. Sunday I was pretending to watch my kid but was really trying to get an eyeful of someone across the street when my wife came out. She thanked me for watching the kid, which made me feel pretty dumb. 

I'll take any form of sobriety, and am very grateful for the clean week. Hoping for a new week that has more sanity though.

So this whole post isn't just about the lows (though I'm very happy about "lows" like these), I'll share a win from the past week though. Had a couple lousy days - kids were wild, wife was grumpy, work sucked. Something sunk in from all those 12 step lectures I've been listening to and I knew that if I held on to the resentment/self-pity I'd inevitably end up acting out. So I let it go. 

Was helpful. Not as helpful as I'd hoped, but helpful.

chosemyshem wrote on 23 Sep 2024 15:10:

Would you mind sharing your definition of the word sobriety with us?

When I find myself white-knuckling for a few days, I begin feeling like a phony.
On the one hand, I'm technically clean, but on the other hand, my mind is so full of sexual thoughts - so much more than when I do act on it.
But on the third hand (or one foot), there's the truth of לא המדרש העיקר אלא המעשה. Ultimately, what matters is how I act, not how I feel and think.
Then, on to the second foot, our actions are typically influenced by our thoughts and feelings.

This line of reasoning is one of the catalysts behind rationalizing my way out of "technical sobriety" into full-blown indulgence. And then the cycle repeats.

I'll leave the mic open for whoever wants to jump in here with a post about how not acting out for 90 days rewires your brain and how you think and feel.

thompson wrote on 23 Sep 2024 15:44:

Your totally right that there's a lot of room for vague fuzziness in "sobriety". That's why SA uses a simple definition of sex with anyone you shouldn't be having sex with (including yourself a.k.a masturbating, but generally not including your spouse.) 

I like that simplicity, but include consuming any form of pornography/erotica.

Lusting in my heart, looking at woman at the street, fantasizing etc. etc. etc. are all things I want to stop too, but are not practical to include in the definition of losing sobriety. First, because they're fuzzy. But more importantly, if I counted every dumb thought or look as a fall I'd have like two clean days ever. Those things will come, but I'm not holding my self to an impossible standard. As you pointed out, holding oneself to an overly high standard just allows them to rationalize their way into acting out.

That's my definition, feel free to pick your own.

A year is a big thing to review. 

But I can reflect.

I re-started the 90 day count after Succos this year. Going into this past Rosh Hashana I had very few hopes left. I'd been struggling for so long and nothing helped. And I'd been on GYE for over a year and it still didn't help. I felt so hopeless that I didn't even make a kabbolah that this year I'll stop watching porn (like I'd unsuccessfully said for so many years).

And then I had a moving Yamim Noraim and thought maybe I could change.

And then, as usual, I fell some point over chol hamoed Succos. And I was ready for the cycle to restart. I was ready for the whirlpool of lust to slowly drag me deeper and deeper.

And then Shemini Atzeres happened. I tried this year to be besimcha that whole day and it was a powerful day. Till simchas torah night when I started hearing the rumors about something happening. October 7th was a powerful kick in the pants (as it was for many people, although interestingly enough it seems to have affected the less yeshivish crowds more profoundly.)

So I put on my big boy pants and started the 90 day chart again. And somehow, through some unbelievable miracle, went 30 days clean for the first time in probably 5 years. And then I fell again. And again. And again.

The ups and downs are thoroughly documented here on this thread. I did things I thought I would never do for recovery. I spoke to my boss about installing a filter (which I thought was risking my job but shockingly was no big deal). I contemplated joining SA. And, I picked up the phone and spoke to people. With my name. With sharing all the gory details of my shame. I thought I would rather die in my lonely shame than do something like that, but I did it. 

That more than anything else this year has fundamentally changed the nature of the struggle for me. I took an axe to the walls of guilt that surrounded me, and wow did it feel freeing.
Idk much about the power of friendship, but the positive peer pressure around here takes full credit for pushing me to do it.

I learnt a lot this year. I learnt about the struggle and I learnt stuff about myself. While I strongly believe that getting clean is just about getting clean, not about self-discovery or personal growth, it turns out it's hard to avoid some of that along the way. It's been one hell of a ride.

I'm nowhere close to being out of the woods yet. The lows of this year hit some very low points. And I think I'm only clean right now because of Elul and some weird semi-bet with Undermajordomo Thompson. But last Elul couldn't keep me clean. And I didn't have internet acquaintances friends who I could talk to and make weird bets about this.

Progress is a tricky thing. And I have a tendency to forget how bad the lows can get when I'm at high and a tendency to negate any imperfect high. But looking back at this year, the lows came a lot less often than they ever have. And the highs keep on getting higher. 

Slow and steady never wins the race. But life's not a race. Or if it is a race, it's not one I know how to win anyway. But one slow, fractured, painful, meaningless, bloody, chaotic, hopeless day at a time, G-d's been carrying me down the racetrack in a way I had given up on hoping for.

Thanks boys. If I don't see you next year in Jerusalem, I'll see out here. Crawling down the racetrack one slow, painful, beautiful step at a time.

Every word in your post is as profoundly beautiful as life is, difficult as it is.  

I appreciate you, and our friendship, and I get a lot from it. 

You’re the Turkey Slug King, brother. 

I wish you a year of Bracha, growth, living, menuchas hanefesh, and may all your Tefillos (that you talked about in earlier posts), be answered with Rachamim. 

Here’s a warm hand, and a warm hug, 
Chaim

On the topic of breaking down the walls of shame. A small but potent incident from today.

At some point when masturbation was still new and disgusting to me, I swore that I would never masturbate again. If I recall correctly, I even used the shem Hashem (I was very young and very dumb). Every erev Rosh Hashana by hatares nedarim, this shvua would pop into my head. And it killed me. Every year it would remind me how hopeless I was, how terrible I was. I would beat myself up for being too weak to stop masturbating and too embarrassed to be properly matir neder.

If hataras nedarim is meant to be a cleansing experience, for me it only served to remind that there was yet another reason I was going to Hell for masturbating and there was nothing I could do about it. 

I'm pretty good about ignoring painful things, and would generally mostly manage to forget about it. But it weighed heavily on me, year in and year out. I remember one erev Rosh Hashana I spent a while learning hilchos nedarim and frantically looking for some heter.

This year was different. In shul, I calmly announced the story and asked the three random guys to be matir my neder.

I'm kidding. That would be nuts. Instead, when I remembered during hateres nedarim I beat myself up for only a few seconds. Then, after davening, I emailed my Rav (whom I had previously opened up to about this struggle) and explained my shaila and asked what to do. Maybe he'll know a loophole, and if not, I'll follow the psak and be matir neder. Since only one judge needs to know the neder, and he now knows the story, it won't be difficult to take care of this.

It felt so good to finally be able to take care of this. It's perhaps a small thing, but I've been shlepping it around for so long and it felt so unsolvable. I felt like a rasha davka every erev Rosh Hashana, and now I feel so liberated.

Would never have happened without being able to open up and connect here. Thank you guys, and may you all be zocheh to a ksiva v'chasim tovah and year full of light, one day at a time.

A gut gebentche yohr full of Bracha. 

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I have a strong sense that every breach in that full, heavy wall of shame also opens up a new window to air and light and hope and a view of the heartbreaking blue sky. 

Here’s to a beautiful year, chaver 

Loved the video GYE has for their campaign. Give back to the community and d$nate! If you can't donate - give back to the community and join a vaad!

Anyway. All's good here. Neder I previously referenced has been matir'ed. So that's a weight off my shoulders.

Work without little GYE breaks is super boring. On the other hand, work without little GYE breaks results in a lot more work getting done apparently. 

Skipping over Yom Kippur, because that's kinda heavy. I have a question about Simchas Torah.

Anyone else have an absurd amount of trouble on Simchas Torah when they pull down the mechitzah so the women can watch the men dance for some reason? 

Watching men walk around in a circle cannot be exciting. I just don't believe it. I don't understand why it's a good idea for anyone.

There's a great story with the Mir post-Holocaust. The women were standing in shul simchas torah and a certain Rav complained to R' Chatzkel that it wasn't tznuis. He got very upset at the Rav and told him not to interfere. He explained the bochurim need to get married. 
Which explains why single women should watch hakafos in yeshiva but not why married women need to be sitting there all dolled up right next to the hakafos. 

Regardless, I hate hakafos for many reasons. So it is convenient that there ain't no women making it to the 35 second vasikin minyan hakafos. But this is a longstanding grouch I've had.

There’s a minyan in my area that does hakafos on simchas torah mournfully, like by a levaya, with lamentations instead of songs — aching over the עלבונה של תורה on this special day. The women are clad in black headscarves and sackloths and they keep the mechitza tightly shut. PM me for details.