BS"D


I havent posted much over the past months. After I made that one time fall after 21 days in the 90 days chart I felt like a nobody. I kept falling and things got progressively worse over time. R"L
Then I started learning the AA-book and now I really realize I am not in charge, but p***graphy is in charge of me. I feel terrible. I dont know what to do with myself anymore. True I didnt even finish "Bills story yet, but I need some sorefelt chizuk. I feel like I am in the gutter, I am being controlled by what really seems to be my rotzon for Taavah.
How will I ever get out?

Levi,
You started your post with BS'D.  That's how you're going to get out.
When you surrender and give up that you can control yourself fighting
this addiction, you'll begin to get better. 

This means not isolating and going to meetings or making calls to
a sponsor or friend on GYE.  It means reading the Handbook
over and over again, every night until you can stop for one day.
Then the next and the next.  Forget the 90 day chart.  One day at a time,
from now on.

Join the phone groups.  Read what people say who go to the groups.
Yes they still struggle but they have hope and friends to fall back on
and discuss their stories.

Elya

All you need to stay sober are 3 things: Honesty, Open Mindedness, and Willingness.  If you have these 3 things then you will get sober.  And of course, willingness means being willing to let Hashem help you in the struggle.  How do you do that?  You start by joining SA of another 12 step program.  Then you go to meetings, get a sponsor, and just do what he tells you to do.  If you do this then you'll get sober, GUARANTEED! Or you can keep doing things "your way" and then see where it gets you, but I think you already know where "your way" gets you!  You just started the journey, and as long as you are willing to do what it takes, you will get sober!  Good Job!

Hey Levi,

I know breaking free from this addiction seems like an insurmountable obstacle atm, but it's really not! So many guys on GUE have done it and you can as well. You just need to make a start, bc takign the first step is always difficult.

Don't be put off by the thought of , 'oh how can I live without the excitement of p**n in my life' etc. You just need to begin by setting yourself short-term targets that you know you can achieve. Just say to yourself, I won't look at porn today. I'll make an effort to guard my eyes and read chizuk. Take things ONE DAY AT A TIME and you'll be kicking the YH in the teeth before long.

You are not a loser and your situation is not hopeless. It all depends on your ATTITUDE. If you want to break free amd overthrow the tyranny that the YH exerts over your life, who can stop you?

Even if you don't genuinely have the sincere desire to give up the pleasure and thrill of p**n, then at least start by knowing intellectually, if not emotionally, that this disease and habit will end up destroying you. I know from my own experience that only when I had reached a 'do or die' situation, was I finally forced to work on myself. I seriously had no intention to build a lovey-dovey ladi-da relationship with Hashem. However to quote Dov and Guard, "Enlightened self-interest" and "no pain no gain".

Gd luck and keep us posted.

TC,

DL

i wish you hatzlacha. i have the same problem myself. chazal says that if you daven for someone ur prayers wil also be answered< so maybe ill dave for you u and u daven for me..

Levi, I know this dark place you're talking from.  For myself, in this place, my experience has been that the yh is giving me lashes--and has bled every bit of innocence and goodness out of me.  I'm just a pile of despondency, guilt and hopelessness.  Desolation.  I'm usually being dramatic at this point and begging and screaming H" , "Why are You doing this.  I hate You for doing this.  Please fix me. I love You.  I'm sorry.  Please, please, etc."  But one time, Be"H, I realized that this was "all about me", being dramatic, and being the center of my own drama.  At one point I just kind of shut up, and knocked off the begging and crying and whining.  I just shut up and felt what was going on, and just started having a conversation with H".  I remember it being very deep and quiet.  Like talking to a Rav in his study, a Rav you can just be with, pour your heart out to, and then shut up and have a conversation.  I asked a lot of questions.  None were left unanswered.  I wanted to know that He wouldn't leave me, and a bunch of other things.

For me, just quieting down and having a really serious talk with Him, a gentle talk, an honest talk, is what I was led to do, what I deeply needed to do.  I even told Him I thought He was mean, and yet and still, He comforted me.  It is in these desperate moments that my Neshamah just streaks to H", it's a clear channel, a local call. 

I lost my dog today.  I've had such a talk.  I'm shell shocked, and yet quiet.  I think I'd almost call it peace.  The yh started up with me because I'm tired, and hurting and lonely and vulnerable.  So I came to GYE, and here I am "talking" to you.

I hope some of that's been somehow useful.  It has for me, and I thank you very much for putting yourself out there, and encouraging us to reach out to you, to ourselves, to H", within ourselves, each and all of us, the whole klal, here and everywhere, ahleynu, v'ahl kol Yisroel.

I've found that doing the things the other guys have suggested, for me, saved me in many lonely hours where I would have otherwise filled the emptiness with bad things.  Like now, posting, and letting you know that you and your sobriety really matter to me.

Hishtadlut/avodah(Torah and Mitzvos) bitachon, emunah.  Magic anti shmutz medicine.  But we all know that sometimes the patient can be stronger than the cure.  That's when I accept the puniness of my avodah, put down the sefer, and get to GUE.  Because if I don't, and I try to ignore the images the yh is sending across my mind as I'm trying to leyn, that eventually my effort to fight the yh will fail, and I'll put down the sefer and go do things that I don't like myself for doing.  So I'm taking my own medicine, and i hope somehow I've been useful as well.

Let me know if there's anything i can do.

Hi levi

how about picking up the phone after letting the phone ring for a half a year nonstop! cool huh?
well thats how i sound

but anyways how are you? how are things going?

do you have a filter installed
(am i a dummy?)

A filter is a must to overcome this, but that alone is not gana help, u need to connect to a group of guys who are beating this same YH, maybe join of the conference calls here on GYE