Honestly, I've been waiting a long time for a forum such as this one. I've been struggling with this whole business for about 14 years, since 9th grade. I'm married 4 years, with 3 beautiful kids. And I'm still faced with this horrible issue. I have thought to myself so many times over the years that I need a way to speak with others who are dealing with it, and BH now I have one. Thank you for any advice/chizuk etc. you might have.

Frottberg

Welcome aboard!

Here is some advice

In order to grow with the group.

Please resolve in your mind to stay here at least 90 days

Those who are here and are active and participate will be successful

Yes it is hard work to break a bad habit

Even harder to overcome an addiction


We are all in this together

You made the hardest step

You broke the ice

Keep on trucking

B

Welcome holy brother. Bardichiv is a wise man. The wisest trucker you will ever meet. Life is full of ups and downs. At first you might really rock here. You will have the longest clean streak in you life, learn tons of new things, meet news friends and feel great. Some people just go up and up. Others will crash after a few weeks or months. Some give up. The real winners stick it out through that hardship and they learn even more than before.

Choose now to be a winner and you will win.

By joining you took a huge step toward freedom.

Good luck.

It helps to share more of your struggle if you feel comfortable. 

Remember keep an open mind, stay on board and post away.

Dear Frottberg,

Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

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!

welcome reb Frottberg,
you just got the official 'welcome package' with many important links and information. you also got a welcome from two of the gedolim of the site, Bardichev and Holy Yid, listen to what they say, they are talking from experience. read, post, connect and never give up.
behatzlacho
zs

Hi frottberg, your situation sounds sooo familiar, im also married 4 years, only 2 kids though, but been doing this for about 14 years. Ive been here about 9 months and ive learned a tremendous amount and made some great friendships. The step forward is all about leaving isolation. We can manage together!

post all about your struggles and thoughts and ideas, to breath some freshness in, we must also get the burdens out.

Welcome aboard and much hatslocho!

Yeah, welcome aboard. You'll probably find that some of us here are totally gentle and kind, while others can seem quite caustic. Everyone, however, cares very deeply about everyone here and honestly wants to help. Whether a 'newbie' here like you, or an alte k**r who's been working at it for a while.

I don't have any special insights or suggestions... except to say that posting deeply and often is incredibly therapeutic for me. And I recommend it to you, as well. You know, the stuff that you wouldn't / couldn't tell your wife, your Rav, your best friend. Nothing would shock us (except maybe some inappropriately triggering se*ual content, of course). And as I said at the start, the folks who've "been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt" will understand and jump in.

Keep posting, chaver. You've found the right place.

bardichev wrote on 02 Nov 2010 03:27:


Welcome Frottberg.  I agree with everything that was said here, although I would resolve to stay here at least 91 days.  Too many people think that once they hit 90 days they are cured and they don't need help anymore.  You'll need this place on the day after 90 the same way you need it today.  You'll be stronger then, but this is a lifelong struggle.  I am sure that you have tried to stop before only to be right back in it again.  The key is to take one day at a time.  So long as you are working on the struggle you're in the game.  That's the key.  And no doubt that's why Hashem sent you this struggle, to work on it.

Frottberg,

Welcome! I just thought that you should know that you have found the holiest group of Hashem's warriors that you will Never meet.

We are here for you, for each other, and, of course, [i]l-shem shamayim[i]. Keep at it, keep us posted and keep inspiring everyone here.

Welcome to the club, Frottberg,

You've come to the right place, for lots of support and lots of help for recovering from this problem.

The secret to sucess... POST POST POST POST POST POST POST POST POST.

That's a good start.

  --Eye.

Reb F what happened? Please share something with us.

How are you?

bardichev wrote on 02 Nov 2010 03:27:


they do it evry time they break the ice and then they get scared

r we doing something wrong?

toyre in the right place!