Besides, I suspect that most people I know have been nichshal in this area at one point or another, so they can't blame me for trying to recover.

Trying to see things in a more balanced way, I can understand and agree with everything ZS and Gibor120 wrote. Thanks for the perspective. I'm just itching for more people to be more open here, and t may be premature, not as simple as i make it out to be, and there may be other options for people - though very few may use them.

(But there may be a big difference between your case, Gibbor120, and newbies who are freshly suffering coming on here desperate for help.)

But I wrote all this jabber to Watson (sorry..Mr Watson) because I just had a hunch that this man's case was different. That he was really at the cusp of a great little step forward.

Did I push too hard? Possibly. Did I blow the opportunity to be slow and easy and allow for natural progress here? Maybe. If so, sorry.

But I'm sorry - isn't it fair to interpret anyone posts in the context of the posts they are responding to?

(Hi Qi! ) You cool?

Finally, an interesting thing happened to me a few years ago that is an example of what you guys were referring to: I used to use a special email address for GYE stuff. I also used it for personal stuff like my children's teacher's, close family etc - just cuz it was convenient...not any more, though!

I stopped using my GYE email address for anything other than GYE business when one person (out of GYE) with whom I used that old email address with told me, "you of all people should understand (whatever ) problem, because of the work you do." I asked him exactly what he meant by that. He said he simply googled my email address cuz it sounded weird and found my GYE activity. That means he found my open admissions of porn use and worse. Luckily, I trust him with my reputation for he is a man of character. I had a little talk with him afterward to tell him how important my anonymity is to me and my family. Boy, that was tough but had to be done.

So I learned a lesson.

And I'm still Dov, and quite a few guys here use their real name in posts, and quite a few guys here do use their real name on step calls and with other recovering sex junkies like me, on the phone and in person. And I believe it makes a world of difference in the long run.

Friday - Day 1

Today I will stay sober by keeping a stress ball in my pocket and any time I think of watching porn I will squeeze the ball or play catch with the nearest wall. Iy''H this will help me get through today as a healthy person.

Shabbos

During the day I will learn something on shmiras einayim. Motzei shabbos I will use the stress ball again. Iy''H this will help me get through shabbos as a healthy person.

Well, I think it is "Dr. Watson" and not "Mr. Watson". Sorry I felt I really needed to stress that Dov!

And since I am here. I love the russian version of Holmes. And second what I wanted to write is, this is my day 1 too. And third is, I wish you a great Shabbes Dr. Watson! Tatty can hear us laughing and accepting what He has planed for us, all the best to You!!!

Dov wrote:

yes, but sometimes some of us are guilty of giving too much info (ZS and TZ have called me out on it a few times and I have made a few edits, a few more freudian slips, coupled with my Shem HaAmiti would be probablty a dead giveaway, somewhat akin to the abovementioned sign on my front lawn.

Dov wrote:


When things getta messy, you calla da Sicilians [ I had a little talk ... smack smack... "datsa nice face yagatt dere pretty boy, ittid be a darned shame fo me ta havta messit up HEH HEH ]

I am apprehensive do Giva true first name, but if the tzibur is maskim, I can sign my posts "Sam I Am" which is sortof like maybe connected to my shem ha'amiti.
Howzat?

[ yes i know what you're all thinking ... His name is Theodore Geisel.. well...
I'm not going to confirm or deny reports]

That is a great idea. Forming a plan is the biggest step.

Sunday - Day 1

If I feel an urge to look at porn today I will remember that she cannot see me, she does not care about me or even like me. This is not a mutual relationship. In fact, if she could see how I looked when I watched her on the screen she would laugh at me, she would think I was a pathetic loser. Why should I allow a horrible woman like that to affect me?

I will remember that she is doing it either for money or for the kick of making others fall. To that end she wants me to watch it, and to do the aveiroh. She is manipulative like that, and watching it only gives her what she wants. After she made the material she probably had a good laugh at how many people would watch it and fall. well, I'm not going to give her the satisfaction of being one of those people. I will imagine that I can actually meet her now and see her scorning, patronising, condescending face and I can tell her myself to go away. I am not her puppet, I don't react to it the way she arrogantly assumes I will. I will say no. Iy''H this will help me get through today as a healthy person.

(btw b''H I was successful over Shabbos so today is day 3, but I don't want to count days. I want to remind myself that today is day 1, just like every day.)

Matzel tov on the 3 days

Forgive me to be writing this, I don't want it to sound smart.

I honestly believe that resentment or anger against the people I lust after does not work in my case. I even went as far as to google the porn stars and found that many died cos of drugs or similar (there is supposedly even this thread on the life of a pornstar here on gye that I was directed to - forgot though where it was....). It is a pitiful existence they lead and they know it and it drives them to the early grave. Ok, these are my thoughts and they don't really change facts.

I am still an addict, even though I know all this, and I still have my issues and they are not really connected to porn stars - i just connect them.

Porn stars are not objects (of lust), they are still real people with real families and real problems and in the end they want to be happy, just like me.

So I honestly find it better to pray for the person I lust after. I mean to actually pray for that person.

Darn, to be honest, I will go as far as to say: After my last fall, I am afraid to feel resentment. So forgive me, if I sounded too aggressive, I am still under the impression of my fall.

well I'm just trying out different things, if it works great, if not I haven't lost anything.

Interesting what you say about them being real people. Would I be the first person on GYE ever to quote the pope? The last one said something like ''the problem with porn is not that it shows too much of the person but that it doesn't show enough.'' If we saw all of them, their past, their pain, their personalities and vulnerabilities, etc, I think they'd somehow lose their allure.

Its good your trying. If you keep on trying, than you have to find a strategy that works. Its just a matter of time now.

--some_guy/Elias/Eliyahu

I think an emotional motivation for my beginning to use this problem was an inferiority complex. Going to a public school, there was always a lot of pressure on me to get girls, and since I'm kinda introverted, I think I used the outlet to escape.

It's also dangerous to focus too much on the characters themselves, because you're then going to think of what those characters do, and you'll inevitably stumble against your own will.

You're inferior to no one--in fact, you're superior to many people. However, happiness and satisfaction comes from within, not with endless comparisons to how other people might view us. For me, it really helped when I defined a clear motivation of why I wanted to stop: I discovered that a lot of my former reasons were ga'avah based, like "the future gadol hador shouldn't be nichshal", or "so that people shouldn't view me as inferior". None of those were legitimate motivations to stop, and they probably just added to the emotional problems motivating it in the first place.

That's what worked for me.

P.S. At first I was a little worried about BEING anonymous, since I use "chachaman" for other usernames sometimes. However, after googling "chachaman", I wasn't anywhere close (I just looked at the first page)--apparently, there are many chachamim on the internet .

Dov--I think it's extremely sad that someone would use something like that against you, but I guess that's the world we live in

My rabbi told me something that really helped me. He said something along the lines of, "You are so much better than most other people. Other people in your school (I am in public school) do it without thinking. Just because you care that makes you superior. Even if you fall, you are still greater than most ever people." I hope that helps you get more self-esteem.

--some_guy/Elias/Eliyahu

My experience is like what Yehoshua wrote above. The truth is the best (really the only) thing that really works for me. Sure, gimmicks can work - for a time...and at a price. Using distortions of reality to 'keep myself' clean is like taking fake vitamins that are really poison, just because I feel so healthy taking pills from a bottle with the words "100% Natural Healthy and Energy-Packed!!" on the label. Gimmicks don't hold a candle to the plain unvarnished truth, for me. And I've tried all sorts of gimmicks along the way. Yeah, the Truth may be hard to learn to use, but it is the only thing that really works - and has no stiff price to pay for using it. Distorting reality is just more practice in lying to myself. Like the lying you were referring to above, 'Dr Watson', that we all do when we are enjoying the sweetness of porn: we lie to ourselves that her beauty is for us, etc. You are right, of course.

And the answer that works for me best over the short (and long) term, is what I know is really reality. It's the way Hashem knows it really is:
She is a person who has not had the education and good hashpa'os I have been blessed with, the neshomah I have been given, the good things and people I have seen. Instead, she is a misguided person, she truly pretty and using what she's got as she sees she can - most of us do that in one way or another. And she is mostlikely doing it for the money, knows nothing about 'getting guys to be nichshal' of course (that's a patently childish idea), and she is really no more evil than you or I am. Besides, Hashem loves her. Rachamov al kol ma'asov, it says; Tomer Devorah explains how much love Hashem gives each of His briyos - even the terribly misguided ones, even the birds and fish. Look at Dovid hamelech's Borchi Nafshi - yismach Hashem b'ma'asov" means I am a Jew and I really hope that Hashem gets nachas from each thing I listed: the mountains, rabbits, lions, people (yes, goyim) going to work, etc. Everything.

And beyond this, I need to recognize that here I am: the frum guy masturbating myself to naked people's images and then hiding and lying about myself to everyone I meet in family, shul, the street, and yeshivah. I truly do know better than she does. I have all the right info...and here I am putting her down - she who I worshipped so many times as I masturbated over her photos or images on the computer? Who needs Hashem's Rachamim more? Her, or me? I do not really know.

So I prefer a balanced approach like: She is just doing what she thinks is in her best interest (make cash and be thought of as beautiful by many people) and I do what I think is in my best interest...sometimes that is to fantasize and masturbate using her image; sometimes it is to be good and let my lust go.

And Hashem is taking care of each of us in His way on His clock. Each for what His plan is will eventually come to their shleimus in some respect. Hashem works it out.

Now. I pray for her. For Hashem to help her grow and eventually come to know Him. He wants everyone to know Him, not just Jews, of course. [The makkos were not for us - they were for [i]Par'oh and mitzrayim [/i]to come to know Hashem, as Hashem says over and over in the Torah.]

I pray for her as a human being, and my lust slowly leaves me. She is less and less of 'my sex toy' or 'an evil demoness', and more and more of what Hashem knows her as: a human being. We all need Rachmey Shomayim.

Hatzlocha, chaver.

- Dov