Hi All,
I took a break for a while from this site but things have been getting difficult and I need to get back to it.

I started looking at porn again and I'm starting to lose control again.

I'm not doing much work because my mind is in the gutter
My fuse is getting shorter.
I'm caring less about the people around me.
I'm being sucked into a world of darkeness, away from H".

Please H" forgive me and open the door for my return.
Please friends, give me a hand up out this dirt.

Yosef.

Hey ToAdd,

God is always ready and waiting for you to return. If he knew you were a lost cause you wouldn't be alive anymore. If you're really struggling maybe try moving to the computer to a very public area so that you won't be able to look at porn. Perhaps a filter would help too?

What sparked off the return to porn? If you understand the causes, that would help you to tackle the problem at its root.

BW,

DL

What the trigger was, I don't know.
Small things adding up over time.
I stopped counting, but I was probably about 40 days clean.

Maybe I should move to a different desk. I wanted to before but the only open one has a bad light that causes glare on my screen.
I have a filter, but it* did not stop me. I wanted to look and once that decision has been made, it's too late.
[*I did not stop me.]

The problem is that I let my guard down and eventually let the urge win. If one slip does not matter, then it leads to a tumble.

I need to reaffirm how bad this is for me

Sounds like the main battle is not to take the first drink. It's very difficult not to lose control once we're 'in the situation'. I would write down a list of all things that cause you to slip and what could lead you to start slipping so you are aware when the alarm bells start to go off. 

For me a major obstacle was the fact that the things that made me/led me to slip weren't 'that bad'. BUT, I kept on failing to make the connection (because I honestly didn't want to give up soft porn) between slipping and then eventually falling a few days or a week later.

Hope that helps.

BW,

DL

Yea, that is the problem. Thank you.

And I know now what the trigger is.
There's still something that I'm going out of my way to see. Don't want to mention triggering words here.

Need to work on that one.

Sure thing and Good luck!

DL

have you gotten on the floor and refused to move until H" grants you a spark of awareness as to how to recover?  Try it.  Works for me every time.  I refuse to leave the presence of H" until He gives me some type of self-awareness that will get me through at least 24 hours.  We have to pester H" like 3 year old children, refuse to leave His presence until He grants us the tiniest bit of kedusha. 

No, I haven't tried that.
Not really my style.

What is currently working is being aware that I have a problem and that I do have to actually work at it all the time.
Three days clean.

The main thing is that I've been getting lazy...
Lazy at work, not inspired to work so. Lazy at home.
This leads to things not getting done, which pulls me down and sends me comfort seeking.
It also leaves me sitting with free time on my hands.

So I'm knuckling down: Completing work makes me feel better about myself and removes free time.
Trying to get myself to focus on what needs done, even if it is just listening to my wife and making eye contact.

I hear you loud and clear.  I don't think people talk enough about laziness, procrastination, and its impact on recovery.  Alcohol, drugs, lust, I feel like I have that in the bag.  However, it seems everything has now creeped up into laziness and procrastination. 

My parents put me in a procrastination course when I was 15.  Seriously.  The assignment was to find articles dealing with the subject.  I kept putting off the project and never actually got around to finding the articles on procrastination, since I had procrastinated.

ANd now, mamash, I have my heart set on the 40 days procrastination project, that is, focus on the middah of zerizut for 40 days and cure myself of procrastination forever!  But I have been trying to start the 40 days for 40 days.... I keep putting it off until I'm sure I'm gonna stick with it!

lol

Anyhow, point is, the great chassidim could be found prostrating on the ground even after the churban, and if you look in the book "Jewish Spiritual Practuces" by Birxbaum he sites many tzaddikim who did this.  I haven't lied down and asked got to remove procrastination from me, so that might be next.  If it works, I'll let you know.  but then you have to do it too.

ontheedgeman wrote on 27 Feb 2012 20:26:


I do something similar (in essence, if not in practice).

Perhaps I'm jaded, but as of recently, I see it as me trying to manipulate Hashem, and getting the whole surrender thing wrong.

I'm trying to work on the "...and if I just have to go through and figure things out myself, then that, too, is Your will."  Life isn't easy, and just when I think I have the right tools, I have to start the work all over again.

I hear you on that point Yossi.  It's somewhat of a fine line.  It's kind of like the melacha of Borer.  one person is eating from a basket of nuts on shabbos, and enjoying himself tremendously.  the other is actually selecting the ones he doesn't want, and turning up the flames of Geheinom.  Yet, both are doing the same act!

I find that the last line of the step 3 prayer helps in this regard, that I surrender myself to doing the Will of H", and not my own.  Now how do I "know" Gcd's Will?  kind of ridiculous for a mere mortal like me without the help of an army of tzaddikim to help me, "know" Gcd's Will. 

So really I focus on the kneeling and prayer as surrendering, opening, not manipulating. 

If you like, say that you refuse to get up until there is a spark of your OWN desire and yearning to maintain deveikus.

I'm back with you.  As I learnd last night, cause doesnt matter.  not one bit. what matters is getting clean.  not sure how, havent done it yet, but we'll figure it out.

An easy way to remember not to look for the causes is that the causes may be lost, in which case the looking is a lost cause.

haha

Nice line ontheedgeman.
I'm new, stupid, and young, but I think I know the cause. Your'e probably a sexaholic like all of us, sobriety alone will never do the trick, we need inner work and change and growth. Even then we still remain addicts, just our condition will be under control. That's my goal, at least, I think that't the GYE idea. I'm presently working on livin the present - staying clean one day at a time.