Hi, i'm new. i have gotten into bad habits lately and need help. when i was young i spilled a lot of seed but got married and got over it. But as you can understand it came back when i again got exposed to internet porn. i have only spilled seed once but have seen alot of pron and am scared where it will lead. i have crazy thoughts am makes me be unhappy with my wife, obviously she wont do what i see on the porn sites! im a good guy other then that if you can even say that, i help many people grow but now i have to help myself. please send me your tips and comments.

Helpfyi - what a helpful sounding name!


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!

hi and welcome!
your story is much like many other stories of people here, you are far from being alone in your struggle and there is a way out and there are people with whom you can share your efforts, both for your benefit as well as others' benefit.
wishing you hatzlocha
zs

Fortunately, you've caught yourself at a pretty good point in the "process" of getting snared by the addiction. As we say around here, you've hit bottom while on top.

This is an unbelievable place to come and open up about your problems, which in and of itself can be a great help to you.

If you're having marriage issues that you don't feel comfortable talking about around the single bachurim, make sure you PM Guard to add you to the married forum. Lot's of great advice and chizuk for those of us in that parsha!

Dear Helpfyi,

I will write this with the word "your" in it, but I also mean "our":

Porn ruins your marriage one day at a time. It ruins your happiness as a human being. It twists your relationship with women and makes them into godesses - or into the enemy...and they are neither. They are just real people, like you and I. Porn twists your relationship wit your G-d and turns Him into the garbage man for your messes. It twists Teshuvah into something that is supposed to work on our demand. It takes Hashem completely out of the equation and seats us in the center of the show - and we are not. It's Hashem's world, and He runs the show, and we act out His play. He did it for us to enjoy...and we are not doing a very good job of that, are we?

Hatzlocha!!

Thank you all for your great words! i already today kept my eyes to myself i take it one lady at a time and if i slip i dont get upset but when i don't look i daven to hashem bec it a eais rotzon that i was ohmed benisoyn.

There's nothing wrong with getting upset when you slip.

It's what you do after that that matters.

If you get upset and give up, you're doing it wrong.

If you get upset, and use the anger to move ahead and continue from where you left off, you're in good shape.

i agree thats what i meant, when you fall and say the heck with the whole thing is bad.....

Helpfyi wrote on 06 Jun 2011 18:09:


Reb Help,
Welcome to our community!  You're in the right place at the right time.  And you get it.  Shmiras eynayim at all times is one of the keys to breaking free from this addiction.  The thoughts will eventually fade, and there are things you can do when they come.  But you're always in control of your eyes.

And when you kick the porn habit, you'll have a much better time with your wife.

We're here for you!
Alex

thanks alex, i today so far have not gazed at any women! that is a huge success for me!!!

One day is huge success, period. If you can do it today, you can do it tomorrow. That's all you really have to know.

One day is all we ever have to deal with.
I'm inspired by your success!
This is the toughest season for many of us.
If you can make it here (in summer) you'll make it anywhere!
Happy Shavuos!
Alex

wow, I am so impressed by the holiness of the yidden who have replied to our new friend Helpfyi.  it's amazing to think, perhaps some would think, what is the problem, there is no problem with this man.  but the standards of us Yidden being what they are, one slight departure form the pure and proper path, means, get back on the right path!...

The advice I seem to have heard here a lot is:  INTERNET FILTER!!!  as a start.  then, Shavuah.  (hehe before Shavuot?) then, phone-ins.
and all the rest.

Also, I sense some denial.  You write as if you were "exposed" to shmutz like you had no choice.  Did someone sit you down and glue your eyes open to watch?

As an aside, I found that drinking alcohol brought down the barriers for me.  I'm not sure if others can relate - that certain foods can lead like a bee-line to internet shmutz.  So since stopping alcohol, I have not knowingly viewed anything inappropriate (except for one accident which did nothing to me thank H')  Is there a particular trigger that causes the viewing, Mr. Help?  Denial by wife?  Alone in the house?  Stress?  too much chocolate or processed sugar?

I also heard a mamasha vort, that increase in Daas reduces certain aveiros (anger, etc).  this Daas presumably includes high levels of self knowledge.  To break patterns from your youth, maybe you'll need to learn more about ways of breaking off the yoke of the past... finding a new formula for new growth...

fyi i am far from being a good guy and there is a lot of things i can fix. when i was a teen i was an addict. i spilled seed at least once a day but the torah saved me i learnt day and night and it fixed me till recently, thats why i am going full force at this war. i will make a shuvah today before yom tov and i hope we all are going to.

Careful with the shvuas.  Make only those you know you can keep.
Even before I discovered I was an addict, I was able to keep my shvua not to look for untznius images on the net.  But I limited it to that.  This way, if I weakened, there were other outlets (e.g. print).  I never actually went to the other outlets.  I didn't feel safe making a shvua not to m*bate, but had little challenge in this area if I wasn't looking at porn.  It's all about what I see during the day before getting to bed that makes or breaks me.

You clearly have very strong self control.  A little turning things over to Hashem, and a true desire not to lust, and you will quickly rise above this.

Shteig on!
Alex