Why don't I just tell you what the 549th possuk is in the Torah:

וַיְהִי, אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, וְהָאֱלֹ-ִים, נִסָּה אֶת-אַבְרָהָם; וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּאמֶר הִנֵּנִי. 

It is also the gematria העמדתיך.  I have stood you up.  Continued hatzlacha.

ZemirosShabbos wrote on 18 Nov 2010 20:19:


It's been quite a while!

Wow - thank you, UAJ!

wow! scary posuk - watch out kedusha, be ready to say 'hineini'!

The Posuk was said to Avraham Avinu.  If it applies to me, it applies, equally, to everyone else. 

550, b'Ezras Hashem.

550 = יתפלל

Please daven for us all (including that we shouldn't need to make any calls on Shabbos  ).  Thanks, Hatzlacha and a Good Shabbos

Boruch Hashem, I am now 554 days clean.

Interestingly, my wife went to Mikva a few days ago, and we were together for the first time in 23 days (but who's counting! ).  Since then, things have been much more difficult for me than during the previous 23 days.  I know this is a not uncommon phenomenon, but go figure!

Although Google is on "safe search" and K9 is on a very strong setting, today something came up in a Google search that I was tempted to click on (I really shouldn't have done that search to begin with, but that's another story).  Not wanting to throw 554 days of sobriety out the window, I thought that maybe I could click on it, quickly covering the screen before it came up, just to satisfy my curiosity as to whether or not K9 would block it.  Realizing that I was treading on very thin ice, I held myself back, and called my wife to put in the K9 password.  I then added the site in question to the blocked sites list, so, even if K9 previously would have allowed that site (b'Ezras Hashem, I'll never know), it won't allow it now.  I also specifically blocked one of the words that had been used in that Google search, so I won't be able to do that particular search again.

Normally, when I ask my wife to put in the password to allow me to quickly modify the settings (usually to strengthen them, but occasionally to fix the settings in a way that legitimate sites don’t get blocked), she does so without asking any questions.  In this case, though, for reasons that are too complicated to go into, my wife wanted to know which site I chose to block.  I told her that I don’t think that’s fair, in light of the fact that I controlled myself and didn’t even attempt to go to the site.  Then I had to go out to Mincha, so that ended the conversation.  If she still wants to know, maybe I’ll say “You know very well what kind of things cause me temptation – does it matter which particular site out of thousands it was?”

I realize, of course, that filters alone, or together with monitoring software (I have both), are not the total answer, but, man, would I be toast without them!


 

It's amazing that you're so open with your wife! Kol hakavod to both  of you.

installed wrote on 23 Nov 2010 23:36:


Whatever issues we need to work on, I'm just grateful that she knows that this is a problem for me, that I'm working on it, and that, Boruch Hashem, I have some serious sobriety that I want to preserve!

Kedusha congrats on overcoming your Yetzer Hora for today.
I know well the feeling you describe. You're finally back together. You're roaring to go. And your wife seems perfectly satisfied from the mikveh night. Perhaps you can use the incident to engage your wife and tell her how you've been feeling these past few days. You have to be cautious however not to suggest (or think) that your temptation to act out was somehow her fault. But maybe you guys just need a night out together to catch up and reconnect. Hatzlacha.

Kedusha i want to get a little mean and ask you a personal question that is disturbing me. Do you feel like a addict? Do you feel everyday that your clean is a  gift from hashem or is it another day that belongs to you.
Ive been reading your posts and i am a bit confused. I see both elements but i dont understand exactly how you feel.

Kedusha wrote on 23 Nov 2010 23:22:

Can you really do that?  Is that through google safe search or K9?  I noticed certain "trigerfull" words would not search (don't ask me how I know that), but I occassionally still have temptations searching certain words that I know could lead to unclean pics.

FF,

If you want to know whether I'm fully living the 12 steps, the answer is that I can be doing it a lot better.

Do I feel like I have an addiction (I prefer to put it like that then to label myself, or anyone else, as an addict)?  Absolutely.  That's one of the reasons that, with the help of Hashem, I was able to be omed b'nisayon: I realized that if I opened that link, I'd be finished.  Meaning to say, I recognize that if I were, c"v, to fall, it would likely take me quite a while to get out of it, with no guarantee that I have another recovery in me (I've been through this many times, pre-GYE).

Every day is absolutely a gift from Hashem.  I don't think I've posted my sobriety count even once without writing "Boruch Hashem" or "b'Ezras Hashem."

However, when, c"v, I'm faced with a nisayon, I find it helpful to say "OK, if I do this, I will lose a long streak of sobriety."  This allows me to take a step back and try to do what's necessary to run away, including reaching out to Hashem.