You gonna do it Doc. Remember, shmiras einaim all day keeps the yetzer away. (that sentence may take a bit of critical thinking)

KOMT and KUTGW, yeah, now is the time to remember the good work.From the time you fell last to this...NO SHAYCHUS.

Thank you all for your kind words, they really do help when help is needed most.

B''H I managed to get through yesterday. I haven't seen any naked pictures since my last post and I feel better today. I don't have such strong urges at the moment, but I need to stay vigilant and make sure I don't look at anything I shouldn't until Shabbos. Then iy''H by motzoei shabbos it will have been 3 days which is when I find it starts to get a bit easier.

I'll update soon.

Dr.Watson wrote:


Dear Doc,

I want to wish you hatzlacha rebbah, and I want to share with you a bit of old-age (trial and error) experience, if I may. If you will only avoid 'naked' images, but will continue to satisfy your lust-buds with half-dressed or even fully-dressed images, then you will be white-knuckling at best, and based on statistics, there's a very very good chance that your rubber-band will snap... chas vesholom. Like Rabbi Shais Taub said: It's like taking a laxative and willing yourself not to go. Lust is lust, and lust is poison, and lust can kill ch"v. Regardles of its form, shape, size or color - it needs to be completely avoided if we are to survive.

Shabbat Shalom!

MT

Unfortunately I fell again so my positives have gone. But i will try and get new positives.

MT, you're right that's not OK to look at half-OK pictures either. I know that that's the beginning of a fall, and truth is it's very rare for me. In fact I don't remember that ever happening. I don't trick myself into thinking that these pictures are OK, when I fall I fall to naked pictures because I got the urge to and I gave in. It just doesn't start with seeing half-naked pictures. That's why I don't commit to not looking at those pictures, it's irrelevant to me.

Although as I type a thought is occurring to me. I'm sure people will disagree with this but I would like to hear people's opinions. b''H I've progressed from watching porn videos every day to just looking at pictures when i fall. Now I know a fall is a fall, but is it considered progress to fall to pictures rather than videos? Have i succeeded in drawing the battle lines further away? If so, maybe I should push my yetzer off with half-naked pictures. That way if i ever fall again, it would be to half-naked pictures, not naked ones and i would have drawn the battle lines even further away.

Actually, I think it's a good idea in theory, but in practice seeing half-naked will make me look for naked ones. Much better to control myself entirely. I could delete what I wrote but i won't. It might be helpful to me later.

To quote the big book "half measures availed us nothing".

Also, I find it hard to beleive that half-naked pictures do not arouse you at all. It reminds me of the story with Rav Elyah Lapian. A talmid wanted to go to a certain wedding... they would not be dressed tzniyus at the wedding... he told reb Elyah that it doesn't affect him. Reb Elyah told him that I am an old man, I'm half blind, and it still affects me. (I think that's the gist of the story).

In any event, making deals with the Y"H is not a good business practice. I know from experience .

Gibbor you are absolutely right as always. I'm a bit stressed, overworked, underslept and frustrated that I find myself falling again. I started masturbating again this afternoon. What's wrong with me, isn't one a day more than enough. I know I would have to say tehillim again, and i know that it's friday night and my wife's tohor, so what is my problem. Why can't I stop?

For the record, I don't mean that I don't find half-naked pictures arousing. It's just that I never look at them. I'm either fully clean or looking at fully naked pictures.

It's a bit like my brilliant shmiras einayim. I don't look at any women when i walk down the street, it's amazing. What a tzaddik! Yet I've seen tens of thousands of naked women. I think it comes down to ''na'aseh lo k'heter''. I've seen so many porn images that i just do it without thinking. But looking at a low-cut neck line on a woman? Never! I get a pop-up of a half-naked woman, i turn it off straight away, i wouldn't want to look at that. But show my a link to a movie who's title suggests there is a possibility of 2 seconds of nudity in it, I'll be fast-forwarding to that part before i even know what i'm doing.

Good shabbos chevrah, I'll try to be in a better mood next week.

You said it well. Great illustration of how sick we really are

Sleep is very important.

When the batteries are low, the defenses are low as well.

I've realised that my sleeping patterns are destructive. I stay up late most nights and I justify it because I'm working. But actually when I really thought about it yesterday I came to the realisation that I almost never get any actually work done after midnight, maybe 11:30, I'm actually still up checking the news, work-related websites etc and then i unwind with a bit of surfing the net, playing a random online game for a while etc. I was lying to myself that those hours were important. In truth i was getting little done but it was affecting me during the day when I'd be tired most of the day.

So I downloaded some podcasts that i like to listen to and I'm going to try and unwind differently at night. Instead of unwinding on my computer (till 1-2 am), I will try to turn it off by 11 at the latest and then unwind in bed with by listening to the podcasts.

I wanted to start that last night but motzoei shabbos in the summer is hard. But I was in bed about 12am instead of about 2am like previous weeks so it's an improvement. I'm still quite tired but i hope that as i persist in this I will start feeling better in the day. I'll try to update here about my sleeping habits too.

As for porn, shabbos is a wonderful brocho for us in that we simply cannot look at porn for a whole day a week. So I haven't seen any porn or masturbated since my last post. But i feel different inside. Not only did i have porn-related dreams, but i had thoughts about every woman i saw all of shabbos. You know how i said i don't look at women in the street, well i see them and normally that's fine, but yesterday i was having thoughts just from that. I hadn't even seen their faces, just their hair. Ridiculous, it's not even their hair, it's a sheitel! It would look the same hanging on a peg. But i couldn't control myself. Women walked past my house in the afternoon and when i heard the clip-clop of their shoes, i rushed to the window to see them. I feel so pathetic from that. It wasn't even so much a choice to look, it was almost by impulse. I've never felt so disgusting before.

iy''H it can only get better.

Your definitely making strides. Don't beat yourself up.

If you felt an uncontrollable urge to go to the window because the clippity-clop of the uncomfortable shoes that they wear caused some Pavlovian response in your brain (we all have things that get us salivating), then for starters, make sure your not in a situation where you hear the clippity clop.

Although that will not solve the problem at the core, it will help you get moving.

-Eli

I read in a sefer: The Chazon Ish zt"l was walking in the street and he heard the clip-clop of a woman's shoes. So he clip-clopped his own shoes to drown out the triggering sound.

From this we can learn a couple of things:
1. The Chazon Ish was human, and was affected by the clip-clop of women's shoes.
2. We shouldn'e beat ourselves up if we are affected by the clip-clop of women's shoes.
3. We each need to come up with suitable solutions to whatever nisyonos we are given.

MT

I, in general, do not believe stories, but all the lessons are true anyways. [isn't there a gemora about hearing the sound of women's shoes?]

1. everyone is human.
2. no sense in gettin' down; the yetzer hara is at work, and will beat us if we get down
3. dedicate time to determine best possible way to avoid triggers

b'hatzlachah

Good story.

1.women always wore high heels, even though they make a racket and are unpractical

2.High heels are loud enough to make the chazon ish lose his concentration (he was lechoirah thinking in learning)

3.the chazon ish was wearing high heels too?

forget it.I'm gonna go with the observations of the others

Imagine it's a man with metal taps on his shoes

yes that might help.

Actually it has happened that i heard the clip clop and looked to the window expecting a beautiful woman to walk past and it was a fat old man. How fickle is my mind! Attracted not to the woman but the thought of a woman.