gam ani metzraif to the above!

i would like to join in wishing the guard a gmar chasimo toivo. you are G-d sent, and my family owes you for saving me.

WE LOVE THE HEILIGER GUARD

thank you for a great Shmiras Einayim chizuk email, no.233, (see it here:www.guardureyes.com/GUE/GUEList2/GUEList2_5.asp)
it 'spoke' to me

If you don't want to copy and paste Zemmy's link, just click mine:  http://www.guardureyes.com/GUE/GUEList2/GUEList2_5.asp

ZemirosShabbos wrote on 03 Apr 2012 18:13:

We love the Heiliger Guard!

when will the rest of us new people get to experience the heiliger guard?

Well, he runs this site, even if he no longer posts actively.

You can email him directly. He tends to respond.

After seeing someone attribute the founding of GYE to Duvid Chaim, I wrote up the following short history. (I do not intend to diminish Duvid Chaim, but credit belongs where credit is due!)



GYE was founded by a man in Israel named Yaakov. His chavrusa opened up to him that he has a problem with internet pornography and he tried to help him. Seeing success with his chavrusa and noticing that there are many other frum yidden who struggle with staying away from 'inappropriate' websites, he set up a site on which he posted a few articles and other stuff that he researched and collected/wrote. He did it pro-bono and anonymously. As more and more people began using his website, he added an online forum where the guys can communicate with each other.

Later, Yaakov began sending daily emails with chizuk for those struggling with shemiras hakedusha. He used a lot of religious sources, some secular, and stuff that users wrote on the GYE forum.

He compiled many of the chizuk ideas that he found in seforim, along with practical advice from his research (Dr. Abraham J. Twersky was/is very helpful and HIGHLY encouraging) into a booklet, which he calls The GYE Handbook.

With time, beside for just men who 'have a problem on the internet', many bona-fide sex addicts chanced upon the site and saw there first glimpse of light. They saw that there are other religious Jews with 'tznius problems' getting better. Excited at the prospect of Recovery, they joined the forum. Many of these addicts still kept up a facade to the rest of the world as if everything is fine and dandy. They wouldn't DARE be seen at a live 12 Step meeting. For them, this was the most they allowed themselves, to post on a forum of other yidden who are not denying their issues, but doing it under an anonymous fictitious username.

Seeing a need for the Spouse of the Addict to get help, GYE set up a separate section of the forum for them.

When there was a problem of male & female addicts who 'met' on the GYE forum building a 'too cozy' relationship, another section of the forum is exclusively for female addicts (inaccessible to men.)

To help plug the hole where most members of GYE were acting out, a GYE filter branch was started. It had webpages with info about the various internet filters available. They also had a volunteer "Filter Gabbai" who would hold the passwords for whomever was afraid to know their own passwords. When new gadgets came onto the market (i.e. a new blackberry) on of the code-literate GYE members wrote a program to filter those devices.

A sober SA member saw the GYE website and had pity on the sex addicts who were on the GYE forum, thinking that it is their only hope and started doing his own 12th Step work by posting on the forum about his own experiences in recovery - the way he learnt it in SA. To his credit, many many addict got their first exposure to SA through his posting on GYE and joined SA themselves and are well on their way to Recovery. This SA member later organized a twice weekly phone group where he is able to elaborate on the 12 Steps the way he learnt them from his SA sponsor and his own multi-year recovery.

A few 1,000 miles from Eretz Yisroel, in the state of Texas, there was another recovering sex addict in SA. After a few years of sobriety he chanced upon the site, seeing this as an opportunity for some 12th Step work to carry the message to others who are still sick, after conferring with his SA sponsor, he offered to organize a daily conference call for those guys on GYE who are too frightened to be seen at face-to-face meetings. Using the name Duvid Chaim he began leading a daily "Lunch & Learn Big Book Study Group" at 12:00pm EST. After a while, two men who became sober through that call, Steve and Shlomo, began leading such Big Book study group conference calls in the mornings and evenings.

"MiriamGYE" has a conference call for wives of sex addicts which follows the 12 Steps of CODA.

In order to inform other struggling yidden that it IS possible to quit, Yaakov began advertising on other Jewish news sites.

Wanting to expand the services which GYE offers without needing to charge a mandatory fee to use what had turned by now into an entire umbrella network, Yaakov had no choice other than to begin fundraising from the general public.

With the new funds, large portions of the info available on GYE was now able to be translated into Yiddish and French.

A newly refurbished and expanded website has a dedicated section for NON-addicts with info about PREVENTION.


After all is said & done, many Yidden around the world, as well as many many addicts in Recovery, owe a lot of gratitude for what one individual man did for us!!!

Beautiful! and Thank You Yaakov/Guard for this wonderful website. (I can't thank you enough and I think that many other users will say that too!)

Yitzchok

"Never has so much been owed by so many to so few..."

very well put, clear and informative
thank you yosef
nominating you as Chairman of the GYE Historical Society

Like! Moish U.K.

This thread always make me sick but this lovefest is getting totally out of hand.

1. Yosef, wonderful story may have had some truthful parts, I just can't find them.
2. This Guard guy is nobody special far from it! In fact, he's no better than Kedusha (And most people know where he stands in my book).
3. If you need to find real GYE heroes there are plenty.

Barditchiv
Rage
Uri
7up
And the one and only Dov.

I hope this clears things up.

Pretty confused here.

But either way, thank you Guard for opening up to me the world of recovery, that there actually is another option - if I'm willing to get the help I need.