Hi all
the other times i posted on this website i was rushed for time, etc and didnt really have the time to sit down and write all about myself. Today, however, i was left alone in the house to do some errands and was about to leave to give a shiur and BANG. i looked at the computer. the computer looked at me.
'lets just go on for 5 minutes' i thought to myself.
i let out a little cry 'hashem! please help me!'.
'come on, nu, just 5 minutes and then you can leave. i mean, there is no way i can really stay for any longer than 5 minutes because i have to teach a shiur!'
'yeah, but im already late i have to leave now!'
'well, if im already late another 5 minutes wont hurt'
'hashem please help me!'
boom. i sat on the computer, opened up the special browser which does not store information and whish. well, you see i do have K9 (and the filter gabbai has the password) but, with some time, i know how to get around it (ie getting sites that k9 doesnt detect). it does take some time, though, so after 5 minutes i barely had what i had come for. every thing i looked for i told myself 'this and thats it'. then looked for something else. all the meanwhile the clock is ticking, ticking. i hadnt yet benched after what i had eaten so i told myd myself 'you see, you have to bench so dont worry well be finished in time for you to bench'. Slowely but surely, that time passed as well. i had some crumbs from what i had eaten and every now and then would eat some, telling myself 'its OK, you can bench in another 70 minutes'. more images and trying to get video. trying, failing, clock ticking as i work my way through so many internet sites, this one blocked, ok but this one open and no video allowed, etc etc. just kept on going, going, going. after two hours i realise that i have to call my wife. but no i kept on looking, etc. after 3 hours of looking i had a 'good' zera levatala r'l and finally i'm free. so now i have even more extra time as my whole day is messed up. the whole time i felt like i was in a prison. couldnt get out. and it seems that at those moments the only way to get out is zera levatala. because, anyway its going to happen. so lets make it happen after 10 minutes and be free rather than 3 hours. any thoughts on that?
And what happend today? Learnt and davened well. did errands around the house. it was
a really good day. about to leave for a shiur and...
This reminds me of my yeshiva days. i would be in the middle of a sugia and need the toilet. in the toilet before i knew it i was masturbating. out of the blue.

I do feel, however, a feeling of mmmmm, that i dont usually feel which means because i  tried to stop myself from hotzos hazera when it finally came out after 3 hours it was more pleasureable

I am reading so much about knowing when your yetzer gets you, etc but with me it seems like ANY DAY ANY TIME! After a good day lying in bed thinking mishnayos or tanya bal peh and BOOM!

Anyway, knowing myself i would think that if the filter gabbai blocks out all websites except for the ones i need i would be a lot better. i cant avoid being at home alone. its too difficult. there is too much to do.

OK...sorry for the scattered thoughts. lets get down to business:

heres goes. i have been doing some deep thinking about what it says in a few places on the internet about figuring out the reason we are doing zera levatala. And pondering about my own childhood. i have revealed that, despite my parents being warm loving and nuturing, they did not really know how to raise a child. the one big problem is that they never really made any effort to see how i feel in anything. especially as i am now working in chinuch and have a very good marriage bh i am learning (from profesionals) what it means to understand/connect to the other person. I have never had anyone do that for me. If i did something wrong i was shouted at. even if it was a mistake. for example, i once droped a Coke bottle on the floor and it exploded. i was shouted at and sent to my room by my mother. i was 8 years old. it was an accident. i was always walking on a tight-rope. one minute everything was OK. i was eating for example. the next minute i was eating too much and im going to be fat. one minute i was playing nicely on the playstation (i am a baal teshuva) and the next minute my parents shout at me becasue i am being too loud. I never really had that 'safe haven' where whatever i do is OK and i am loved, etc. I was also bullied at school and was embarassed to tell my parents. They would ask me 'how was school today, good?' 'did everyone play nicely with you?' and i would obviously answer 'yes mum'. i remember that there was a time when i told them everything but as i grew up i began hiding it from my parents. my parents expected me to  be normal so i tried acting like it. When i got older i wouldnt bring certain friends home because i was embarassed that my parents would see my 'nerdy' friends. I had nowhere to run to. not school (i was ill-behaved and got bad marks). not my parents. not my friends. i couldnt play sports properly. so at the beginning i found creating fantasies where i am a famous baseball player, or singer (i even wrote songs), TV programer etc. I was, however, noticing that my father's reaction to all this was negative. for example, my father once found a piece of paper of mine with my own TV schedule (i must hav been 6 or 7) written '600 telethon 900 telethon 1200 telethon etc' becasue i had seen it written in the TV guide. i would study the TV guide and make up my own TV guide and play out the characters. My father shouted at me and told me to stop living in fantasies. So i had to stop that. i still continued, however, in secret. then i found that if i play sport in the backyard and write down my own scores my father didnt mind as much.

shortly thereafter, however, i felt that i was disapointing my parents because i wasnt 'normal'.
In that time i found pornography. A freind showed my a website when i was about 9 and i really liked it. Once, i was in my father's office and saw on the history porn sites! That got me hooked because here is something i like and my father approves of! My father called me to the computer room when i was about 12 or 13 and showed me how to delete history off the computer and that he doesnt want to see any smut on the history. So that was that. My solution. my friend. a place where i belong. a place without limitation. where everyone likes me. home.....or so i thought.
OK...to be continued. i have to go now. i will continue the story, imyh

wow.  thanks for sharing. hatzlacha in your recovery!  i know you can do it.

Crazy post. Its so funny how we all think we are the only ones with the problem but really everyone has it. I spoke to my rosh yeshiva last year and I told him I was trying to work onmyself and he could tell I was relaly sad about it. He told me "you think I dont have tayvos?". That really hit me. Even the gedolei hador have tayvos just like me and you. We gotta fight it every day. I actually just learned in mesillas yeshiarim shar gayvoh that the yeitzer harah is a stronger match then any person you can ever face. If you beat your opponent 1, 2, or 3 times they wont get back up. The y"h doesn't care in the least bit. As I know for myself he just keeps coming back. I had such long clean periods and just messed it up. I hate it so much and it depresses me. I know how empty I feel after I do it nevertheless I do it. Trust me, I feel your pain.

Thanks helpme, I can relate to a lot of what you wrote.  You are on your way to a better life IY"H.  HATZLACHA!  Keep us posted.

Just a quick note... I'd like to log my whole journey as it really helps me.

As i am beginning this journey of discovery, i remember that as early as age 5 or 6 i had sexual-related dreams about me and my teacher. not sexual acts, but....i dont know if i can explain it in detail on the post. but very, very weird and vivid dreams about one specific teacher involving kiruv basar that carried on for a few years.

Is that normal? Is it possible that i was sexually abused as a child but it has been blotted out of my memory?

based on my cognitive psych class it is very unlikely that you were sexually abused and dont recall.  unless you were very young.

Hi and welcome!
Your story sounds eerie like mine...are you sure you are not me? you describe spending three hours at the computer so precisely...
thanks for that, it reminds me why I want to be sober, despite all possible underlying issues.
Hatzlocho.

Dear Help me !
I am sure it must have been hard to open up and write all that down
it shows that you do want to fix the problem - kol hakavod !
There are couple of things in your post that suggest potential solutions to your issues -([quote="helpme!" link=topic=4868.msg127922#msg127922 date=1323261758]

'lets just go on for 5 minutes' i thought to myself.
I have been there so many times but what I have found helpful is not struggling with the urge to be on for just five minutes but to see the fight as an all or none game - think 5 minutes is automatically 3 hours
then the next time the computer calls you think - do I have 3 hours to spend on this shmutz

i sat on the computer, opened up the special browser which does not store information and whish. well, you see i do have K9 (and the filter gabbai has the password) but, with some time, i know how to get around it (ie getting sites that k9 doesnt detect).
Again every time I have been on a roll I have never gone straight to the "really bad websites" but started with those more benign sites that the filter allows
again think to yourself I am not decieving the filter or the gabbi but am going stright to P-N sites - is this what I really want- the illusion that there is still a filter in place is actually "comforting" to the YH because he tells you -its ok the filter is still working  - you can get into any really BIG trouble- wrong

all the meanwhile the clock is ticking, ticking. i hadnt yet benched after what i had eaten so i told myd myself 'you see, you have to bench so dont worry well be finished in time for you to bench'.
This reminder did not just happen to enter your head - I have realized how many times in the middle of looking at trash at work that my wife or mother has called me  - It cant just be by accident think of it as HASHEM sending you a telegram
imaging if that actually happened - A malach knocked on your door - excuse me message for ___ from the Ribbno Shel Olam  that what it is

after 3 hours of looking i had a 'good' zera levatala r'l and finally i'm free. so now i have even more extra time as my whole day is messed up. the whole time i felt like i was in a prison.
We are all ( myself very much included) so predictable - its not the looking we want or even the fantasies but the act itself of Z"L that the YH wants and he wont stop until you've done it . its the same reason we feel our wives owe us sex because even then we fool ourselves into thinking its ok it with our wives - but really we just want to have the release
This is source of the problems - we have to move away from "release" as an endpoint in and of itself it is a consequence of a wholesome relationship with our wives but if it is the end we will never have sholom bayis and never really get closer to hashem
the man is supposed to be the giver and the woman the receiver - which is why the mitzvah of ONAH is only for the wife's pleasure and not for ours.  This is our biggest test in life and more important than any other mitzvah we do . If we remind ourselves of this that breaking our selfishness and desire for "release" is THE MAJOR PURPOSE OF OUR EXISTANCE  then how can we not push ourselves to succeed. anything less than this is likely to lead us to failure ...eventually



figuring out the reason we are doing zera levatala. And pondering about my own childhood. i have revealed that, despite my parents being warm loving and nuturing, they did not really know how to raise a child.
I feel your pain here - certainly having your father show you around the porn world is not positive BUT blaming anyone parents - wife , coworkers etc for our challenges is non productive and just gives us reasons to move away from the truth of our own resonsibility  ultimately no one stands with us in front of the ribbono shel olam when we daven and no one can totally share our success when we get closer to him BUT we can get chizuk from others - like posting and we can help others

GOOD LUCK AND REMEMbER IT IS A SOLVABLE PROBLEM _ TALK TO HASHEM WITH EMES AND YOU WILL be ANSWERED

DAY ONE
BH Last night before i went to sleep, i asked the rebono shel olam that despite all of the things that happened the day before please guard me from machshovos zoros and allow me to think tanya bal peh as i fall asleep. i was very careful not to think about the next day.
Today after Modeh Ani i asked hashem to help me today and save me from sin.
i had some time to review some tanya bal peh that i had forgotten. i had a good davening bh and got to yeshiva in time to teach my shiur. BH BH. I had a lot of hatzlocho.
When i was on the streets i made sure to think tanya bal peh all the time.

I am now walking to and back from yeshiva which gives me around 45 minutes of intense excersise, and i feel that it is a release of my energy.

Today i came home to an empty house and immediately came to this post to tell you all about my day.
I wanted, on the way home, to think bad thoughts but i immediately asked hashem to help me. I even walked behind a female up stairs and i prayed to hashem, and i got the coach to look down, think tanya and speed up right past her. i didnt even look at her!
BH  BH
I am still yet to sort out with the filter gabbai to block all websites except for a few. hopefully next week.
thats all for now.

keep the good going!

Dear helpme

Its really very simple. If you keep walking on the edge of the cliff you are bound to fall every so often.  You need to be walking on the other side of the road so even if you move down a little you are still safe.

This is whats called Gedarim, boundaries. As Reb Dovy says in his weekday classes, once you are in front of the computer, you have LOST YOUR BECHIRA. You are no longer able to make a choice and will fall.  I for one am very careful to stay away from the computer at night or when tired or if I am alone as i dont trust myself. 

It is now easier for me than it was before because I have downloaded the Shmiras eynayim classes you can get them here.  I listen to them when i have free time or going from work on the bus and it helps keep me focused and stay holy and be kadosh for my wife who has suffered due to my problem in this area. 

I STRONGLY suggest you download some Shmiras Eynayim clips and listen on your MP3 player and I am sure it will help you, especially when you may lose focus and become vulnerable.  I can say this is one of the most powerful tools to help you mainly i think because we have little urges in the back of our head but when we have the holy and loving voice of Dovy he replaces any thoughts of falling.  Just try it for a week and see how that goes and let me know. 

GYE has given us many tools to help us out of this mess. WE have no more excuses !!!!

You can download the Shmiras eynayim clips here:
guardyoureyes.com/live/component/zoo/item/windows-of-the-soul-group

With love and support,

HY

Good for you, nice win!

Stay strong and Keep on Trucking!!!!

Gevura!

I'll have to be breif
DAY TWO...miserable failure
OK...Today i woke up in the morning and had the urge very strongly first thing. i avoided the computer but only for about 5-10 minutes before turning it on...now i have found a more direct way to access those websites even with the k9.
OK...after a few minutes of that i stoped and went back and forth until i ejaculated about 2 hours after i had woken up without even davening. i felt like such a putz.  :-[ :'(

Rest of the day i tried to forget about it and went kind of normal...

DAYS 3-6 clean days 1-4
Finally some clean days...but i wasnt feeling well at all - i couldnt move out of bed and no access to the computer so go figure why i didnt act out. i did have a few bad dreams here and there...
DAY 7 (Wouldve been day 5 of clean days)
Last night i felt that i had a very strong urge so i did the technique described on the website about self therapy imagining yourself going deep under water and releasing a balloon full of taivos into the sky etc. I did it and felt pretty good about it.
However, today, after spending so much time stuck in bed and in the same room and starting to feel better i felt the urge back again very strongly. let me tryexpain it to you:

When i have the urge i feel that nothing else in life is important. i feel that only by fulfilling my urge will i feel any sense of achievement. everything else in life is dull and boring. but my virtual flesh friends....uh they are my only true friends in life. they are true life. everything else is death. there is action i feel a pull so strong that i have nothing to do but follow. i feel captured by predators leading me to final salvation. fighting is already out of the picture. i offer up a little prayer to hashem but its already too late. i have already fallen.

MY Dear Friend,

In a year from now where will you be? the same?

Guess what, theres a thing called Sex addicts anonymous, you really need to go there.

Forget this GYE blog, it wont help you. 

You need to remove the shackles of SLAVERY.  go to the computer, I promise its a mitzvah, and find the next SA meeting in your area and GO  ..!!  let your body go, if your mind doesnt want to go, let your body Go ANYWAYS...

Said with love the same way I kicked myself months ago, and have gone to SA. Am just talking to myself here...