I want to share with you today this thread from our Forum:
I want to share a technique that was very helpful to me when I wanted to stop masturbating once and for all. I committed to myself that every time I lose myself and do it I would give a substantial sum to Tzedaka! After a while and working on being very determined, I did it less and less often. Firstly, it was becoming very expensive, as I was keeping to my end of the deal and giving the Tzedaka! I couldn't afford to do it! After a while, this kept me in line and helped me to cool off a bit, and that allowed me to focus on strengthening my self control. Eventually, with tremendous help from above I was successful. It is now almost 8 years later and I have thank G-d been in control of myself! It is very possible to do, don't let the wicked yetzer horah tell you otherwise. I was hooked to online porn, and even just any visual stimulation was enough to get me crazy. But you can take control. It is exceedingly possible! I am living proof 8+ years in the making. I still live with the fear of messing up and I pray for help everyday. But my battle is from a different angle now. YOU CAN DO IT!! I have, and you can too!
Indeed, as Chazal say "Al taamin B'Atzm'cha Ad Yom Mosecha - do not trust yourself until your dying day". Precisely because you live with the fear of messing up is why you pray daily. And precisely because you are aware of your weakness, even almost a decade later, is why you pray and why you have been granted the strength to persevere!!!
And I would like to elaborate a bit more on this idea. There's a story in the Gemara (Kedushin 81b) about Rav Chiyah Bar Ashi who had stopped having relations with his wife for years because he was old and week, and yet he would fall on his face every day and pray that Hashem save him from the Yetzer Hara. One day his wife heard him praying and she couldn't understand why he needed to pray for this, even though he was old and weak. So she dressed up as the town harlot and passed by him as he learned in the garden, and he didn't know it was his wife and he "sinned" with her. Afterwards, he wanted to kill himself for having sinned, and he sat inside the oven to burn himself to death and atone for his sin. And his wife found him there and asked him what he was doing. And he told her what had happened and refused to come out. So she admitted to him that it was her, and finally after proving it to him, she convinced him to come out.
And yet, even though he realized he hadn't really sinned, the Gemara says that this Tzadik fasted for the rest of his life, only because he had "thought" he was sinning.
We can see from this story how one must never stop davening to Hashem to be saved from the Yetzer Hara. Even this great Tzadik, who was already old, weak and greatly removed from these temptations, still felt the need to fall on his face and daven every day for Hashem to save him!
And let me just end on a positive note. One who does daven every day with a broken heart for Hashem to save him from "lust" - will see miracles! On guardureyes, we are seeing this again and again, in the "Recovery Stories" and with the wonderful spiritual warriors who are posting on the forum every day!
No prayer goes to waste, no matter how insignificant it seems, and even if we feel we don't really mean it. Whenever you see something that turns your heart, cry out to Hashem and say "Hashem, save me from lust for flesh and blood! Help me instead to lust for you! As it says in Tehillim: Tzama Lecha Nafshi, Kama Lecha Besari - My soul thirsts for you, my flesh pines for you!"