I don't know much, but I think that at this point, your approach to teshiva is supposed to stopping doing the aveirah. According to rabbeinu yonah, that comes before regret, it comes before anything. So step 1 is, you've got to figure out how to get rid of this poison from your life.

Your goal right now is to be clean, and you can do this. You're right - you are powerless, we all are. We can't do this without hashem, and as soon as we start thinking that we're really in control, we put ourselves in all kinds of dangerous situations.

As much as possible, get filters for all the computers that you can. Then figure out when you have issues, and plan ahead, be ready for them. This is your life we're talking about, and it's up to you how you want to spend it...crying, or smiling? Let the tears be tears of happiness my friend. Instead of focusing on guilt, and how bad you'll feel (which clearly doesn't work), remind yourself how GOOD it feels when you walk away, and you don't give in!

I made only another three days.

Trying to take it a day at a time but I didn't even even get to asking Hashem for help through today (I fell before Shacharit)...

... and to be honest my mind is getting back into it's 'I don't care to change' routine - even though I know it's not true (otherwise why else would I be here??).

It's like having two different people living inside me.

you are doing GREAT!

just the fact that you recognize there are "two peopel " inside of you is  a BIG step!

wanna know who they are:

1. EGO
2. Spark of Hashem

both fighting for the same breath of life.

ever notice how a coal which seems to almost be out - can be ignited by breathin on it, fanning it...in a few moments the little sspark within can become a warming flame.

the ego on the other hand - feed it nurture it, it grows into a hungry insatiable MONSTER!

your choice - you can only feed one them...which one you want residing within.

DovInIsrael

Just fell again tonight....

... but enough about that; yes there were the tears, the feeling of being tainted by 'shmultz' (shower doesn't help fully), the extreme fear of punishment, etc. etc. etc. etc. - but dwelling on that's not going to get me anywhere...

... so enough about that...

I've decided tonight (based on some suggestions from GYE) to take a cheshbon of what caused me to fall tonight:

1. I was up alone - the wife went to bed early
1.1. I felt it was too early for me to go to bed
2. I started watching TV on my laptop
2.1. Family Guy about a lot of shmutz
3. Feeling the feeling of falling
3.1. Believing that I could open up the 'Private mode' of the browser and load up a p**n site but still not completely fall (how crazy is that???!)

These are the things I should have done:
1. Run to bed at the same time as her - irrespective of the time! Who can't do with some more sleep anyway?!!
2. Not watch TV (I ditched the actual TV for this reason - well actually the wife did!) - especially not Family Guy!
3. Wish I could say "fight the feeling" - but that's never going to happen - better to act properly regarding 1. and 2. above! But if I reach this to use the "private mode" to not pass Go and go directly to GYE!

Now, I need your help. Every time I fall, I want to make the same Cheshbon. But if the same thing appears twice, I'll give 10 shekel to tzedakka and more importantly i want you all to strongly remind me that I've noticed the Y"H's vector of attack but haven't bothered to jump out of the way - and that I'm better than that!

Any other suggestions?

join a 12-step program - learn how to uproot that which is holding you back


learn Tanya (www.lessonsinTanya.com) flood your soul with kedusha
- some good short Torah

www.iawaken.org - again good short Torah

do jumping jacks - to divert the energy flow
go for a walk

call a friend

talk to your wife (3 easy steps)
1. I feel there has been some emotional distance between us
2. i regret that
3. what can i do to heolp us move forward

I think i just fell (slipped??) again last night..

The YH got one up on me! Referring to my previous list - I actually went to bed with my wife - BUT I took my laptop with me.
And after watching some tv on the laptop I opened up a p**n site and started browsing - with her sleeping right next to me!!
I didn't actually "finish off" - somehow Hashem gave me the Koach to close it up - but only after some significant amount of time!

I'm striking myself off the 90 day chart (it's still a fall in my eyes - a bad one) and adding this one to my list:

- Do not use the laptop when the wife is asleep

Am sure the YH will find yet another way, but what's done is done - I need to move forwards...

Dmaot,

I admire you. Most people lose the battle with the yetzer as soon as they enter the ring but it sounds like, even though you shouldn't have entered the ring in the first place, you actually won this battle. I fell yesterday (more than once) after a 4-day clean streak and I'm starting again today.

Just one piece of advice. Stop going clean out of yirah. Yiras Shamayim is a very important thing, but we can always come up with excuses or reasons why Hashem shouldn't punish us after we fall. Try going clean out of ahavah. No matter how good your excuse is, no matter how innocent you are, p**n gets in the way of ahavas Hashem and prevents you from really becoming close to the ribbono shel olam. This is a time to act out of ahavah, out of truly wanting to be an eved hashem and to have a loving relationship with him. You are a strong person and I feel as though we are in this together.

Chazak v-Ametz. Chag Sameach,
Dovek

dovek:
I *wish* I had read your post before I fell today (yes I fell properly this time).

You're totally correct - Yirah doesn't help evidently - although I do feel immensely frightened of punishment after my fall.
I still feel that I need to daven to Hashem to lessen the punishment - obviously I now that His Cheshbonot are His alone but I feel that if I don't show some regret (which i actually truly feel) then I'm not being true to myself. Voicing regret surely must help in some way? If for nothing else than for me to at least feel that this bad Middah of mine is something external and something I truly desire to rid myself of.

After falling I fill up with dread. I know people have told me not to focus on this and just to move forwards but somehow I can't just 'forget' the sin. It feels like I'm cheapening the seriousness of the sin if I just forget about it...

... but on the other hand it's about breaking the addiction once and for all and making ourselves better people in the process isn't it?!

Either way, I can only beg that Hashem doesn't indeed punish me and instead uses his infinite Tov to help me conquer this terrible Middah...

I fell again - that's another 20 shek for Tzedakka.

I was home alone and I could feel my Yetzer HaTov and YH battling it out. Of course we know who's stronger!

I should have run a mile from this one - I was in a good place before. But I didn't of course!

Onwards and upwards from here B"H.

hey dmaot, for now, just move on from the fall! thats the most important thing. i think one thing that you should try to do is just post more. there are no negatives to doing so and in the same way that people can cheer you on, people also just get chizuk from simply reading your story. i used to be the same as you, typically only posting after i fell. but the real work is to be done before you find yourself in the trying situation. post more especially about your progress, even if its just to say hi.

hope all goes well.

And again.. wife is at home, etc. etc. but i managed to sneak off somewhere private anyway! Can't seem to keep it going for more than 2 days these days..

But again, nothing more i can do but move forward!!! B"H I'll be able to keep getting better....

Shlomo: You're totally right - I'm going about the GYE thingy all wrong!

I was talking with my mother-in-law about Tiger Woods and how he has just come out of rehab or something.
She kept going on and on about 'how everything is made into an addiction these days' and that 'there's not such thing as SA - it's just people who can't control themselves...'

I tried to argue with her - for my own sake more than anything else - but it definitely seems that there are people who think we're just a bunch of loosers with no self-control or will-power. It's quite upsetting actually.

Yow! Look out for the mother-in-law, chaver! According to "Animal Planet", they can bite! 

1- recovery, as far as I know, is not about improving ourselves at all, it is about getting the heck out of G-d's way and allowing Him to fix us. Those are not words, it is subtle but totally different mindset.

2- And as far as "once and for all", it's on His timetable, not ours. Whether I use lust tomorrow or not is none of my business at all. Only today. Also not just words, but a true state of being. He seems to work in increments - and we are often not aware that we are improving at all, but discover it in retrospect.

3- Have you followed the sage counsel of DovInIsrael, shlomo, silentbattle, or dovekbashem? They each gave you practical steps to try and put into action.

All I know is that I cannot expect an iota of change if I am still doing the same things. I gotta try something else.

Love,

Dov 

your mother in alw sounds like a bright intelligent women...

let her know there was an article on sex addiction in the helige New York Times (Jan 2009) - so it must be true, right?

www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/fashion/04love.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&sq=modern%20love&st=cse&scp=2

you know what they say ..

behind every successful man is a surprised mother in law.

someone in the forum had the following advice:

forget all your trigger - just stay far away form the shvigger.


next time you slip (or even before hand) - read my thread on Charoset...and come join me ...on teh road to FREEDOM!

re: tiger woods

whats the difference between tiger woods and any of us?

ans: close to $100 million, a top-cat-walk model for a wife, and a good game of golf...but other than that not too much of a difference.