Hello all...  very happy to have found your site.  I've been working with a great therapist every week for a year now and he recently found out about this site and referred me to it.  I'm primarily looking for support and accountability outside my therapist's office.

So right now, I've committed to joining GYE and getting involved on the forums.  I'm also going to read the material online here and sign up to be matched up with someone for daily support.  My therapist says it's the primary element missing from my approach to recovery.

Anyway - just wanted to say hello. Looking forward to becoming a part of the community!

welcome to gye!
youll find that its super helpful!
make youself at home here:)

Thanks for the welcome!

I thought I would start out sharing something I've learned about myself recently, with the help of my therapist.  I've learned that acting out is the last step of a longer process that starts out much earlier.  For me, it's often earlier in the day, sometimes at work - but sometimes even days before. 

For me it tends to start when something sets me off - seeing someone in public or something online - that gets me thinking.  Now I am focusing on trying to stop myself at that point when the pull is not too strong.  It's much easier to stop and redirect myself at that point instead of hours later when I am about to act out.  When I am about to act out, I feel as if it is nearly impossible to stop myself, even though I may hear a voice in my head telling me to. 

So now I am trying to develop the habit of keeping a very wide buffer between where I SHOULD stop and where I would consider it acting out.  If I see a link online, clicking on it doesn't feel like acting out to me, but it could lead me to another link, and another link - and eventually I'll think "I'll just go back to this site later at home" and then I'm in trouble. 

Anyway - just wanted to start off here with a contribution on my first day as a member.  To share something I've learned about myself.  Maybe it'll be helpful to someone else or lead to a deeper discussion.

Hey, welcome and thanks for the chizuk!! This site isn't just about getting chizuk (although there IS plenty!). Feel free to give your own...we all need it too. Thanks for joining!

Welcome aboard!

I'd ask you another question - what does your new knowledge tell you about what's really going on when you click on the first link, the one that you didn't consider "acting out"?

Welcome from me as well!!
I hope you find the information and sharing on this site helpful. If there is ever a point where you feel someone said something that your therapist may disagree with, please feel free to post his opinion. We can all use to grow!!
Now for the official welcome.........................


Welcome to our community, you have finally come home!

We're all in the same boat here. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama   Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up with them!

GYE Program in a Nutshell: (Right Click the link and press "Save Link/Target As" to save the PDF file to your computer).

'Guard Your Eyes' offers a unique approach to helping people by recognizing that there are many different levels in the struggle for "Shmiras Ainayim" and "Shmiras Habris". After studying the experience of hundreds of religious strugglers over the past few years, we put together the suggestions and recommendations that we feel are best for the various levels. We divided the tools, features and services that GYE offers into 8 different levels. This "GYE Program in a Nutshell can help people quickly identify at what level of the struggle they are at, and which tools and features would help them most at their particular level.

Here are some quick things you can do to help you jump straight into recovery:

1) 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 also highly advise installing "Reporting Software" such as webchaver.org to give you some accountability, because filters alone are usually not sufficient and they can often be bypassed.

2) Join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day.

3) 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.

4) 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!

5) GuardYourEyes also offers many free anonymous phone conferences where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See www.guardyoureyes.org > Tools > Phone Conferences for many different options. Our conferences are taking place every day, morning, noon and night… Joining a phone group 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 the daily call will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

6) If you need more general guidance, write to our e-mail helpline at gye.help@gmail.com or call our hotline at 646-600-8100.

7) Download and read the "Guard Your Eyes Handbook". This handbook outlines the GYE approach in detail, and makes our network much more effective and helpful for people. The handbook has two parts:

A) The first part, "Attitude & Perspective", 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…

The second part, "The 18 Tools", detail 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. 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!

May Hashem be with you!

silentbattle wrote on 12 May 2011 04:01:


Great question.  At that point I'm definitely aware that I'm crossing a line, but the challenge for me is that the line seems so small and the "acting out" so minor, that it is easy to let myself do it.  Now I am coming to understand that that moment is the entry point - and the door to the path of acting out and looking at pornography.

my friend,

we have learned the hard way, that not only does the acting out start days before when we see a trigger, etc. like you said,

it starts even before that....years before....
when we begin to react wrongly to life to such an extent that our lives become unmanagable and full of stress, anger, and resentment,
and so we needed this acting out as a drug to soothe ourselves

this is not my chiddush. all addicts here who are in a 12 step program realize and study that this is actually what happened to all of us

we didn't know how to live life

i cant be ma'arich, but the links are the end of this story

the lack of emunah and reliance on God was the begining

perhaps someone else can expound on this for you if you find it necessary

jkot, surrender, and grow,
avi/tzaddik90

Musicguy--welcome to the vaad!  Your therapist's insight is appreciated.  This was certainly my experience when I was acting out.  I would indulge in triggers such as gazing at women, then pick up a mainstream magazine lying around and of course gravitate to the inevitable pics.  Before long I was online.... (In hebrew I think it's called aveira goreres aveira)

Tzaddik90--you just told the story of my life.  The drug soothed over painful parts of growing up.  But when my life brightened up, the addiction was hard-wired and didn't go away.  Until I found this website 2 years ago.  And until I learned to turn my life and my lust over to the Ribono Shel Olam.

More self awareness is what it's all about, and a major reason why posting here, and being in touch with people in real life, is so important.

I'd say that to a certain extent, whenever we look at women in a Lustful way, it's acting out. And it's something we need to be aware of, because I know mysef that all too often, I'll think that something's OK because it isn't crossing any "red lines" - but maybe I am...I just didn't realize where the red lines were!

I agree. Gazing at women in a lustful way is acting out.  And it leads to more acting out.