Being new to the forum I would like to introduce myself. I am FFB and went to the best yeshivos, happily married with multiple children and a strong connection with some of the biggest gedolim (which is an issue init self).  As far back as I could remember I have always had s-ual desires and fantasies (which is probably normal). However it was never an issue until “a friend” gave me a stack of magazines.  Sadly with the internet things only got worse. The cycle was always the same, I could go a few clean months fall for a couple of days and always get right back up for another few months. However over the past few months I couldn’t seem to pull free. That was up until 2 weeks ago when I joined the GYE community.
There were days when I would be alone in the office spending 3-4 hours going from one website to another. After which I would spend the same amount of time feeling depressed, dirty, and alone beating myself up over the events of the last several hours. In the end I always promise Hashem that I will never do it again knowing in my heart full well that I will never keep my promise. My toughest day is Friday being that I am usually alone in the office. On my way to work a fire for pornography would start burning inside to the point where I could no longer see straight. B’H for the past two Fridays there has been no fire (but who’s to say about this coming Friday!!!!!).
As I mentioned earlier two weeks ago I signed onto the 90 day cart and I am now closing in on Day 14.
Many firms have an employee of the month program, where each month management gathers and nominates an employee who went above and beyond the call of duty. Similarly I would like to nominate the Y/H who since I have committed to controlling myself (on and off the internet) has been working overtime to get me wherever he can. B”H with devine intervention my internet addiction has eased somewhat (or at least I have been doing a good job staying away from the evil websites or the  “seemingly kosher” websites such as YouTube) however on the other hand I have notice that shemiras anayim has become and even greater test than in the past. Often I wonder if some of the people passing me on the street are the Y/H dressed in drag.

The Y/H works overtime and knows my weaknesses, I often spend hours trying to fall asleep the kosher way. I have also noticed that for no apparent reason I will be jolted from my sleep with just enough time before my alarm clock rings only to find that someone already showed up to work. A few “joyful” moments he will whisper and then I’ll be gone.  
A few times over the weekend I caught myself starting to slip, mainly due to my battle with shemiras anayim. I even skipped the shabbos afternoon nap as a precaution. Every step is a battle (not just a fight)!!!!!!!

Chevrah does it ever get easier?

MOSHEW WELCOME HOME

HI MY NAME IS bardichev MY BACKGROUND IS SIMILAR TO YOURS (EXCEPT AS IS PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE HERE I AM A FLATBUSH BOY WHO IS CHASSIDSH, I LEARNED IN  A LITVISHE YESHIVAH) I CAN PROBABLY DUKE YOU OUT IN THE GEDOLIM WAR SOME OF THE BIG BOYS KNOW ME BY FIRST NAME

HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT I WILL ANSWER YOU QUESTION.
YESS IT DOES GET EASIER MUCH MUCH EASIER

BUT.. BUT.. NOT YET THE EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH(I LIKE THAT) IS WORKING OVERTIME WELL HE JUST LOST A HUGE CLIENT AND HE IS GOING NUTS!!!

BEZ'H IT WILL GET MUCH EASIER AND THE STRUGGLE WILL COME SECOND NATURE

HERE ARE A FEW TIPS

#1 DONT TEASE YOUR YH JUST AVOID HIM
#2 KEEP A LOG OR A DIARY OF YOUR PROGRESS
#3 POST YOUR FEELINGS IT WORKS
#4 FIND HAPPINESS IN YOUR STRUGGLE LAUGH AT YOUR YH SAY AHA!! YOU SNEAK YOU ARE TRYING BUT.. YOU WONT WIN
#5 DAVEN
#6 READ BARDICHEVS BATTLE OR YKV SCWARTZ 15 YEARS

KEEP IN TOUCH

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY

MEEEE LA-HASHEM AY-LAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

bardichev

Hey Moshew welcome to the community,

You ask: Does it get any easier? Well let me ask you this. The forst time you were stubborn and tried to learn how to ride your bike by yourself. You fell and got really hurt. The next time you went to your father and said:"Abba can help me ride my bike I fell last time". Yor Abba is more than happy to help you. Fathers could not get any more joy than when their son asks him for help. Well, you can probably guess who is who in this story. Hahsme is our father and once we ask Him for help, He gets complete joy in not only actually helping us, but also from us just asking. Again welcome to the family and continue to post!

-INH

Hi MosheW,
Welcome! I'm the smallest of the group here, but I've learned a lot from hanging around.

Here are 3 ways to benefit the most from this site, and change your life around in a matter of months:

1) Post away! you may feel shy at first, but it will bring out a wellspring of sweet waters that are inside of you.

2) Read the handbooks! these summarize the 'best of the best' advise of the site
1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude

3) donate to the site  ;D

If you find that after doing the above, for 3 months time, you are not off your old habits and instead fully addicted to this site, we will refund your money upon request, no questions asked.

:D :D :D


The key is how to deal with lust. not with shmutz, not with women, etc. etc.

how to deal with the feelings inside.

The first step is to really WANT to change.

then to find the right tool for you.

There are GREAT techniques here.

But they do not all work for everybody.

You need to find what works for you.

Rabbeinu Bardy (who I have the zchus of being neighbors with) gave you some great advice. He really summarized his mehalech well.

You can read his thread from top to bottom (or print it out... hit the print button at the top right of the screen).

bottom line... it DOES get easier. tons easier. life will be completely different. but it takes will  :D, work  :D, and winning  ;D

very best wishes,

kutan

Much appreciation to the wonderful words of chizuk!!!
Hiliger Bardichever please send me a link to the post (BARDICHEVS BATTLE) I can’t seem to find it.

Some good news to share, out of habit I went to YouTube and had already clicked on a clip that no one should watch let alone a ben torah. As it was loading I caught myself and quickly closed it. Two weeks ago that would not have happened. 
Thank you,

Well done, Moshe!

Here's the link to Bardichev's thread:

rehab-my-site.com/guardureyes/forum/index.php?topic=450.0

Chazak chazack venischazek. Kol hakavod to you. may you be zoche to many more won battles. I was just wondering have you put any thought into putting a filter on your computer? Its a really good idea mainly because you would be able to avoid alot of the problems like the one you mentioned above. All i can say  for myself is that ever since i put a filter on my computer i havent seen any p***. It really makes the fight that much easier.

Welcome Moshe,

There is nothing really that I can add to this conversation, since the Gedolim here have already answered your question. My point in chiming in is about this quote of yours.

B”H with devine intervention my internet addiction has eased somewhat (or at least I have been doing a good job staying away from the evil websites or the  “seemingly kosher” websites such as YouTube) however on the other hand I have notice that shemiras anayim has become and even greater test than in the past. Often I wonder if some of the people passing me on the street are the Y/H dressed in drag. 1

I had some bad experiences with Youtube, in terms of it being a gateway of falling for me. There are plenty of dirty videos with links to inappropriate sites on them which will be in the video itself or on the sidebar. This is just a heads-up, and I'm writing this to inform you and others that if one search for garbage on YT there will be stuff there.  However, there are many great videos of different kinds of Rebbes, Chassidic dancing, Jewish weddings, lectures, documentaries etc. There are also Kosher video sites that are like Youtube, here are some: Yideotube and KosherTube.


Stay safe.

Giant Leap.

Dear Moshe,

I'm the admin of this forum. Your story shows just what a powerful need there is for the GuardYourEyes community. The best yeshivos and connections with the gedolim and all, doesn't help for people who fall into these highly addictive and destructive behaviors. We understand you so well here. We're all in the same boat. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here... Yes, it gets a lot easier... The more distance you put between yourself and the addiction, the easier it gets. We all know the Chazal, "ever katan yesh be'adam..." But 90 days is the first big step...

Do you have a strong internet filter installed? Without that, your battle doesn't stand much chance of success. You need to get these things out of hands reach. See this page for one great filter idea, and make sure to send the password to our password department at filter.gye@gmail.com - and don't keep it yourself! For more filter ideas, see our filter page here.

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps - which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Make sure to read them, they contain a wealth of information on beating this addiction! And I'd love to hear your feedback on them...

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

Thank you for the continuing words of chizuk, I did join the 90 day chart (as Moshew) I am into my second week. I have had the K9 filter on my computer for over a year (I even gave the password to a coworker) unfortunately they are always many steps behind the
P-graphy industry.  The Y/H is much smarter then all the geniuses at K9 put together. He finally has a tool that proves to be effective it will take a little more than a program to put him out of business.
As for YouTube, 99.99% of the time, I didn’t check it for porn, it almost always started by checking out clips of old rabbanim and Jewish current events. The problem is that you start to slip (curiosity) and before you know it you are watching adult oriented videos. I would click on videos that “could be kosher” and that would lead to links that were even less kosher and so on. Once I was hooked there was no turning back for hours. 

One more comment about trouble falling asleep, it’s still hard however in the morning I am finding that I am sparingly refreshed even though I had les sleep.  On the down side I have noticed that I have less energy as the day moves along.

I will keep ya all posted.

Youtube is pure poison for us addicts. Your K9 can be set to block it.

Moshew wrote on 04 Nov 2009 17:25:



I know exactly of what you are talking about, Moshew. Like Guard said, YT is pure poison for us. I set my k9 filter on specific keywords that used to find garbage clips on. It helps alot, till I sink low and bypass the filter. My problem is that I haven't found a person to exchanged passwords with. I use a Mac and I don't want anyone in my immediate circle (family and friends) to know that I am an
addict.

RE: Sleep. Im a BT (Baalei Tshuva - 2x with this addiction - I'll be a baalei-baalei Teshuva. So as a student, I really screwed up my biological clock with late classes, and with this addiction, spending the weaning hours of the night looking at trash videos is not helping at all. I know the Alter Rebbe of Lubavitch when he was sent to prison by the Misnagdim (no offense), he used valerian root - I don't. I find it best to tire myself out with study (secular and Torah) and a deep reading of the bedtime shema.

Giant Leap.

guardureyes wrote on 04 Nov 2009 21:30:


It's much worse.  At least with poison, you can contact poison control!   :D

Hey Giant,

GuardYourEyes has a special "filter gabai" who will hold the password for you at filter.gye@gmail.com! See this page.

guardureyes wrote on 04 Nov 2009 23:08:


Thanks R' Guard. This is exactly what I needed to do. Its my next big step. I changed my password to something new and I directed the email to the filter gabai. The only thing is that if i need a change to the filter, or someone else who might use my computer and doesn't know that I have this filter might accidently loose internet service temporarily (thats the only reason why I kept my password -not the new one). The showmypc program may not work for me, because I use a Mac. There is a built in program where Macs can do the same thing as showmypc program, but I don't know who else here uses a mac. I left the setting on custom instead of high, since I might forget what on the high setting and mess up - I use my computer for school and I might in the future need its for stuff the filer will block, anyways, I then contact the gabai.

In some ways, I feel that this step is more relieving. Thanks alot.

Giant Leap.

PS. Can you notify me, if possible, if the gabai got the password of my filter and if he is in control of the k9 filter? Can the Gabai go ahead and change my password to some thing else?