Hi,
Bli ayen Horah I’ve bh been off porn for almost a year now, Hashem should help I should continue. However I’ve begun to masturbate more often and now I’m having a hard time stopping, any ideas/advice on how to stop? 

Hi @ Abcd123. Welcome to the forum! We are here for you.

A) You may want to head over to the 90 day chart section and start a 90 day challenge. Posting everyday about my progress and struggles have helped me alot. (although i just started to be honest).
B ) Figuring out what triggers you and reducing triggers is a great next step. (this includes thinking in advance)
C) Setting up accountability on a forum, with a person/mentor helps a lot.
D) Sharing your feelings though the forums, private messaging or to friends helps alleivate stress that can bring to masturbation.
E) Finding alternitive destressers/soothers for example sports, music, art, working out, volunteering etc. 
F) Telling yourself over and over "i dont have to masturbate, there is no need for the human body to ejaculate" ( TY @ Hashem help me for that idea) and "I wont inevitibly give in because i have the strength to not give in" helps a lot. ( Then start proving yourself right!)


Welcome and you CAN do it!

Congratulations for stopping to view pornography. You should celebrate! As mentioned, tell yourself over and over that our bodies do not need to ejaculate. The yetzer hara feeds us the big fat lie that it "has to happen", so why push off the inevitable? That is sheker v'chazav! Secondly, as advised get an accountability partner. That is an enorous help. Someone to be mechazek you and hold your hand in the beginning. And also as mentioned, exercise provides healthy relief, and successfully replaces the masturbation pacifier. Hatzlocha!!

Hi Abcd123,
It's an amazing victory that you were able to quit the watching. That's a huge part of the battle. In my experience, there are two things that enable a person to continue struggling with masturbation:
1. Looking at illicit material and immodestly dressed women, be it online, on the street, at the gym, at the office, at weddings, or ANYWHERE. If you see it, the image is in your head, and the next step is masturbation.
2. Fantasizing about illicit material that you have PREVIOUSLY seen even though you are not looking at it right now.

It took my YEARS to realize that cause #2 was what was being מכשיל me over and over and over again even though I was clean from actually looking at illicit images and I was guarding my eyes. I was not, however, guarding my mind. I don't know much about you except that you have already achieved great levels by having stopped looking at images and videos online. I would say I'm pretty confident that your next step is conquering #2. If you would tell me that you are still having troubles with stopping masturbation AND you are not fantasizing or imagining anything in your head, I would be extremely confused as to how that's possible.

Now, how do you do this? Distraction, distraction, distraction. When the thought comes, flee the scene. Distract yourself with learning, davening, or any kosher activity. You also have to decide that you really do not want those thoughts. If you are mesupak as to whether you really don't want them, success is still in the distance. You have to be CERTAIN that you don't want to fantasize anymore and to realize that fantasizing is the cause of your falls.
For YEARS I could not go longer than 1 week of no הוצאת זרע לבטלה. A couple of months ago, I saw a post on GYE saying similar to what I'm telling you now and I finally realized it was the fantasizing that was killing me. I "vowed" (i.e., not a halachic vow) to stop fantasizing, and now I am at a clean streak of 126 days with God's help. You can do it. We are hear for you. And always keep posting on GYE. It really has saved my life.

You can quit masturbation! There are practical steps you can take (mentioned above and all over the forums), but it is just as important to have the right mindset. 
1) Believe in yourself. If other people can do it, so can you.
2) It’s a process. Success does not come overnight. Take it one day at a time.
3) Do not get discouraged. Failure is inevitable. But it’s a part of the process. Never give up - it takes time, but you will succeed. 

hatzlacha on your journey, we’ll be here with you!

Here is a good story on the topic of controlling thoughts... 


A chassid once came to Rabbi DovBer, the "Maggid" of Mezeritch. "Rebbe," he said, "there is something I do not comprehend. When the Almighty commands us to do something or forbids a certain act, I understand. No matter how difficult it may be, no matter how strongly my heart craves the forbidden course, I can do what G‑d desires or refrain from doing what is against His will. After all, man has free choice and by force of will he can decide on a course of action and stick to it, no matter what. The same is true with speech. Though somewhat more difficult to control, I accept that it is within my power to decide which words will leave my mouth and which will not.

"But what I fail to understand are those precepts which govern matters of the heart; for example, when the Torah forbids us to even entertain a thought that is destructive and wrong. What is one to do when such thoughts enter his mind of their own accord? Can a person control his thoughts?"

Instead of answering the chassid's question, Rabbi DovBer dispatched him to the town of Zhitomir. "Go visit my disciple, Rabbi Zev" he said. "Only he can answer your question."

The trip was made in the dead of winter. For weeks the chassid made his way along the roads which wound their way through the snow-covered forests of White Russia.

Midnight had long come and gone when the weary traveler arrived at Rabbi Zev's doorstep. To his happy surprise, the windows of the scholar's study where alight. Indeed, Rabbi Zev's was the only lighted window in the village. Through a chink in the shutters the visitor could see Rabbi Zev bent over his books.

But his knock brought no response. He waited a while, then tried once more, harder. Still, he was completely ignored. The cold was beginning to infiltrate his bones. As the night wore on, the visitor, with nowhere else to turn, kept pounding upon the frozen planks of Rabbi Zev's door, while the rabbi, a scant few steps away, continued to study by his fireside, seemingly oblivious to the pleas which echoed through the sub-zero night.

Finally, Rabbi Zev rose from his seat, opened the door, and warmly greeted his visitor. He sat him by the fire, prepared him a hot glass of tea, and inquired after the health of their Rebbe. He then led his guest — still speechless with cold and incredulity — to the best room in the house to rest his weary bones.

The warm welcome did not abate the next morning, nor the one after. Rabbi Zev was the most solicitous of hosts, attending to the needs of his guest in a most exemplary manner. The visitor, too, was a model guest, considerate and respectful of the elder scholar. If any misgivings about the midnight "welcome" accorded him still lingered in his heart, he kept them to himself.

After enjoying the superb hospitality of Rabbi Zev for several days, the visitor had sufficiently recovered from his journey and apprehension to put forth his query. "The purpose of my visit," he said to his host one evening, "is to ask you a question. Actually, our Rebbe sent me to you, saying that only you could answer me to my satisfaction."

The visitor proceeded to outline his problem as he had expressed it earlier to the Maggid. When he had finished, Reb Zev said: "Tell me, my friend, is a man any less a master of his own self than he is of his home?

"You see, I gave you my answer on the very night you arrived. In my home, I am the boss. Whomever I wish to admit — I allow in; whomever I do not wish to admit — I do not."

DavidT wrote on 14 Jan 2022 16:28:

I heard a different girsa, where he knocked and Reb Zev refused to answer the door. He begged Reb Zev to open the door since it was freezing outside, and Reb Zev responded that it was his house and he chooses who he lets in. 

I just want to make sure we are including the fact the forcing thoughts out of our mind have the opposite effect. They don't leave. The thoughts get even stronger.

We need to actively think about doing something else and busying ourselves with something else in order to clear the mind of unwanted thoughts. Don't fight against the thoughts, rather bring your mind somewhere else. (The famous mashal of "try not thinking of a pink elephant" - you will think of exactly that. A pink elephant)

Human being wrote on 15 Jan 2022 18:30:

This is very true. Usually, if a person is faced with a challenge, the strategy to overcome it is by working hard to get it under control. However, in this area, such a strategy will not work. In fact, the opposite is true: When a person tries to control a thought, he is essentially bringing to mind the very topic that he was trying to rid himself of, which causes his mind to explore it further. For example, if someone tells himself not to think about an elephant, then just mentioning those words will bring the image of an elephant to mind. This idea holds true both with regards to inappropriate thoughts, as well as improper sights. A person should always remember the Golden Rule: Any time you think about not thinking or seeing it, then “it” is already in your mind.

How, then, should one deal with inappropriate thoughts and sights? They should be treated as if they are a bag of garbage, waiting for the garbage collector to come. Just as you wouldn’t open the garbage bag to investigate if there’s something good there, so, too, a person should work on himself to consider these thoughts and sights as if they are nothing and just continue on his way. The focus should be to continue on with ‘business as usual’ without even analyzing what just happened.

Hey, it’s amazing that you were able to stay clean with porn! Keep it up! And maybe share some of the tools you used to quit porn so you can give some ideas to the world here! We can masturbate for all sorts of reasons… I’m gonna share a list I came up with of ideas based on my own personal experiences why we masturbate even once we’ve been clean from porn.. often it’s a build up! We trained our brains for this release, so it’s extremely hard to change that. Stopping porn is learning not to navigate lust to porn! Which is HUGE! HUGE! HUGE! And then stopping masturbation and closing all the holes.. it’s learning to deal with our desires face to face! It’s really hard but you can do it!! Here’s the list.

1. Knowing masturbation is an option for relief. - it makes us automatically focus on it more thus making the battle much much harder!
2. thinking sexual thoughts
3. Watching the triggering stuff can be any pritzus sets us in the mood.
4. Listening or reading the wrong things.
5. Thinking masturbation will relieve EVERYTHING
6. Forgetting our spiritual belief on masturbation
7. Thinking overtime masturbation becomes harder.. so we say oh I haven’t in 2 weeks! So suddenly our brains make us feel deprived! But often we feel the same way 3 hrs after masturbation!

Here’s another list based on the above of what to change in your mindset, and I have some tips on how to change them.. if you’d like that let me know. But for now here’s this list of mindsets to implement based on the above…

1.replacement of thoughts. - the more we think about sexual stuff or even how alleviating it’ll feel to masturbate… the more we’re inclined to turn there and eventually making a much tougher battle to fight therefore it’s important to realize and make masturbation not an option.

2. Remember in the beginning it’ll be hard. Extremely hard, but remember it’ll get easier.. your constantly retraining your brain to not turn to this stuff for this relaxation.

3. After all, doesn’t masturbating make you feel so relaxed? Less irritable? Just calmer? And less triggered? For me - Yes! Therefore our minds are so inclined to fall and get that cuz we love it, therefore it’s important to remember your spiritual feelings about it? Your ultimate goal! And why your honestly trying to stop..

4. Often strong intensity comes from sexual thoughts. Which leads to the need to alleviate it through masturbation… therefore reminding yourself of the proper mindset that thinking about sexual stuff is running on ice and destined to fall and go down a slide.. and what you really want is intimacy.. and that’s what will last! that can help a lot on not overthinking about sexual stuff cuz you remind yourself you’ll just end up on a slide downhill.

5. reminding yourself that you can get the same relief for these triggers through any kosher dopamine relief like exercise… helps that you not feel too deprived and you realize you don’t want masturbation you want a simple relief and it can be received from kosher stuff.

6. Reminding yourself that longer you hold out from masturbation and sexual triggers the more stronger of a Person you’re becoming.

7.by holding out of masturbation and sexual stuff you start dealing with your issues face to face and your no longer keep surrounding your issues with 100s of bandaids..

8.remembering heated times pass! And if we make it through that our muscles in this area are getting huge and experienced!

9.thinking and imagining and visualizing we masturbated 3 hrs ago.

10.realizing the more we masturbate the more we become dependent on the wrong thing.

Understanding these lists can help you understand your behaviors more and perhaps you’ll see yourself in a lot of them! Knowing all this can help you properly understand the struggle better and change and implement different actions and mindsets to help you completely break free!

hey, how are you? thinking about you! 

Bh still working on it. 
Thx guys!

5Uu80*cdwB#^ wrote on 14 Jan 2022 14:05:

I do gotta admit that although I have stopped with actual pornography, I unfortunately still look at immodestly dressed women for example bathing suits etc. which is a huge trigger for masturbation.

Every step of the way deserves recognition. If one used to spend large amounts of time viewing pornography and has stopped, he deserves credit for that - even if he is still looking for the "next madreiga".  Obviously, we are supposed to get past it all, but we can do so in steps. A ger has to accept ALL mitzvos at once. A ba'al teshuva is advised to take it slow and steady. We are all ba'alei teshuva....

omekhadavar wrote on 14 Jan 2022 18:54:

I'm a bit confused, and not sure whether this makes any sense. You are definitely in control over your own home more than you are over your mind...