Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to tell a bit about my story and thank the community here....

I got involved in inappropriate websites a few years ago when my wife and I were having a few problems (I don't blame her at all ... the fault was all mine).  It started with websites but progressed to chats and I found that I needed more and more.  Day by day I needed a stronger fix.  Eventually I was hating myself before and after but I still kept going back.

Then  things got better between me and my wife and I realized how far I had fallen and decided to stop.  I found I couldn't.  For the past three years every year I vowed on Rosh Hashannah that I would stop and every year I would fail before Yom Kippur.  I would be sure I had the strength but I just kept going back.  I never understood what an addiction meant until then.  I wanted to stop, I was disgusted by my actions but I kept going.  I felt like I lived a double life, a good person on the outside but with a horrible secret.

Ten days I go I broke down.  I couldn't go on lying any more and just started crying one night, basically having a nervous breakdown.  I made a huge decision and confessed everything to my wife.  I was so scared that she would leave me but instead she has been perfect and supported me.  I have, with her help, been ten days clean.

I am now at ten days clean and feel physically awful, but at the same time better than I ever have because I am not hiding, I am not lying to myself or to anyone else.  I am now doing real Teshuva and know that I will make it...

I do have one question though to those who have done this successfully.  I feel Horrible, headaches, irritable and have broken into cold sweats.  Is this what withdrawal has felt like for others?

Starting To Improve wrote on 22 Apr 2010 23:49:


i ahbve not been succesful but my world record of 60 days (never repeated incidently) did cause pain  down "there"

I chalked that up to my body cleansing itslef.

And headaches, cold sweats etc really do sound like the effects of cleansing.

And wow - you confessed to the most important person in the world the most difficult of all confessions.


You are doing better than you think.

It sounds pretty normal. You are in good company.

Take a look at the stories people wrote about themselves and if you feel you need help maybe one of them works for you. I used the nazir method after being an addict for years.

Dear Starting To Improve,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community!

Congrats on admitting to your wife and making the first big steps to recovery!

As far as your pain... This is normal withdrawal symptoms. Please see the Daily Dose of Dov in Chizuk e-mail #760 called "It will Pass".

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...

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best - and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"... See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information...

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.

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!

Hello heiliger 10 days

I'm bards I am part of the chherleaders here

You are gevaldiggG

Stay here u will be helped

One word of advice

Yes your wife is supportive

And yes she is a good wife and you are probably a fantastic husband

Here is some advice

DON'T TAKE HER SUPPORT FOR GRANTED

Cherish it and show your appreciation

Keep on truckin!

Bards