hi All,

today i posted my first post by introducing myself, but i didn't really express my struggles or what they come from, hopefully now i feel a bit more comfortable to share, which is usually very hard for me, even to the people closest to me.

so again, i am in my mid 20' and till about a year ago i was involved heavily and intimately with married woman, went to therapy, meetings got out of it BH. that was all a year ago, now as i mentioned in my previous post, my mind started swirling again with all kinds of fantasies about this woman or that 1, and i start to recall how much pleasure actual physical contact with these woman gave me, of course now i know that its all short term and that in the long term i will regret it & that it would destroy everything that i worked so hard for the past few years,namely to become a better person in eyes of Hashem.

the problem is that this only makes sense on paper, my brain doesn't buy this anymore, for some reason it ignores it. and not knowing how to stop my brain from actually acting out, i went back to p**n (which is where all this started in late teen years) - and i told myself -  that its just so i can calm myself, pleasure myself to a degree where i can push off these ideas of approaching these woman again, and so far for the past few weeks it worked, but then something happened....

what happened ??? i came across this wonderful website GUE and it killed me !!! know why ? because i saw that i am so SO far from perfect, so many people struggle with stuff that i take so lightly, i feel ashamed of myself for calling myself "clean for one year", how can i say i am CLEAN when i watch the ugliest of fantasies that there are on p**n just to satisfy my urge to do something worse?
there are people who struggle here about not looking on the street on a frum woman who is dressed top to bottom, and I AM the one who is CLEAN ? so yeah, GUE YOU RUINED MY WORD for me, i take a look at myself now i see a guy who is living in a tiny little bubble, satisfying himself with self destructive behavior while patting himself on the back by saying, HEY buddy you are doing a great job because at least you are not actually having a relationship with a married woman ! pathetic :-[, i know.  :-X

so i guess my question to you guys here is, where do i go from here ? what do i need to do ? and how do i do it?

Tzadikel, the only place to go from here is UP! You have already taken a step and you want to go even higher.

So climb aboard and Keep On Trucking!

Gevura!

Tzadikel Yossele wrote on 19 Aug 2011 00:46:


I once heard Harvey speak. He is one of the founders of SA. And he spoke about what you mention here. It is a mechanism of addiction that makes us remember the good and forget the bad. It's called euphoric recall. The eitza is that we need to try and remember the bad parts as well, and associate the memory with the bad parts. And the bad parts are the real truth, because if it was so good, why did we need it again so soon afterward? When we eat a good steak, we don't feel desire for another good steak for at least a few days! So why do we need it again so fast? Because the bad parts, like the time we wasted, the smells, the money, the damage we caused, that is the REAL truth. Remember the smells of the feet, the smells of the semen, etc... And most of all, remember how BAD and DISGUSTED you felt AFTERWARDS.

[quote]there are people who struggle here about not looking on the street on a frum woman who is dressed top to bottom, and I AM the one who is CLEAN ? so yeah, GUE YOU RUINED MY WORLD for me, i take a look at myself now i see a guy who is living in a tiny little bubble, satisfying himself with self destructive behavior while patting himself on the back by saying, HEY buddy you are doing a great job because at least you are not actually having a relationship with a married woman ! pathetic :-[, i know.  :-X[/quote]

We take pride in ruining people's worlds in such ways  ;D




You mentioned that you were in  therapy and meetings. Why did you stop the meetings, did you think you are "cured"? Unfortunately, the nature of addiction is that the neuron pathways we blazed into our brains may never go away. While we can learn to close the door on them, they are still there. When we start taking the "first drink" and opening the door, the pathways revert back to the same strength as before.

The concept of using porn so "I don't do worse things" is a common mistake that addicts make. Unfortunately, it is the exact opposite. By "feeding it" through porn, we are just making it stronger. The more we feed it, the more we need it - as chaza"l tell us. And using these images and having "sex with self" just makes the monster grow bigger and we can c'v find ourselves back at square one, even with the worst behaviors that we thought we were trying to "stop ourselves from".

To get back on track, see our standard welcoming post here.

I also highly suggest you read our handbook - and get back into meetings!

TY- Hello and welcome..

You expressed your thoughts so well and I can relate to them as if I was writing them.. After all the thought are/were my thoughts at times. One thing I would like to say - Keep on killing your life here- More and more.. Let it hurt.. Don't worry the cheer up crowd will be here soon, but for now don't walk away from that thought, let it really work its way in. Realizing we are at the bottom is so important.. Realizing our sickness in the most important part in recovery.. Its the first step... And without it I found for myself I am not moving in too the proper steps of recovery.. because I have not come to the real realization of the severity of my acts..

So Yes you will hear fell, shmell, bette,r shmetter,  I am not saying give up- I ma saying let it dig deep in to your bones how silly and sick our minds are and leads us to insanity..

Now hold on my friend.. Keep on reading and don't run away.. Stay with us.. and you will move up from here.

your brother -hm

hi Yossele, welcome to the forum,

you got some great ideas and tips from the Guard shlita and Heuni Memass, very wise words.

stick around, read up, both the pdf's from the welcome package and on the forum. you will see that you are not alone in your situation.
wishing you the very best
zs

guardureyes wrote on 19 Aug 2011 10:48:


I would suggest, tand this is as much for me as anyone else, that this is brilliant and if there were no concrete bad memories, make them up.  I mean think through how bad it is spiritually, emotionally for both you and the people on the videos.  It ruins their lives too.  Nobody winS!

for non-euphoric recall, this thread might help:
www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=1269.msg29812#msg29812

Id like to put in my two cents here and say that your whole view on the concept of addiction is more relaxed than others is. In a way this is bad, and probably causes you to feel a certain levity towards it and keep you off guard at times. But at the same time you can use this lightness and escape depression and withdrawal effects. Hopefully, soon enough, you will be able to find a balance in approach to addiction and settle down your mind and fears. This is where you become the "fine tuned engine" sports car that "Duvid Chaim" shlita spoke about a few weeks ago. He said that addiction is like sports cars. When you see the windy road from afar, you know that your well tuned engine can take on the challenge and zip right thru it. But when you neglect the inspections and the tune-ups, you will most probably crash. So thankfully there is a fine balance in approach towards SA and you will find it, especially as you will see the many styles of approach that the GYE family has. I hope this will be a sucsess for you and welcome aboard.

guardureyes wrote on 19 Aug 2011 10:48:


I would suggest, tand this is as much for me as anyone else, that this is brilliant and if there were no concrete bad memories, make them up.  I mean think through how bad it is spiritually, emotionally for both you and the people on the videos.  It ruins their lives too.  Nobody winS!

Dear Tzadikel Yossele,

I beg to differ, and this may come off as arrogant of me to even suggest, but it's not:

I doubt GYE ruined anything for you. Eventually, the lusting behaviors you were using were probably eventually going to bring you right down to where you left off. Perhaps you do not believe that it would have inexorably led to you losing all control over yourself. If so, I think you have the same arrogance I naturally have. It kept me messing around with women and porn (and with myself) for years and years, till I suffered enough. So I am not being judgmental of you in any respect.

I am just suggesting that you nay not be coming to GYE for moral reasons, but to save your own behind from yourself. So you 'ruined' your blissful coasting, not GYE. Unless, of course, I am completely wrong! Wouldn't be the first time, just ask my wife (and Hashem, if you can).

And exactly how did you actually end up coming across GYE?

Happy you are here, for your sake as much as ours. Growth in recovery is just as precious - whether it is bred of self-preservation or some deep high madreigah. The actual process is just as unglamorous and just as beneficial to all those who witness it.

Please stay here, Tzadikel Yossele. And please share with us.

I will write one thing that may address your post in another thread, where you say what you went through and ask for suggestions on how to get well:

Exactly what did you do to get better - not to remain
better, mind you, but to get better in the first place?

I bet that is all you need to revisit, if you want to climb out of a hole of some kind. I often find I am coasting, relying on the changes in me resulting from recovery to carry me on. They do, for a while...but eventually they fail, and I discover that I again need exactly what got me 'safe' in the first place. It is kind of painful, kind of annoying, and feels 'beneath me':

* dragging my self to actual meetings;

* opening up directly and explicitly and in person, to others like me in recovery (so they really know what I am talking about)

*taking direction again - and not just from those who I feel are 'above me' and 'deserve' to have me 'follow' them. I need less respectability and more honesty. Down to earth, literally.

If I am not down to earth, then my addiction will bring me down to the earth anyhow, eventually.

Thank-G-d I have never actually believed that I was cured. So I am sober and life is great today, so far! It truly is wonderful thing, full of rebirths and regrowth experiences. Life never gets boring any more and I never need lust to fill me up. And my wife and kids and I are all much happier than we ever were, too. 

dov wrote on 19 Aug 2011 19:23:


i have come across GUE a while back, but i didnt enroll in it, i didnt think that it was for me, as i mentioned that i didnt think i was doing anything wrong at the time, but for the past weeks i was tempted to go back to stuff from my past, and while contacting an old 'friend' she mentioned your website and how it helped her to move on from this life, and i tried her advice so i signed up here and stated to read/write a little.

i had allot of time to think during the weekend and i just wanna come out and say this, ' HI MY NAME IS TZADIKEL AND I AM AN ADDICT'.

in the past i was more what they called an LOVE ADDICT, it wasn't so much the sex part for me as the being in a relationship with someone, the past for focusing more on the married woman was something from my past, i needed a momy to take care of me since i grew up with parents that were loving/affectionate/compassionate equivalent to a tiny water bug, so i was constantly looking for love and since i felt so strongly for them i didnt even think before doing anything else with them.

but what i did NOT know if that while i got rid of that BH, a bit over a year now, i transferred my addictive personality so something else, p**n /mtz"l , and now realizing that i am once again coming out and saying this loudly to everyone, 'i am an addict' ,  and no, it does NOT feel good, but as we all know that this is the first step that i needed to do so here it goes, i am hoping that i will be able to be honest with myself and with all of you in my progress, because i am in nature a dishonest person not because i wanna lie to people but i just i can not have my ego or some sort of image that i have with people get darkened by what i do when no one sees, so i will be trying to change that a bit here as well, if you guys dont mind.


and again, thanks all for the replies, messages, and over all for GUE being the great site that it is.

until next time.
tzadikel Yosse'le

And hatzlocha using this site to do the same things that got you  into recovery in the first place.....though I am personally unsure how a purely voluntary and only virtual 'relationship' on a forum can help you do that.

You describe a 'transfer of an addictive personality' from sex with someone else into sex with yourself - but in terms of what it does to you I do not see very much of a difference in the two. Of course the adultery you used to do creates far more human wreckage, but that's it. But for us ourselves, being out of control in sexual behavior is still personally destructive. I just figure that if it were just a 'transfer of addictive personality', then why not turn to smoking, overeating, gambling, and/or pot? Why specifically use lust? To me, that is not a switching of addictions in any respect, just lust again, slapping me around. The old way is unacceptable for whatever reason - we always find ways to 'get the job done'.

To start recovering, I would have needed a lot more than a forum - and to keep on recovering, I still do. Without the 3 tools I listed before, there is absolutely no way I could have remained clean for any significant length of time. Hashem just would not have done it for me, period. I would not have let Him.

[quote="dov" link=topic=4338.msg115625#msg115625 date=1313984295]
..though I am personally unsure how a purely voluntary and only virtual 'relationship' on a forum can help you do that.

so as per Dov i dont have what to look for here on this forum before i attend -again- SA meetings, opening up in person to a close friend etc. , taking direction from people, again.

isnt this what this forum is about ? and to you personally Dov, why do you throw me away ? i feel so rejected right now, as if i am a lost cause or something.

to be honest with you, i would consider SA meetings but i can not do it at the moment, not for the next year at least, to much going on in life at the moment, so i guess i am screwed for next year, it was nice being here for this short while.
good bye ya'll.

slow down boy- calm down! This forum is not only dov, if it meant that or not he will explain, but why you dumping us??

Join us- you accomplished tons in your journey so far and we need you for our recovery as a group and I am sure you will have what to gain as well.

SIt back and have a Le'chaim.. Hand him a shot glass please.. Or a glass for that matter..

My dear friend,
Many of us here on GYE have been able to move on from our addictions without attending live or even phone groups.  I agree that simply posting on a forum won't do it.  But if you read and apply the materials referenced in the welcome package, and if you work the steps, you can recover.

When I discovered through GYE that I was a lust addict (a severe one) I decided to do whatever it would take to recover.  I really didn't want to attend live groups for obvious reasons, but I did tell myself that if my way
( www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=3744.0 )
didn't work, I would do whatever was necessary, including live help. Baruch Hashem I have been clean for well over 2 years since first committing to it.  And I did it with only the Ribbono Shel Olam as my faithful Sponsor.

I'm sure you will find your own path out of this.  Don't let your hurt feelings stop you from participating in this forum.  Sharing and helping with your recovery will be a great chizuk to us all.

Alex