Happy to hear that you're still clean!
Btw even if no one responds, it still means that you're trying to stay clean which is gr8, and that's what we're all working on here. So don't worry, were still all on the same page as you. KOT!!

very strong urges right now. i feel like i'm suffocating a little bit. i'm under some pressure to be there for others, and it's hard for me to cope with it. doing by best to try and 'surf' the urge. i'm trying to keep in mind that it won't feel like this forever. and that i can live without it. the idea that it will help is an illusion, because though it would give me temporary relief, it comes with an emotional pricetag heavier than it's worth

Hang in there. If you didn't try yet, maybe try to release the urge with some excersize, or if you have someone that you can call to talk about how you're feeling, that might help. We're all rooting for you! Stay strong!!

simchastorah wrote on 16 Feb 2023 14:44:

don't forget to keep in mind the tremendous growth and eis ratzon that you achieve by resisting.  the greatest struggles are the greatest opportunities.    if you can apply the perspective of being on the offensive against the yetzer hara, instead of feeling like you are just playing defense, it will be much easier to feel good about the struggle.

And check out the book The Battle if the Generation.

B'h still off of P&M.
Been having regular urges accompanied by a voice which tells me that I can't hold out forever.
Reminding myself that:
1. I don't have to hold out forever, because the urges are temporary and only last seconds/minutes
2. It's better to feel the pain of not giving in to the urges than the pain of giving in to them
Shavua tov

Does anyone hear struggle with marijuana use?
Let me rephrase: who hear struggles with marijuana use?
This is another area in my life which I'd very much like to improve in.
After seeing how helpful it is to be connected to a group of people who 
are being mischazek in the area of sexual acting out, I'm interested in connecting
with some number of people who would like to work on this. If you're interested
DM me or post here.

Awesome point, no worry about how you will hold off forever, as it is only a fleeting desire.

Thank you HHM for taking the time to share your hard earned lessons with me on erev shabbos.
I would like to do my best to write up what you shared with me here, as an act of chazarah, and
for the possibility of helping another.

Before I start, I want to acknowledge that I am not b'emes holding by the ideas which I will write.
My need to acknowledge that is because of two things, one positive and one negative:
The positive: there is a certain hypocrisy to talking about maalos that one doesn't have. I am avoiding
that hypocrisy by openly admitting that I'm not really holding there
The negative: I'm afraid that in the coming days/weeks/months I will fall. Then I will really feel like a 
hypocrite for darshening. I'm dealing with that the same way

Overview:
Hashem gave us sexuality to fulfill a purpose, or as we'll continue, at least two purposes.
The expression of sexuality which we experience when we engage in porn/masturbation/selfish-sex
is not only not in line with the purpose which sex is supposed to fulfill, but even direclty opposes it.
The purpose of sex is twofold: producing children and celebrating intimacy. These two purposes
are uprooted by P&M, where seed is spilled for no purpose, and rather than celebrating an intimate
connection between two people, we celebrate our isolated self in the most disconnected way possible,
'taava y'vakesh nifrad'

To be continued...

Continuation from above

Producing children vs zera l'vatala
It's been established through surveys (as HHM for the details here) that people around the world feel bad after masturbating or engaging in selfish sex. I can certainly relate to this. I'm sure you can too. But what is the source of this bad feeling? Certainly through engaging so passionately in issur we cleave to tumah and this hurts us. But what is the specific ra which we are attaching ourselves to by doing this sin? 
Hashem created the world for a tachlis. Everything in the world exists to fit into that tachlis. And everything and everyone is only really existing to the extent that they are fulfilling that tachlis. Living our tachlis means taking our potential and building the tachlis out of it, putting it towards tachlis. When we take our potential and put it towards our tachlis, we feel alive, we feel exhilarated. And the opposite, when we r'l take our kochos and don't use them for the tachlis or even worse, we throw them in the garbage, we feel dead. ( you know that hollow feeling? that's where the feeling of being alive is supposed to be)
L'mashal, when we take our money, perhaps the most tangible form of potential that we have, and put it towards tov, like through giving tz'daka, we feel wonderful. On the other hand, if we take that same money and burn it, we'll feel terrible.
Zera is a concentrated expression of our potential. It is produced as the result of an incredible act of focus, of creativity, of physical energy, of emotional energy, culminating in a moment of incredible energy. It bears with in it the most incredible potential to bring a human being, a neshama t'hora chatzuva m'tachas kisei hakavod, into the world, with eyes and ears, hands and feet, a liver, a heart, feelings thoughts. It's like a billion dollars. Take that billion dollars and use it the right way. Then you are truly alive. But take that billion dollars and throw it into the ocean...
Of course a man feels empty when he spills seed. He's spilling himself into the garbage, he's taking his life, and flushing it down the toilet

Breaking from chazara of HHM's chasan shmooze to write briefly about my journey. B'h today was day 13 of cleanliness from porn and masturbation. I really feel like I'm starting to come back to myself after a few years of being away. I feel more clean. I have contended with many urges over the last few days. The surfing technique has been helpful today. Thanks to Vehkam's encouragement, yesterday and today I read a chapter of The Battle of the Generation. It was good. I also went through two sections of the sefer v'haer eineinu.
I'm really dying for a feeling of freedom from this thing. I can imagine people responding that the freedom comes when you stop dying for it or something along those lines. But I am dying for it. I have a constant pit of fear in my stomache that I'll fall again, that in retrospect this will be a tkufa that I'll look back on and smirk at my naivety, thinking I had actually got somewhere.
I need chizuk to stay on top of my game. I need to connect with people. I need to have real friendships with people where we can talk about things that matter. 
You know, it can be hard to talk about things that matter. Because the place inside ourselves where things matter to us is really very vulnerable and raw. And especially when you have trauma like I do, it can be very difficult to open up that place. I'm not just talking about porn and the like, which has it's own stigma. But even if I want to talk to you about serving Hashem, about having a good davening, about longing to be davuk in Torah, if we don't talk about these things as our selves, then we're missing the boat. And to talk about these things as our selves, we have to be willing to open up. Otherwise we'll be just monkeys, acting out the way that we think that we feel, instead of just being ourselves.
So I don't mean it's hard to talk about things that matter, I really mean it's hard for me to be comfortable being myself. And I think that it's this discomfort in part which positions me to have a tendency to get stuck in sexual fantasy. Because I crave that love and acceptance of me which porn is an immitation of. Unfortunately porn is not the real thing, that is, animalistic sexuality is not the real thing. But I've gotten so confused between real connection and animalistic sexuality. So I go barking up the wrong tree. I need to retrain my brain to know what love is really, what connection is really, and what sexuality is really. 
The sefer cheshbon hanefesh works with a theme of comparing the nefesh ha'bahamis to an animal which we are responsible to train. If you're too machmir on the animal that you're trying to train, it will rebel, but if you're too meikel, it'll come to be the one in control.
Currently the animal which I'm trying to train is quite a nebuch. It is dying for love and real connection, but is horribly confused about what those things mean and how to get them. It is in the habit of engaging in very unhealthy behavior, tragically disappointed when it never gets what it wants. Like a dog waiting at the door for it's dead owner for years and years. 

simchastorah wrote on 19 Feb 2023 21:50:

I spent years quashing my feelings with porn and masturbation. To the point that when I started in recovery, deep down, I was afraid to feel at all. I couldn't know that I wanted to be an Eved Hashem until I shed some of the old habit of never feeling, reaching instead for the pacifier I'd chosen to shield me from reality. The stigma of porn by me also came from a place of wanting to protect it. Because I felt subconciously that I needed my coping mechanism to survive, I shielded it with my life. I couldn't lose it. It was precious, and needed to be kept hidden. Because it was so bad. And yet so necessary and great at the same time. Freedom was when I could learn to move on. When it doesn't really matter much to me if someone figures out my identity.

Thank you for sharing, that's very interesting. It sounds like you're saying you became free when you were no longer afraid of losing the escape of porn. Like the feeling of being trapped for you was the fear of not being able to cope without it, and you eventually unlearned the fear and discovered that you could cope without it.

continuation from HHM chasan shmooze

Intimacy vs self centeredness
Chazal tell us that Hashem created Adam and Chavah as a single unified being, which was then divided into two halves.
This means that man can not experience his true self without reuniting with his lost half. Our experience of being as single people is really an experience of our self out of context, we are only really our full selves in the context of unity with a spouse.
The process of achieving shleimus in marriage is a process of achieving a full state of unity, of becoming one. L'mashal, when you see a couple walking down the street who has really merged together it is natural to say, "hey there go the Birnbaums" and not there goes Aharon and Tova.
Intimacy between a man and woman is nothing less than a celebration of this fusion. It serves as a way of enhancing and maintaining the unification of the couple. It's like the frosting on top of a cake, which enhances the experience of the cake. Take a big chunk of frosting without cake, and it is unpleasant, its overly sweet flavor even tasting bitter. So too with the intimate act outside of the context of true intimacy.
When a person experiences sexuality in it's proper form, as an expression of intimacy, he realizes that the charade that exists in pornography and fantasy of that nature is just that - a charade. A poor imitation of something much more wonderful and potent.
I myself experienced this in the past, during a t'kufa where I was working on relating to things properly in the bedroom. I remember once after intimacy thinking to myself "how could anyone think that the right way to engage in this is in that disgusting exagerated way, the poor fools." If we spend our lives chasing after the sex from the movies, from the books, from porn, from our imagination, we are mamash such a nebach. We are chasing after something mamash lame.
My father once told me a mashal for the yetzer hara, that he's like a man who comes to you with his hand closed in a fist, tempting you with the untold treasure he bears in his hand. But when he finally opens it, you see there's nothing inside. 
This is mamash sexual fantasy. It's so tempting. The promise of wonder is so great. But if you give in, you find out there's really nothing there.

I left out a very important bit above. Sexual relations for selfish reasons is the very opposite of intimacy. Two people can engage in this without caring about each other at all, without even knowing each other's names. If the other one drops dead the next day he won't even sigh. It is complete involvement in my pleasure, my internal experience, not about the other.
So there you have it. The two purposes of sexuality aliba d'emes are entirely uprooted when one uses sexuality inappropriately.

One more nice thing - in shulchan oruch orach chaim, the siman which talks about hilchos tzniyus is siman resh mem. There is a wonderful sefer on this siman called Mishkan Yisrael, which goes through the halachos, but also has a beautiful introduction. This sefer has a massive amount of haskamos from g'dolei yisroel, litvish, chassidish, sefardic, everyone. More than any other sefer I've seen. There is a haskama there from R' Yaakov Hillel. In it he writes that he likes to say that there's a remez in this siman being siman resh mem. Resh mem is the letters of the word 'ram' as well as the word 'mar'. If a person engages in intimacy properly, with k'dusha, with tzniyus, as an act of connection, then it brings him to be 'ram' to achieve 'romemus'. But on the other hand if a person acts the wrong way in this area, if a person is with his wife b'vchinas znus, then we will find it to be 'mar' very bitter.

I am looking forward to tomorrow and the next day being the first rosh chodesh in quite a while without looking at porn or masturbating. Usually on rosh chodesh, that special 'zman kapara', I am plagued by guilt. How have I allowed another rosh chodesh to come without being msaken this inyan? How have I let myself engage in this filth on yet another holy day?
But this rosh chodesh, beh'y, I will not look at filth. I will not abuse my holy potential. Thank you Hashem for two weeks of coming back to myself