Steve said something yesterday on the morning call that really hit home with me. He said that when we get triggered, at that moment we need to say to ourselves, "OK, G-d, You've got my attention! Where are we going with this? What message do you have for me?" And at the same time we pray, "Hashem, this lust urge is too strong for me, I am powerless against it! PLEASE remove it from me at this instant, and guide me to fulfill your will for me."
Hearing you loud and clear, but need to share this:
What you write is great advice and I agree, technically speaking. But as far as I am concerned (the) "ikkar (is) chosair min haseifer".
What is your goal - what do you consider success? If all you want is an eitza of how to get past lust attacks as they come so that you will just stay clean, then I have nothing to add. But "not acting out" (you can call it "being clean") is all you may get. And that doesn't seem to work very well for many people. Life is too risky, and changes. Can we be vigilant enough? I doubt it. If we are addicts, we are predisposed, so we need a real solution - not stopgap measures. The 12-Steps recognize that we have a problem with "living" that needs to be addressed and take action on it on a continual basis. That just seems to be the way it is.
I believe the 12-step people (and the RMB"M in shmoneh p'rakim), that my addiction is not my real problem. It is only a symptom of my real problem, which is a misconnection with G-d and my fellow man. And I also follow the experience of the 12-step people that all progress in my recovery will depend on my focusing on the 'Solution' instead of on the 'Problem'. (Of course, my addictive behavior history must be my total focus in the very beginning of my recovery so that I get clear that I need to live a different way if I expect to get better and not to be fooled any longer that I can beat it.) Learning to live differently takes tefillah, time, and effort.
Any other endeavor had been fruitless for me... for years. And that included 'being a good yid/teshuvah/beating this thing because Hashem wants me to'. Complete waste of time for me. I was always doing it my own way, guiding the struggle and effort with my own damaged sechel... ignoring the fact that my best sechel and effort was guiding me when I got into porning and masturbating in the first place! No wonder it always failed after a week, month, or a few months. Always - and always got worse, never really better.
If you want progressive freedom, peace, and to live the good life, then all the eitzas for how just to escape and evade lust attacks may only help you do just that: keep running. It has been my experience that progressive peace and recovery come from slow, patient inner change allowing a connection to G-d and His people. I meet so many who go around and around, settling for the valiant struggle day after day. They may intend to be serving Hashem, but is intention everything? I believe that even well-intentioned people can be fooled by their own insanity. I have posted before, that many people write about the struggle to stay clean as a 'valiant mission', romanticizing it as though such a state is actually what Hashem wants for us, in general. Of course struggling with the Yetzer Hara has its place, and is a tremendous part of a beautiful avodas Hashem... but for crying out loud! Would you wish on your own son to have a chronic progressive disease that has deadly side-effects that can wreck his sanity, health, marriage, happiness, relationships with G-d and man, etc...and then just give him a way to keep running from it?We are Hashem's children. He didn't give us this problem so that we should just run from it. Recovery is about a daily reprieve - not 'running'.
No, I am not being m'harheir acharei midosav, c"v, but just trying to make this distinction: For a normal yid, it makes perfect sense to have challenges of fighting lust. The s'char and growth of beating it would be tremendous, for sure. But an addict - i.e. one who is a chronic loser to lust - is different. And that is obvious to me. In my own case, I had to finally come to admit that I cannot win. Not that G-d cannot free me, but that as I am,I cannot win. There is indeed something wrong with me, something's broken. That is a hard pill to swallow. Even though I am a truly good man and trying to be a good yid and serve Hashem (and always have, in my own mind), my track record (first step inventory) proves to me that I am a chronic and progressive loser to lust. I spent nearly two decades trying to beat my lust to death with my brains. Tears, 'teshuvah', Torah, shrinks, medication, mussar, marriage, children, 'growing up', whatever... and failed and only got worse. Eventually I had enough. It is clear that I am mentally, spiritually and even physically sick with the tendency to obsess about and be dependent upon lust. And for over 13 years since 'giving up to' this truth and to my need to actually take real, and occasionally extreme measures, I have used the 12-step program to let Hashem keep me sober. And I am not 'stronger', at all!
'Escape today from lust'; 'don't give in'; 'fight it'; 'be vigilant'.... is all well and good. And without a daily commitment to avoiding the 'first drink', I will surely get nowhere. But a solution, it is not. Ultimately, that'd keep me looking into the familiar mirror of self-will rather than through the aspaklaria at G-d and at other people than myself.