When I was ten years old a someone  shared a penthouse magazine with some of us. I still remember the pictures and phrases and have on occasion searched for them.

The next stage was discovering masturbation . I even tried to teach it to my friends.

On one lag boemer trip we came across a couple making out. I don't know exactly what I saw. After this I began to lie in the park with my pants down masturbating and imagining that scene.

At some point I discovered recorded phone sex. I can still recall standing at the payphone in the hall of yeshiva and orgasming. I was still too young for ejaculation.

The next few years I  don't remember anything significant . One day in yeshiva they caught some guys with porn. This idea was a tremendous trigger for me. After this I flipped out. I remember fantasizing a whole day how I could get one of those magazines. I would go to the local store and drool over the covers of the porn magazines.

I then discovered women's fashion magazines . I used to go to the public library and go through all the pictures. I used to rip out the pictures as I went along and stuff it in my pocket. By the time I left I had already ejaculated so I had no use for the pictures I had collected so I would throw them in the sewer on the way home. This became a regular weekly activity.

When I would go home I would use all the sears and spiegals catalogs. The Ann landers column was also a great turn on.

I remember one time I came home for the summer and in the nine days being covered in semen from repeated masturbation and unable to wash.

Later on I bought a radio and tape combo and I began a collection of songs of women singing very sexually explicitly. I would buy a women's fashion magazine and I would lock myself in a room and be in paradise for an hour or so.

After awhile I got a hold of myself and had a few basically sober years.

After marriage I was very disappointed and two months after marriage I bought my first real porn

After marriage I was very disappointed and two months after marriage I bought my first real porn mag. It then became my weekly custom to buy a porn mag.

After moving to Israel I managed to find a store that sold playboy for fifty dollars and we were back in business.

At this point my acting out got much more serious. I remember at times being consumed with lust on shabbos and walking to the secular part of town hoping to see something. I would also wander the malls for hours looking for something.

Being that playboy in Israel was quite expensive most of the time I made do with Israeli fashion magazines. I also discovered a special fax service that would send sexually explicit materials.

I used to go to the separate beach  and cross over and  wander around like a sex crazed maniac. While in the city I would wander the city looking for some action. I was such a miskain that I never was able to find it.

I then discovered two secular wedding halls and the joy of watching girls wiggle. I was a guest at every wedding for two years. I would carry different clothes in a bag and change not to look so charedi.

After returning to the states I got more serious . I visited the red light district of Manhattan for the first time. The first time I wandered into a peep booth with a very ugly girl in a cage. You had to pay to raise the wall to see her. She then asked me top or bottom . Top ten bottom twenty. I had no idea what she was  talking about. I gave her the twenty and she showed me the most ugly vagina. I ran out of there sickened.

After that I discovered strip bars . Every time I had a chasuna I would go afterwards to Manhattan. Around the same time I began to frequent sex stores and the movie booths in back.

And then came the internet. I was the first one to have a computer. I still remember waiting for my wife to fall asleep and then typing in playboy.com. The computer completely took over my life even when not using it for porn. It became the s

And then came the internet. I was the first one to have a computer. I still remember waiting for my wife to fall asleep and then typing in playboy.com. The computer completely took over my life even when not using it for porn. It became the sorest point of our marriage with my wife subtly hinting that she wants it out.

As technology progressed I installed a dvd player. I began to order porn dvds and watch them. I also began to buy mainstream videos with suggestive titles. At one point I came across a video about a person that lost his life to porn and I swore of it for a month or two.
At one point my wife found a Sex In The City video and got really nervous. At that point I threw out the computer.
I continued to borrow a computer every week or so and act out for a few hours

As technology progressed I didn't need a computer for my lust needs as a pocket device was quite adequate . I now have only a pocket device that serves all my needs. My taste in internet porn includes anything that includes girls except actual intercourse with men  including  sex with animals,and watching all bodily functions .
This completes the story of my subservience to lust

Why do you call it "My Crazy Story"? It sounds more or less like the story of EVERYONE on this forum... We're addicts and that's what addicts do.

Welcome to step 1. Your honesty is refreshing.

May we all learn to let Hashem take over this drive that is so much more powerful than us. One day at a time.

Ya I have to second Guard on this one... We are all alike. none of us are ANY different the the guy next to you. You basically take any story and fill in a different name for everyone.

I am so glad you are here and youre being honest with yourself and us!

We can do it.... TOGETHER!

Have a great Shabbos.

-Yiddle

ok so maybye we are all crazy

Yeh, but if we are all crazy, doesn't that make us all normal? Just kidding, we are all here to work on ourselves and I believe that we will all succeed.  Great to have you on board. Looking forward to get to know you better as we progress with the program.

Avraham.

Powerless
I feel powerless in three ways.

Number one, Anybody looking at my story can see how lust seeking, permeates my life. I constantly dream and fantasize how to get more lust.

Number two, I have really wanted to stop and have been unable. I stop for short periods an invariably begin again.

Number three, When I don't  act on my lust I cannot function. This shows  my dependence on lust. If I am dependent on lust I am powerless without it.

So beautiful. Reading all this makes me feel like crying for the first time in a while on GYE. Not just because we are talking about sweet yidden here, but because of the pain in our sickness and the pain it causes the ones who love us.

Something Yiddle (what's your name again?) wrote reminded me of a story Rav Twerski likes to tell:

A king was told by his trusted minister that there was ergot in the rye or wheat and that by the time half the fall would be over, all the kingdom would be crazy. (this stuff really used to happen, BTW)

But the minister shared his plan: He saved a supply of clean wheat and rye for him and the king to last till the next year's crop, so they'd be sane.

The king refused, saying that if his kingdom was nuts, he must join them - and so must his minister. But agreed to a stipulation: They'd both paint marks on each others' foreheads so that whenever they would look at each other they'd be reminded that they and the whole world were actually crazy. Aparently, reality is more precious than anything. Even sanity. And there are two kinds of insanity: the really bad one in which you do not even know that you are crazy - and the other one in which we at least know that we are nuts. And there is a big difference.

How apropos for us goofballs.

Great call yesterday. I feel we really connected . I would like apologize to all those that have been sending me pms i didn't receive any notifications . I am sorry for not responding. I hope we can make new start.

I just read your thread and was reminded of some of my activities that I did not include in my story because they weren't milestones...just common occurrence.  Buying porn magazines in yeshiva and bein hazmanim, the time I went to a live peep show to see ugly girls (the other guys there were a motley bunch but I completely missed the point - are these the people that I identify with??), masturbating in Central Park and getting poison ivy in the process, etc, etc.  I too went for anything with girls.  As soon as a guy entered the picture some of the allure was lost (although I often managed to persevere even then).  But anything meant anything, no matter how twisted and perverse.

Of course I thought I was all alone.  It's good to know that this is not true.  That you and many of us here can relate and recover together.

Here's a question for everyone.  I hate the fact that reading the thread and writing my response are triggers for me.  On the one hand, I'm very happy that I hate it.  On the other hand, it shows me how much more I have to do.  Will the day come when I can react properly?  With disgust and loathing?  Without a quickening of my pulse and a strong desire to re-read and mull over every suggestive phrase, imagining all the little details?  I have yet to establish an alternate, positive mind set.  I know that Hashem is here with me and the more I feel that, the closer I come to the proper perspective.  He will help me.  But I need to ingrain that somehow in my mind.  I need practical ways to FEEL it, not just think it.  I'm hoping the Steps will help...can someone further along with them tell me how it progresses?  At least how it did for you?

aron i felt just the same way . On the last call i was sitting in a shopping mall for privacy and getting triggered by everything passing by . I kept on thinking this is real lunacy. Today saw a video of frum people in porn store i kept thinking that is me . It really drove home the point that that is me

chaim2000 wrote on 12 Jul 2010 23:02:

One of the biggest maalos I found with the program and GYE is seeing other similarly situated people behaving the same way we do.  When you see someone else describing the way they act out (the same way you do), it doesn't look that pretty and you realize how badly you need help.  We can no longer convince ourselves that maybe we're not addicts.

since i am away from home i am away posting from my phone . I am going to therfore going to make my posts in pieces.
I think that we are hearing from him a amazing insight into why a person starts to feel that a higher power can save him. The idea is that when we realize  that we are screwed up not only in our lusting but also in other things we start to realize that there is a hole in our lives we are off balance. Since we are diffrent than lots of people it is safe to assume that somthing is throwing us off balance. For people like us that believe in hashem since this belief is the focal part of our lives since this is the most important part of our lives we are probally messed up in this area.

I think the porn gives me a private space that no one else can come. I think that i would rather watch porn in private that in public. Even if there would be no shame i would still want the private aspect. This gives me a feeling of being very special that i have somthing that others dont have. There is also a feeling of power when i manage to keep it  secret.  I have a secret identity that no one can touch. I think this is the real me. I guard the oprotunties to be with the real me. The actual experience is like sex with ones self.
The second facet is the ease of the experience it is so not like real life where the pleasure is accompanied by a price. In real life you cant tell the waiters in the resteraunt get the hell out of here dont bother me im eating. You have to be involved in other things at the same time you are pleasuring yourself. With the lust its just you and the lust.
The third point is that evert pleasure involves a struggle to get it lusting is always at a arms reach.