Hey all, new poster-discovered GYE in september and it motivated me to stay clean and happy. Its incredible. The posts/emails, all great. After nearly 6 months, I just slipped (stupid blackberry...) I refuse to let it get me down, but can someone here help me rebound mentally and action-wise? I feel gross and out of character for slipping, and don't want to feel like I'm counting from zero again-i fought a ton of battles and all struggles have losses...please advise!

Dear  freeeyes613,

Stay strong in your battles!!!

Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here.

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best – and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"… See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information…

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week… This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps – which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc… So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not…

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook

This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude

The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth…

May Hashem be with you!

Rising Up

Ahhhh!!

This is my favorite topic

Say: FELL SHMELL!!!

And just continue

Trucking!!

Thank you-i got the introduction in an email two months ago. Anything specific I can use now mentally/practically? It was clearly a slip that had a growing urge over time that's for sure....

Thank you bardichev-thats what I was hoping to hear...

FE613

You need to excuse some of the guys. There's a certain stage that some guys go through where they patrol the site looking for newbies so they can launch the welcome package. Makes them feel like part of the management.

Like Bards said one fall isn't really anything to dwell on, your in this for the long run, so drop it from your mind and continue on your merry way.

All the best,

Thanks. I never pushed myself to post (though I should have) but its nice to speak to all of you directly. I'm perfectly fine with RisingUp and the welcome package-thank you! I had one question after pondering this-obviously non-addicts slip too. What point of urge/watching porn defines an addict or a non-addict? Or should I just not discuss this stuff and move on? Thanks

See this page to rate your addiction level!

Hatzlachah!

E. ben Durdayah

bard forgot to mention -

pick your self up,
dust yourself off...

keep your eyes on where you are going..

and get back in the truck

and keep on trucking

YOU CAN DO IT !


dov.ii

Thank u dov in israel! You guys rock. its amazing that I feel that I fell once, but in no way do I feel the despair and "game over" of previous attempts and stretches. The real me knows what the deal is and my psyche doesn't want to go near any garbage...thank you!

1.  Got this in an email this morning:  "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" --Mary Anne Radmacher.  Ain Chodosh Tachas Hashemesh.  There is a reason why Yehuda was compared to the courageous lion, because he admitted that he made a mistake and moved on.  But I wouldn't wait until tomorrow to try again.  The time is now.

2.  Heard a wonderful Maharal this week.  He says that one who is in motion towards a destination is actually more connected to his destination then someone who is already there.  Its the act of climbing that creates the connection.  So get up and keep on trying Hashem loves you.

3.  In the process of moving on, do ask yourself what steps can I take to prevent this from happening again.  It may be,among other things, that the blackberry (or at least the internet connection on it) has got to.

Hatzlacha

just in case you ever wanted to know who you are up against:


Here is a recent picture of DESPAIR:

wen-m.deviantart.com/art/Despair-13369296

Whoa!! Thanks dov. For what its worth,I find that my success in changing has been due to removing any bad thoughts, feelings, anger, etc and just remaining calm and happy.

Hey Dov in Israel

Ever thought about getting k9?

hi FreeEyes613 -

Rabbi Pliskin says even if a person focused on the word JOY 25x a day for 3 days, will notice a big difference!
powerful stuff

Hi Me3 -

Yes, thought about k9. Actually my wife wanted to install it.
The next day, one of the guys tells me..he had k9, and how he figured out how to by pass it.

I had to learn how to filter my brain, not only my computer.
afterall my problem is not with my fingers, but with whats between my ears, inside my head.

if the picture triggered you, I appologize

dov.ii