It's almost the new year.

Share with us at eyes.guard@gmail.com how you've grown in this area over the past year, and which tools helped you the most. We will bl"n share your story in our chizuk emails to inspire others!

The danger of pornography use isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about the effects that pornography has on the user and the effects it has on the loved ones of the user. Pornography use has serious, negative side effects.

How many hours a day do you spend in negative thinking? How much of your thinking involves resentments, worries, regrets, guilt, shame, anger, fears, etc.?

How do you expect to feel if a lot of you thinking is negative? Pretty lousy.

Thoughts automatically translate into emotions.

We live in the emotional experience of our thinking.

"So, I've always been an avid reader. And at one point in my early sobriety I became a little obsessed with death, so I was poking around all the used bookstores in my neighborhood for books that were a little... well, macabre, I guess. Anyway, I found this one book that was all about the Eskimos and surviving -- or not surviving, maybe -- winter in the extreme North.

I don't remember much about it except this one thing: In the worst part of the winter, when hunting was at its hardest and everyone and everything was pretty much starving to death, the wolf packs would start to track the Eskimos as they followed their own game to hunt. And what the Eskimos would do is they would take a knife, and sharpen it and sharpen it and sharpen it until it was to the finest edge they could make it. Then they would cut one of the dogs and get the dog blood all over the knife blade. Then they'd stick the knife, hilt down, blade up, in the snow. The wolves driven by starvation would be in a frenzy when they smelled the dog blood on the blade of the knife, and before they could stop themselves, would lick the blade, cutting themselves until they bled to death. Every sense they had told them to lick the knife, and every lick of the knife moved them closer to bleeding out.

And I thought, "Man, that is a perfect metaphor for my sexaholism. When I'm in a frenzy, my every sense tells me to "drink", tells me that THAT'S what I need. And every time I drink I move closer to kind of... spiritually bleeding out. And that can absolutely lead me to death as certainly as those poor wolves freezing in the snow."

Do you have a problem with obsessive and compulsive porn use? Have you seriously tried the tools on GYE and feel that you are not getting better? Maybe it’s time to consider joining a 12-Step program.

Porn Anonymous (PA)
If you’re compulsively acting-out with pornography and masturbation we suggest you explore joining Porn Anonymous (PA). If you need help deciding whether to join PA, call Michael at 347-699-2368, or email help@pornanonymous.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit pornanonymous.org (Hebrew: p-a.org.il / Yiddish: pa-yid.org).

Sexaholics Anonymous (SA)
If your compulsive acting-out has progressed beyond the screen (with other people, paid sexual services, etc.) we suggest you explore joining Sexaholics Anonymous (SA). To figure out if SA is for you, call Dov at 917-414-8205, or email Dov at dov@guardyoureyes.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit www.sa.org.