It is my pleasure to introduce myself! I have struggled with p....n and m.....n for many years.  I am 27 now and it all started when I was about 12.  First the m.....n without knowing what I was doing, and then eventually it became connected to triggers by other boys/girls my age (visual).  I didn't see any p...n until my father brought the internet into our house without realizing the consequences.  The pc was in the basement, and the rest was history...  My double life was an ongoing undercurrent throughout my entire life from that point on.  Somehow, I managed to perform quite well in yeshiva for a while, but eventually the guilt caught up with me.  When we got DSL, I started to access videos and my obsession took a turbocharge.  That year, 12th grade, was my worst year of Yeshiva.  I didn't come in 50% of the days and stayed in bed many of them.  My parents worried sick over me.  My self-esteem wasn't the greatest before I started this challenge, but afterward the damage to it was overwhelming.  In 2007, my mother took me to see a well-known motivational Rabbi/speaker. He was the first one I ever revealed my struggles to.  He reassured me.  He told me to get rid of the guilt and just move forward.  But he didn't recognize the severity of my troubles, and so I wasn't finished.  The following summer was the worst summer of my life.  I felt so low, I really thought life had no chance of recovering for me.  I watched p.....n for about 99% of that time.  After the summer, I went back to that Rabbi, and he convinced me to get therapy, which I readily agreed to.  The story will continue another time....

I hope you continue to tell more of your story. It's good for you, and it's good for us.

In the meantime, here'e the welcome package.

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!

Welcome Dailystruggle.  Right  now it's a daily struggle, for sure.  But now you have all of us to talk to, to be open with, to get those secrets out of your closet and find out that we all understand, have pretty much been there and done that.  I hope you will get the handbooks and start going through them.  There really are things you can do.  Lots of things you can do.  I encourage you to immediately get a filter.  that's a big step.  It's an expression of your commitment to once and for all get closer to Hashem and lead a life that's not controlled by lust.

Hatzlocho. I look forward to hearing more of you story.  And again, Welcome!

So.....

Is the story continuing?

Hey, we are Jews here. Don't keep us waiting too long. Moshe Rabeinu kept us waiting one day too long, and looked what happened there.

Dailystruggle,

Welcome to the forum.

You'll find that your story is not unlike the story of many others here.

And, just as others have found their way to recovery through GYE, so can you.

Stick around and keep on posting.

--Eye.

The author of the Mishkan Bilvavi:  how many Jews are rich in Torah and mitzvos, and yet, like a man sitting on a pile of cash but who can't buy a home because he doesn't know how to find a house.  ridiculous!!  GYE, if worked properly, is like the real estate agent for the Jew sitting on a pile of cash looking for a home.  Take all your Torah and Mitvos, and build the Mishkan in your heart.  the building sits on a solid foundation, of Emunah in haKBH.  and getting rid of shmutz and making it repulsive in your eyes, and every second of thinking about or staring at this shmutz is like poison... because Tovim Dodi Meyayin.

Quote: "Moshe Rabeinu kept us waiting one day too long, and looked what happened there."...

:-).  great!