Hi All,

It's been quite a while since I've posted here as b'h things were doing exceedingly well. Due to a lot of siyata dishmaya, hard work, and the assistance of special gye people, I was free of porn/masturbation etc for 4 years! 
Unfortunately, I've relapsed twice over the last half a year. I'd appreciate connecting with people here that were in long term recovery had a relapse and were able to pick themselves up.

reallywanttobegood wrote on 04 Jul 2023 14:38:

Story of my life.

Godspeed!

reallywanttobegood wrote on 04 Jul 2023 14:38:

Wow, teach us how you got to 4 years!!

cordnoy wrote on 04 Jul 2023 14:39:

Cordnoy is always self-depreciating, among other things. Reading his threads will probably be very helpful. Has been to me. 

First of all, kal hakavod for your tremendous accomplishment of getting yourself out of the muck and into a healthier space for a very extended period of time.

One of the biggest issues we have is this mental game we play with ourselves vis a vis perfection, streaks, relapse etc.

ITS A FARCE! Why do you have to look at it like you "relapsed"? You didn't relapse. You just gave in to a tayveh that anyone can give in to. Don't let the yetzer hara convince you of anything more than that. 

This is all easier said than done, but if at all possible, please please please work on that psychology. 

If you were clean for 4 years, I think you are capable of being healthy enough to look at it like any other aveirah or bad middah that you have, where you don't beat yourself up for !!!RELAPSING!!!. You just do teshuva and move on.

And if I may add, part of the fallacy of the streak/perfection/relapse mentality is that it doesn't look at the issue in a global way.

Let me explain. A couple of years ago I had a very rough Yom Kippur, and really wanted to change, and really wanted to make even the sincerest of small kaballahs, but I knew that I couldn't honestly commit to EVEN THE SMALLEST REDUCTION in my acting out. So instead I made the following kaballah which I knew I could keep: I would keep a meticulous cheshban of my acting out (as well as some other aspects of my yiddishkeit). Whenever I act out, I record it, whether it was just looking, or more, where it happened, stuff like that.

Many interesting things have occurred as a result of this cheshban, but whats nogeya for this thread, is that it became abundantly clear that the yetzer hara makes his business in volume (הכל לפי רוב המעשה), and it doesn't really matter to him how that volume comes. 

I was able to see clearly how many times I was "clean" for three weeks only to masturbate 3 times a day for the next week. So for the month I masturbated 21 times, which is almost once a day. 

I was able to see how much I was getting killed by masturbating multiple times when I fell, instead of containing a fall to 1 or at most 2 times. I would use losing money as an example. Say you made a bad stock trade and lost 10,000 dollars, do you go ahead and make 2 more dumb trades to lose 20,000 dollars more? No! You try not to lost a penny more! Same thing. You gave in, lost control, went to a bad psychological place, and masturbated. You don't want to masturbate again! No way!

Sorry for being long winded, my point in all this bnogeya to you is that you have 2 ways to look at this:

1) I am a relapsed addict who is only clean for a measly 2 weeks (estimating) when at my best I was clean for 4 years. Woe is me. ("And maybe I should masturbate now because it will feel good and what's the point anyway") 

2) I've masturbated twice in the last 4 1/2 years. That's amazing for anybody, addict or not. And I used to masturbate 3 times a week on average so that would be 702 times over 4 1/2 years.

I reduced my masturbation from 702 times over a 4 1/2 year period to 2! I am the biggest tzaddik to ever walk the face of the earth!!

Between these 2 choices....!ובחרת בחיים