You rock Elya, hat's off.  8)

I have been feeling totally out of control lately.  Taking lust hits off every woman in the street, totally unable to stop.

Then, I realized today--these really deep realizations are great.  However, it's those simple and basic ideas which I need to rely on as my bread-and-butter of recovery.  Perhaps I get a huge insight which is very helpful and powerful, but I can't find reliable support in such great revalations.

What I started doing today is going back to the simplest of ideas, and keeping it constant.  What I find works for me against lusting outside, and consistently so, is to say, "G-d, please save me from lust until I get to that next tree... or building... or curb... or whatever..."  Something just 5 seconds away.  And, once I get there, I repeat this little prayer.  I don't think too much about it, I don't think too much about myself, I don't think too much about how much I really want to look and stare and lust.  I just go through this simple exercise, and it helps.

--Elyah

Thanks for sharing.When I am pulled I try to remember that the woman is not mine she belongs to someone else and I am crossing the boundaries of her and her huband when I lust after her.I sometimes picture my wife and feel the realness and intimacy of our relationship it helps.Good Luck

mechazek wrote on 03 Mar 2012 20:46:

That's encouraging......

Elya, it's  good to find a happy face. Your steps in the professional life sound like the steps out of mitzrayim. Baruch Hashem.

yehoshua wrote on 05 Mar 2012 08:04:


Thanks.  I'm looking for a job, but I need everyone's brachas that I actually FIND one (and a good one, too).

--Elyah

here's my bracha  :-*
al tehi birchas hedyot kal!

Davening for you, brother! My own job has potential, but is definitely adding stress to my life, so please put in a tefilah for me - for both success and calmness; please?

Thank you for the reminder for the need to focus on the simple things, the basics.

Perhaps that's one of the issues...I need to remind myself constantly that I want hashem to help me stay clean - really, practically, not just on a theoretical level. Constantly asking for that reminds me of that on a gut level.

Hello Silent Battle and Elya,
You guys have been around a few thousand more posts than me and are still fighting the battle with your heads up and with pride.
What a chizuk for me that there are Jews who stick at it for so long, sometimes it's hard and I want to give up for a few minutes (like us all.....), but if you guys keep on going so for sure I can too!
Thanks,
MB

Dear MB,

Thanks for dropping by.

This struggle certainly has its ups and downs.  There are times I feel more in recovery, and times I feel less so.  Sometimes I feel lots of hope, and sometimes I feel completely hopeless.  Sometimes I feel like this obsession has been somehow magically removed like it will never return, and sometimes I feel I am on the verge of acting out.  And yes, I still have slips.  But, I think they are, overall, more subtle now.  BUT SOMETIMES NOT! 

What helps is to focus on the overall progress, and to make sure I'm always doing something for the sake of recovery.

I try to see how much better I am now than I was a couple of years ago.

--Elyah

Very impressive, I've got a lot to learn from you and all the big guns surfing around here.

Hey Eye and SB, I'll keep you in mind Bircas Hashachar--Yiverechecha "H V'yishmerecha.  Which we all know chazal teach that not only are we being blessed with parnassah, but that "H should watch over us that we use it wisely, L'shem Shomayim.  Keep us all posted.

MB.  my experience is that you probably have more to teach us than the other way around.  Keep up the posting. 

...and, I guess, sometimes I feel like Charles Dickens.

After about 3 years of involvement in GYE, and after listening to the Joe and Charlie workshops yet again, something finally struck me:

There's a little part of my brain (perhaps a big part) which is always transmitting the following messages to me, "LOOK AT WOMEN!  LOOK AT WOMEN!  LOOK AT THAT WOMAN!  LOOK AT THIS WOMAN!  YOU NEED TO LOOK.  YOU HAVE TO LOOK.  YOU'LL DIE IF YOU DON'T LOOK.  YOU'LL FEEL GOOD IF YOU LOOK.  YOU HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO LOOK! ETC"

There is two parts to our illness.  One is, the obsession of the mind.  I just realized, the obsession of the mind means exactly what I just wrote above--my mind NEVER stops telling me to look at women.  Secondly, there's this allergy of the body, which means once I start acting out, I can't stop.

Although I haven't looked at p*rn in a long time, and I haven't m*sturbated in a long time, I feel myself crossing boundaries in other ways.  When I happen to sit on a bus behind a female, I am starting to feel this pull to "accidentally" touch her.  I see that I am looking at women longer, and caring less if they look back--wanting them to look back now.  Also, what is more frightening, my daughter is very affectionate, and I see that my addict side does not discriminate--it is very easy to get pulled into it.  I need to be very careful setting boundaries and sticking to them.

I have been trying all along to surrender the urge to look at p*rn, or to m*sturbate.  I have been trying also, but with much less success, to surrender that urge to look at all the women on the street.

I think, what I have been missing, is that I have only recognized--and tried to surrender, the actions.  I never really noticed, until very recently, this relentless voice underneath it all.  "Look!  Look!  You have to look!"  THAT is the obsession of the mind, 24/7/365.25.  My mind is sick, and very deeply so.

Although I do need to surrender lustful feelings and actions perhaps, more importantly, I have to surrender that relentless voice in my head.

I finally see that my own mind REALLY IS out to kill me.  I am truly powerless, and I feel this much more now than ever before.  It's frightening.

But, I do believe that my Higher Power can restore me to my sanity.  I've just never asked Him to get rid of THIS before!

--Elyah

yehoshua wrote on 24 Feb 2012 08:08: