Hi

I'm new here and i'm not exactly sure how to use this but ill start by introduing myself and telling you my story.

I'm a BT and for up to 21 years I experienced everything a normal seular guy does and when I became frum I had real problems letting this go. (i'd love to know how other BTs leave this beghind with the rest of their life) I never thought of it as an addiction and never ever would have thought that it would continue into marriage! "it will go away when you have an outlet", they told me in yeshiva. Well, i've been married for almost 3 years and last night was my breaking point. We have an amazing internet filter (if it wasnt for that i'm sure i'd feel alot worse and more often) that only uses white listed websites but 'where there is a will there is a way'!

I dont want to give too much info as i dont want to mhirhur anything at all. But just writing out my story in very short is feeling very helpful. I feel somewhat liberated already!

Good Shabbos

Hi feLlow Jew

Welcome

Chassidim say "there is nothing as whole as a broken heart"

So if u hit your breaking point

You will become whole

Stay here for a while

Keep on truckin

B

Thanks

I just hope I can put it back together...

you CAN put it back together!

your'e not the first and won't be the last!
(i'm somewhere in the middle right now...)

jew, point #1-
your'e background of being a bt or ffb or objd (orange bearded jews for donuts guy) is not relevant.

what IS relevant is that you are becoming honest, and getting out of isolation.
you just found a community of 1,200 peope with your story.
some better.
some worse.
some with the hots for marmoset peanut butter
and some who are triggered by orange bearded donut sniffers

Here you'll get the tools to slap humpty dumpty back together again. If only the king then had what our community has, the song wouldnt exist

i will knight you,

and bestow upon you several commands that you musn't violate (please excuse me im in a weird mood)

1)please ,without triggering information, please tell us what is it exactly , if anything, that is bothering you, that motivates you to look at green elephants?
2)please immediately begin reading the GYE handbook, before shnayim mikra
3)please post often, use the forum as a way to receive and give others chizuk and tips. also use your thread as a diary of sorts, to get self awareness
4)you will NOT recover overnight, but by being here you will learn how to gain inche by inch back of your brain turf and develop A SYSTEMATIC WAY OF DEALING WITH THIS. and that system will take you all the way to the end

the east coasters of GYE are all sleeping right now, so im the humble one to greet you;however, just know that on friday the forum is a little vacant since people are doing sponja for shabbos

FINALLY, PLEASE LEARN THE FOLLOWING PHRASE: keep on trucking, or KOT
this is very imp. here

KOT

tz90

Jew wrote on 11 Mar 2011 08:44:


If your assuming that the "FFB"'s have it any easier because of their upbringing/background - I've got some news for ya man....

While many may never know what it is to give up the "freedoms" of a secular lifestyle, the Yetzer Horah doesn't discriminate based on race/color/religious background... So, at least at some level, our fight is all the same. Welcome to the club!

Pretty soon you will be "receiving" the official welcome package to GYE. In it you will find links to reading materials that can put you back in the drivers seat asap - if you truly want that (and based on your coming here, it seems like you do).

Good night shabbos and good luck!

I think the biggest issue for me is when I am alone (not actually alone but do you know what I mean?) and then I reason that it is OK because I am a man and as a man I have needs...

So I guess i'm looking for chizuk, I think. Also practical soloutions, maybe ill just chuck the computer away, problem is im left with memories from my time before I was frum.

Jew wrote on 11 Mar 2011 14:28:


not anymore, those days are over
stick to the forum, to be inspired.................to laugh your butts off


with much success
Im not alone

Jew wrote on 11 Mar 2011 14:28:


Welcome!

These memories fade over time if we allow them to.

Dear  JEW ,

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!

Rising Up and the rest of the community

Welcome! You have come to the right place! Post , post and post your pain is shared here!

Have a gr8 shabbos and hatzlocha.

Jew wrote on 11 Mar 2011 14:28:

Dear sweetheart,
number one, learn this helpful GYE terminology:
R.I.D
restlessness
irribility
discontent

and this esp. :
H.A.L.T
hungry
angry
lonely
tired

as far as chucking the pc, i cant say no, but i can say that this is the way we all think when we begin our struggles, and we need to learn to have self control even WITH the pc-not saying it is good to keep around the net or pc, but u know what i mean
our goal is to cure the disease as much as poss. ,and not use aspirin and just brush it aside
as far as the old memories, believe me i have stuff in my head from 15 years ago. That's it however not the problem, bec. when i am doing well, the thoughts are stored away and collecting dust.
so the memories are not remembered unless we are not doing well.
and as we gather each clean day, we dull the brain's pathways and let the memo's drift deeper and further inot our brain
so the trick is to let them get dull, not forget them

KOT

Wow! I cant believe how many replies I've had!

I'm going to go for the 90 day shot. so today is day 3! my Rosh Yeshiva used to say you cant learn shas unless you learn this amud of Gemoro. just like I saw somewhere else on this site, take 3 seconds at a time.

Thank you so muh for all the chizuk its mamish helping so much.

Gut Voch
KOT!

[quote="o" link=topic=3658.msg100610#msg100610 date=1299850197]
Jew wrote on 11 Mar 2011 08:44:




Although I agree, I think it is very different when you have actually experienced these things. then the memories haunt you and I play them back in my head and its just awful.

(Not sure if im using the quote button corretly?)

I agree and have done for years but how? the 90 day thing sounds great and Im actually enjoying it but what happens at the end? 91 days and back on the problem?

Jew wrote on 13 Mar 2011 12:52:


I cant comment on your memories per se. ANYONE that slips and sees/dose things that he should will end up with memories. As "bad" as yours? I dont know. We can argue it both ways.

The point is that we all have to fight, and no matter how much of a yetzer horah we had/have, it always seems huge until we fall (Halalu Bochim V'halalu Bochim) - and then we feel silly cause we could have won had we fought just a tiny bit harder.

Keep on fighting. You can win!