Hi I don't feel I have much to add here with my personal story. but I do need the help from the guys. So here I am.

Hey buddy,

I'm a relatively new guy, too! I surfed the forum for a long time just reading through others' experiences, and I'm just now starting to post some of my own up here. I'm pretty confident that I have nothing to add to anyone else's recovery, but I KNOW that it helps ME. At this stage in my recovery -- very early -- I'm trying to focus on me and Hashem, and doing as much as I can to build that relationship.

Somehow, writing on this forum helps me do that in a way that writing in a journal doesn't. Not sure why, but it works for me!

In any case, BARUCH HABA! Welcome to the GYE forum! I am IamAdam, and I am addicted to lust. The fellowship that I've found here has been one of my inspirations to begin working a road toward recovery and "progressive victory over lust." And I thank you for becoming part of that fellowship today!!!

Keep coming back! 

Thanks its really cool to post here its liberating

What I meant to say is thanks for your understanding my short post

Hi Happy!

1. Posting your story is good for us.  We learn about ourselves and gain insight into ourselves and the enemy with each story.

2. Posting your story is good for you.  It gives you a clearer picture of who you are, who you want to be, and what you're up against.  (We promise to keep it a secret.)

Story or no, it's good to have you here.  I didn't post anything for 2 years, so I shouldn't talk.  You want to kick the habit. You wanna be happy. You're in the right place.

Its funny to me how so many people here are so religious and spiritual and its the aveira that bothers them.

For me its the emptiness and filth I feel afterward that brings me here.
the god thing is somehow not as strong.

But I feel confused so what do I know.

It is emptiness. Because it's a counterfeit pleasure. Eventually it doesn't let you live -- you're either thinking about it or doing it, or feeling empty and duped until the cycle begins anew.

That's plenty of motivation to start growing out of this rut.

I definitely identify with the idea that it's not the aveirah that scares me when I act out; not nearly as much as the emotions, the self-disgust, and the way I distanced myself from other people and even hurt one other person. That said, as I slowly work my way into recovery one day at a time, I'm finding that my attitudes about aveiros and sprirituality in general are slowly changing. The aveirah starts to mean something to me once I'm away from it, and that adds to my desire to stay away from it.

That's how I'm experiencing it right now.

wannabehappy wrote on 18 May 2011 23:00:

I am not here because of G-d nor because of morality. I am here to save my life, and my life as I know it. The fact that I can use G-d to allow me to keep this life - and even have a great life - is recovery. It has nothing whatsoever to do with being frummer, unless I choose it to lead me there, eventually.

All the best!!

Really excited about the 7 days clean. Scared to death about falling. I feel like I know its gonna happen and I've gone 7 days before so......

also its a lot easier the right time of month.

Wish me luck ppl

Right time of the month or not, it's important to keep lustful thoughts and gazing in check.  I find if I let my guard down because my wife and I are "on," I'm struggling harder when the plug is pulled.

You can do this.  Stop worrying about falling and take it one day at a time.  You only need to win one battle at a time.

We're counting with you

Sorry about my random,nonsequential posts but here goes.

Omg I just realized how far down I've sunk just by being somewhat clean for a week.its very disheartening.

Since I was 5 I remember thinking girls/women were beautiful and I may even say since kindergarten I was abnormally attracted to my teachers/morahs.I guess I could even say I was addicted to girls at that age. I remember that in first grade I would cry that I wanted to go to my girl friends house. Guys in my class years later would make fun of me that I would always be playing with the girls and defending their rights to the playground. At that point it wasn't sexual as much as beautiful.  Btw I think I also had extraordiraly good looking teachers. Makes me think about who was hiring.
So basically at a very young age I would fantasize about just being close to women.
When I was about 12 I was told by a friend about the whole sex thing, I was lost since then.
whatever I got my hands on,books clothing magazines and then later it got to the really bad stuff. That lasted for years,till now as a matter of fact;)
but I am/was a good kid, I learnt exceptionally well, had a very strong religious background. So when I was in yeshiva I had some amazing clean spells. I fought with raw will power,sometimes crying because I would not act out.
on and off it was, and when I was off I would not control myself as if I was punishing my own soul for not being strong enough. I've acted out in places that I will die twice when they replay that video in shamayim.

But still, while I was single I would always feel better go on a strong clean streak and convince myself alls clear I've done teshuva or gods given up testing me with that now because I've failed( especially according to those who hold that rambam to mean that you have to have been in the same situation and passed to really be considered that you did teshuvah,  therefore means you're coming back in a gilgul because you cant have that amount of testosterone exactly and  that same situation)

      After getting engaged I had another terrible fall,except this time with my kallah/ wife. Thank god we didn't go the distance but basically since,probably then I've completely given up. I feel that it defined me. I no longer was better than thou(a driving force in my religious activity). I was that animal,no different from the lowlife friends I grew up with, whose homes had homemade movies in them that the kids discovered and showed to the rest of my class.
Later in marriage it simply fell apart for other reasons.
1. Imo sex is not what its made out to be in the movies or even what people say it is.  Its completely exhausting and my cost to benefit analysis compared to the other options available were ridiculously one sided.
2. The variety factor.
3. The time of month.

    Over the past three years I just go through the motions of trying to stay clean,no more dreams about being the holy person I know my soul is meant to be.Yom kippur I ask forgiveness but I tell myself pretty much that hashem should take me as is and he should look at all the awesome things I do and am.

  I've stopped davening with any sort of real relationship with god. A lot of times I don't Daven at all. There were times I didn't wear teffilin. Thank god I pulled myself out of that.

    I am dead inside. That's really why im here. I can't live like this. But at this point its coming from a different place. Almost as if my system is hardwired to reject the lust for" beauty" and feeling.

Ive gotten the emails from guard and have always been flirting with the site. I recently joined the site and forum. I think after reading a bunch here that this where ill start posting and im also doing the chart.

But like I started this post this is the first time I for a split second remembered the levels of height that I was on when I was single.
there were times where I figured out ways not to see any women for weeks on end.

WOW

Any way im going to congratulat myself on the longest nonsensical post and go spend time with my wife and child



Wow I wonder if I broke the record for the longest post

Later

What was nonsensical about that? It was a nice start at a written first step inventory. It will help you and others.

As you probably realize by now, 'not seeing women for months on end' is not the real solution for you (and probably never was) - it is 'not seeing (using) your lust for months on end'.

You come with tremendous gifts, already getting honest with a lot of your stuff. Thanks for that, we all need that.

I encourage you to see your shortcomings as not in Kedusha, but in right-thinking. Somewhere along the way you (like me) were mekabel the faith that women are powerful and that you need them. Porn became a source of sweet acceptance and safety for you. Your wife? You already discovered that she cannot compete with the lust of the fantasy world. Nobody real can...not even you or me.

This is less to do with Kedusha than to do with a messed up concept of women, their bodies, your own body and sexual power and the placemnt of sexual pleasure at the top of the pyramid of life...especially when things got tough, I'll wager. Not philosophically speaking - but practically.

Screwed up thinking and beliefs do not get changed with 'a good convincing job'. It takes real time and real work and repetition,  and then Hashem helps the growth occur and you will grow more and more free of it all.

And I have good news for you: you do not have to deserve it.
Somewhere along the way (probably from the same screwy place you were mekabel that the beauty of women was perhaps the most powerful force of nature), you picked up the 'Teshuvah gemurah' concept. I am telling you that though it exists, it is poison for some people and completely assur to use as a guide for personal development in any way for those people. It only does one thing: create the self-loathing that makes more masturbation necessary. Yet so many of us walk around with this shadow thinking that Hashem needs some kind of an 'os' in order to really believe in us - that we are still resho'im until we 'prove ourselves to Him'. Hey it's a befeirusheh RMB"M, no?

Rubbish.

RMB"M is talking generally and defining the concepts of Teshuvah. We take Hashem as if He needs a sign to know we have grown and that we need to prove something...just plain nuts. In the meantime, we wait for the day that we will no longer be as disgusted with ourselves as we imaging Hashem is. But that is a lie. He loves us. He even loves us while we were on our knees masturbating to the latest porn images. Just read Tomer Devorah. He loves us and gives us help to get better even while we are doing it! He even gives us the pain you describe, "I feel dead inside" - through our aveiros themselves. Our aveiros lead us to Him!! Through our recovery.

Do not lose hope, not even a drop. You will get better if you do the work.

And the goal is to be able to live life again, though it may need to be more on His terms than on your terms, even with respect to ruchniyus. We cannot just go back to the way we were minus the craziness. It doesn't work that way. As the Gmorah in Menachos puts it, we cannot just climb back up into the "Hey", but need to make a different trip, up and into the side of it.

Hatzlocha, and sorry about my long post, too!

So... im confused
I need to change the way I view women?

In what way?

Stop enjoying the lust drug?

Like you said, whenever it gets rough my mind goes crazy. For instance yesterday, after meeting up with my inlays family, I was feeling down on myself that I could have been doing more with my life. After that I tried to shut out those feelings and immediately afterward I started to lust and it all came crashing down again.

Btw slight problem with the chart for me, cuz once you intentionally watch you've already fell and so why bother pulling out then?
but I was probably too far anyway.


And know that god loves me as Is?

That's sort the least of it, I love myself and wannabehappy.
that's sort of why im doing all this. But who really knows?...maybe you guys do?

Later

wannabehappy, you're creeping me out with how similar your story is to mine.

I think i started struggling in 3rd-4th grade; at least that's when I started feeling something about the female form. Hard to explain, but you obviously understand. It progressed through high school, and on through being single in college. I knew intellectually that getting married wouldn't solve the problem, but i thought it might at least help somewhat. Like you, I fell hard with my soon-to-be spouse. This was before we were engaged, but we knew that we were going to get married. We both felt horrible about it, we were scared that we had somehow screwed up something special, and we decided that we were going to put it behind us, commit to the relationship, and we're still happily married with one kid and another on the way.

However, like you also said, and as many have said here countless times, marriage doesn't fix things, and in many ways makes this problem even worse. The reasons you mentioned are 100% correct. If I may add one reason, it's that the pleasure derived from marital intimacy and the superficial high we achieve with our own self-indulgence are two different things. While related, having more of one in no way decreases the need/desire for the other. When we realize that, we only feel more hopeless about our situation, because we though that marriage may have been the "magic pill" that helps channel the yetzer into something worthwhile.

If only it was that easy.

Does your wife know that you have this problem? Aside from the misstep years ago, my wife thinks I'm a pretty holy jew. It's hard to live with that kind of lie, but I just don't feel like telling her would be productive at this point.

I also feel empty, and it kills me that I can have such a beautiful and blessed life overall, a family, a parnassah, some good friends, and this annoying habit is what's causing me to feel absolutely nothing when I daven in the morning. I find it interesting that you also have a problem with tefillah/tefillin, and you're linking it to your lust issues. I've had issues with davening since HS, and I've never tied the two together. I consider it my weakest area on the positive mitzvos front, and I'm wondering if you could talk about that a little more.