Hello,

I'm starting to work on my addict. I start to read the GYE handbook, I try to keep my eyes (the 3s method is very useful by the way).
I understand that without strong barriers, it's not possible to succeed. However, there are a lot of pictures, scenes in our memory that we can't erased... How to deal with them ?

Welcome!

Don't worry. The images fade over time if we don't go back to looking at them. That's one of the reasons why Hashem made it possible to forget - so we should forget bad things!

Thanks Shalom Bayis for your answer.

In the long term (6m, 1y, ..., 10y ?), I 'll forget them but in short-term, how do you deal with them ? I try to protect my eyes, but those pictures are like trojans...
Guys, have you some tips to avoid those memories ?

I think that the idea isn't to forget as much as to not be stuck inside them. Today I saw on the street 2 beautifully shaped women objects and felt a very painfull craving to have sex with them now, I simply can't forget their sheer beuty and stop mourning over the fact that I probably will never see them again, let alone undress them and have sex - but I can try not to live with this overwhelming feeling, to pick up the phone and surrender the feelings, and to ask Hashem for help....

All the best!!!!

My mind is also filled with images that 20 years of porn use has embedded in there. When one comes up, I just try to distract myself with something else and give myself a gentle scolding for bringing it up.

You can't help your mind bringing these things up, the choice you have is what you do with them once they get there.

You have to find your disctraction. Is it a teffila, a song, looking at something else, thinking about something else. Whatever works.

dieters say that an important tactic to help them stick to their diet is to have healthy options available. instead of chips cookies and beer, have oranges nuts and woodford flavored seltzer.
in terms of images from the past, it may help to generate good images and store them in your mind. a picture, a memory, an incident, a conversation can be 'used' again later much the same way that a fantasy can be used. build up a repertoire of good images and use them in place of the bad ones.

ZemirosShabbos wrote:


Absolutely.

It is very difficult to push a thought out of your head without thinking about that thing.(Like pig wrestling, even if you win you will still get really dirty)

Replace the thought with another engaging thought. This will take work, but it works (for me... but only when I really want it to work)

Eli

Dear tikounberith:

That’s a real problem we all recovering lust addicts are dealing with it, I can relate to it as well. Here is what helped me; an old childhood memory:

True story: Years ago, as a child, we had a neighbor, an old lonely lady who have used to feed cats in her backyard daily, not pets but street cats. Our backyard was always full of visitors, cats of the street who knew someone will welcome them nicely in this place and provide them with free meals.
One day the old lady moved away and a new resident moved in.
No one informed the poor cats the party is over… In the begging the disappointed cats kept coming back day by day to only to be welcomed with spitting and stones by the new neighbors kids. Despite all efforts of our desperate new neighbor who was petrified to see these visitors - to expel the cats with all possible tools, they kept coming back.
However as the days and weeks passed by the stream of the visits decreased from day to day, and that encouraged our neighbor to go on not to let them in the yard, until it came to a point where they totally disappeared.

Same here my dear tikounberith, the bad thoughts and fantasies who were used for a long time to find a warm home in our hearts and brains will soon realized they are not welcome anymore, they will slowly loose interest in us. As the time goes by you will less and less be bothered by them if you only don’t let them in.

1) The fact that you know that this problem will fade with the time - as ‘shalom bayis’ said – this fact make it so easy to deal with triggering images or fantasies.

2) L’meiseh, in my experience, the best way to deal with them when they appear in my mind is by giving it over to hashem.
Whenever I tried to fight with them and “push” it away they always won. But when I declared defeat, I talked to hashed and admitted (I really believed it just from my own statistic…) that I’m powerless over this image or fantasy and if it depends on my power I would for sure get knocked down, and asked hashed to remove it from me, IT ALWAYS worked, they got loose and I could handle it easily.
What a logical paradox, you have to declare defeat in order to win the battle, but matter of fact it worked and still works like magic not only for me, but for many more thousands recovering addict, I can’t explain it.

Another solution that helped me in the past: But 1st a question, why does the Yetzer Hora bring us back an exciting image and he doesn't bring us along with it the bad uchy feeling that we experienced after that time of whatever the image might be? The answer is that our brain is a filter and only wants to please us, the brain would not allow to enter voluntarily something not pleasing to us (an exception are negative people that trained their brain to happily allow self-pity thoughts).
With that in mind, we have a simple solution; every time our brain reminds us of a fantasy or a past site, just continue playing it out in your brain, think of how you're actually experiencing it, and how afterwards you feel like a moron & can't forgive yourself, and promise not to do it forever, etc. etc.
After practicing this for a while, (like Chaim11 elaborated so nice in the the cat story) the brain will realize that it doesn't pay to bring back those thoughts as it is actually not pleasant at all. And he will seize forever. Try it, Bodik Umeniseh.

chaim11 wrote:

amazing stuff thanks

Thank you all for your advices.

I will try them and then say you about them.

BSD

Hi, in cognitive behaviour therapy they teach that since the mind is always working (no big chiddush- was brough down in chassidus from like 200 years ago!) It is impossible to stop thinking something. If a thought- a pornographic image- comes into your mind, u would probably respond by switching to another image in ur mind. This is a though- blockage technique . But since the thought feels like its being pushed out, it will do what it does best- and fight its way right back into ur mind. This will turn into a vicious cycle, making u think about those images more and more. To end this, you must not let it bother you next time an image comes into your mind- don't dwell on it (!), but don't get annoyed at urself. After a while ur thought pattern (with these intrusive images) will naturally decrease, to the extent it becomes a very rare occasion when you think about it. After a while of not thinking about it, it will be just as foreign to you as though you had never even seen it!
Hope this has helped!
Hatzlocha!

chaim11 wrote:

New slogan for when you walk the street:

Small thought: Recovery is tied to being the real deal - not just claiming we want to let go, but holding on in some other way. If we truly don't want to focus on something, and don't try to recall the images, they can eventually fade. Much harder if we are searching for them while trying "to let go".