I am a 17 year old bochur who suffers from internet addiction. I need help. When I am in yeshiva I rarely have any issues with temptations, but when i come home it gets bad. How can i get my parents to put a filter on the computer without embarrasing myself. Letting them know is not an option, they already have too much to deal with.

Recoveree wrote on 13 Apr 2011 22:31:


Can you be honest with your Rov/Rosh Yeshiva, and ask him to "request" it from them "as per general policy"?

It's the kind of thing a Rosh Yeshiva would respect, but of course must be approached with a little caution.  If he's that kind of person, you could give him access to your logs.

Recoveree,
This is a topic that has been broached on numerous occaisions.  I will post the link for you here to a topic that relates directly to this question of yours.  But I must first welcome you as well.
Welcome to our community, you have finally come home!

We're all in the same boat here. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama   Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up with them!

GYE Program in a Nutshell: (Right Click the link and press "Save Link/Target As" to save the PDF file to your computer).

'Guard Your Eyes' offers a unique approach to helping people by recognizing that there are many different levels in the struggle for "Shmiras Ainayim" and "Shmiras Habris". After studying the experience of hundreds of religious strugglers over the past few years, we put together the suggestions and recommendations that we feel are best for the various levels. We divided the tools, features and services that GYE offers into 8 different levels. This "GYE Program in a Nutshell can help people quickly identify at what level of the struggle they are at, and which tools and features would help them most at their particular level.

Here are some quick things you can do to help you jump straight into recovery:

1) 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 also highly advise installing "Reporting Software" such as webchaver.org to give you some accountability, because filters alone are usually not sufficient and they can often be bypassed.

2) Join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day.

3) 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.

4) 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!

5) GuardYourEyes also offers many free anonymous phone conferences where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See www.guardyoureyes.org > Tools > Phone Conferences for many different options. Our conferences are taking place every day, morning, noon and night� Joining a phone group 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 the daily call will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

6) If you need more general guidance, write to our e-mail helpline at gye.help@gmail.com or call our hotline at 646-600-8100.

7) Download and read the "Guard Your Eyes Handbook". This handbook outlines the GYE approach in detail, and makes our network much more effective and helpful for people. The handbook has two parts:

A) The first part, "Attitude & Perspective", 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�

The second part, "The 18 Tools", detail 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. 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!

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

Dear the jester,
Talking to Rov/Rosh yeshiva is not an option.

Tell them your Rosh Yeshiva said you need to have a filter?

What about sending your Rosh Yeshiva an anonymous letter?

tell your parents that you want to make a geder / fence to not use unfiltered internet. Don't explain, pretend it is a frumy thing. You might think they will suspect you but my experience is that they wont. Hatzlacha

Id like to thank all of you for your support.
When i was very young i was caught doing some wrong things and they asked me outright if i go on bad sites, and i said yes. at that point they put on a filter, and i promptly got around it. Since then they've had to deal with a lot of other things and it sort of fell under the radar. It hasnt been a front burner issue because im barely home. I cant put them through the agmas nefesh by coming clean.      I cant

Your situation reminds me of when I grew up. I was afraid to go to my parents and tell them what was going wrong in my life because I didn’t want to add to their burdens. They always brushed off my problems as an inconvenience to them.
Let me tell you, it is an unhealthy situation and possibly a contributor to the addiction.

Maybe I’m wrong here, but I think that you’re more afraid of their reaction than you are of the embarrassment.
Honestly, what is more embarrassing: getting caught or saying to them: I noticed that when I go onto the internet, there are so many things like spam emails, banners and misleading articles and one wrong click can take me to a site I really do not want to see. I just don’t want to be tempted in that way. I was discussing it with someone and they suggested I install a filter.

You don’t have to break the news that you’re an addict. You can tell them that the internet is getting more and more immodest and you don’t want the temptation.
Remember that your problems are important too. If at all possible, it’s best to speak to them when emotions aren’t high. The difficulty comes in with how you start the conversation. How about “I’ve got a personal issue that I would like some help on. I only need a minute.”

Your parents do care about you and what’s important to you. In my family, we felt like we weren’t being listened to. Something that may work is for you to open up the listening. If you catch your mother alone, go to her and say “So how was your day?”. She’ll start telling you a whole bunch of stuff that is important only to her, but after just being there and listening for a little while, you’ll see she’ll now be ready to listen to you.

I hope there’s something in there that helps.
Keep well.
ToAdd.

Hello Recoveree,

Welcome to the forum.  You should hopefully find all the help you need here.

On this point, I don't quite understand your problem.  You want to ask your parents to put on a filter, but then they put on a filter and it doesn't help?

--Eye.

ToAdd wrote on 14 Apr 2011 06:44:

+1

I was there, too.  And I will bet I put my parents through at least as much grief.  I suspect many of us in here had colorful teenage years and some issues like yours.

Now, as a parent, I would say that I would love my kids to come up with that suggestion.

One other thing you could do is start with a little white lie.  Think of a term you should be looking up - possibly a surname.  Tell your parents you googled it and schmutz came back in Google images - I can't seem to get away from the rubbish they throw up, myself.  Tell them you'd like to avoid that situation.  Preferably skirt the issue without the lie - in all probability they'll spot it and know the real issue...  But you get the idea

Tellyour parents as an aside "By the way this filter you put on is terrible! just the other day I got to a ---- site by mistake, you should install K9, or whatever that'd a good filter!" Here I'll show you, where you get it.....

Has he disappeared?

dov wrote on 14 Apr 2011 17:09:

I havent disappeared, just thinking about all the advice ive been getting and how i will go about it.

but i do appreciate all the support. Thank You

hi recoveree, you should be very proud of what your doing right now. i am exactly in your boat. im 22 years old and i just had the courage after speaking to my rebbi and looking at guard your eyes for a couple of months to tell my parents that i need a filter. i can give you some advice i dont know if it will help or not but ill try. a week or two after i told my mother about the filter she asked me straight out did you or do you have a problem to lust on the computer. my heart was pumping, here is the oppurtunity to tell her which i wish i could of told her years ago. i said yes but im not a mest up kid i m just a regular kid with open internet i expailened to her about guard your eyes and how its basically impossible for a kid woith internet without a filter not to fall into this and you should try to work with me. i tried to focus on the point that im not a bad person or that im going of the derech just that have a problem that needs to be taken care of. she totaly understood me and even apologized that she didnt realize this a long time ago and that i have to go through this now. i dont know what kind of mom or parents you have but if you think you would be able to tell your mom this i think should would be proud of you and i deffinetly think you will be proud of yourself and you could take that feeling of hiding it from your parents off your shoulders good luck and i hope your matzliach which ever path you take and really you give me chizuk to hear such things hope all goes well