Hi H₂CN!

So sorry to hear about your falls. But the important thing is that you are getting back up. And those 100 days are an awesome accomplishment that you can look back on and be proud of. And remember how wonderful it felt to be clean, and use that feeling to go forward and do it again (and more).

I probably am out of line here. But if you need a little scaring, remember going through the STD testing and getting the results. Do you really want to have to go through that again?

KOMT!!!!

Gevura!

Fell shmell. Don't look back, certainly don't go back "a couple of weeks". Forward only!
If you just miraculosly stayed clean forever on your first attempt, I would think you lied to us about your involvement with the sitra achara.
Great first streak of a few months. Now get back to work, back to basics: reading, praying, attending meetings. Don't hang your recovery on any one tool. Filters are not magic, and neither is posting here. You can answer Dov's qs in your head, or put them down on paper with a pencil. Just keep actively pursuing recovery.
Hatzlocho and gut shabbos.
Mottel

When R. Amram said "There's a fire at Amram's!", he was half-way up the ladder, on his way up to do the deed. Most of us in these rooms do the same thing, shouting "There's a fire at Amram's", only we're on our way down having already finished our deed in the attic...

okay you get the drift.

incidentally I read those stories, referred to by Dov, Kiddushin 78a I think... I couldn't believe there were great Rabbis in Talmudic times struggling with these challenges!! I was so joyous over this discovery i shared it with my wife on Shabbos. FAIL. BIG TIME.

Hi h2cn! I really dont belong here, I was never that deep down and under. But I'm filled with awe! You managed that an amazing feat, pulling yourself so high out of the mud. It makes my nisyonot feel like eating pizza. I thought much about you during shabbos. Might it be that you put too much faith in the 90 day theory? Yochanan was the high priest for 80 years, then he became a heretic. Need we say more? There is no letting go of the fighting (but it get's easier).

Sorry interveltnik, but he didn't "pass a great nisayon", actually. It was also not "an amazing feat." He simply got the crap (sorry) beaten out of him by his own terrible acting out. he messed up enough that it hurt him too badly to continue. he had to find a way out - a real way out...or at least start to.

Correct me if I am wrong, Have2Change...

WHERE IS H2CN??

HEE NEEDS TO TRUKKKKKKKKK JUST TRUKKKKKKKKKKKKK

HAPPY AND HUMBLE b

Hello Holy GYE Chevra

I'm here - but have super limited computer time most of the time, and my main pc at home - the filter is too strong so i can't get on my GYE thread.

Today - IYH, - this afternoon i'll have access to GYE at a temp office i am borrowing. (sitting there now for just 5 minutes before two meetings for a new job!

I have been mentally composing the big post to you all, which i need some real time to write - not just 3 minutes like this

i am GRATEFUL for all your recent posts - and feel the support of this holy chevra that is really helpful for me to get up, dust off, and start to recover again. REALLY - so thanks thanks thanks.

IYH - I'll make a bigger update post later today!

holding on by a thread, but climbing back up - H2CN!!

Welcome Back!
[I think this was the Rebbe's moifes...]

Looks like i won't have the expected PC time until later today, albeit on an unfiltered PC - YIKES.

I am back to one clean day - and it is a great feeling, although i proceed with much trepidation.

IYH more to come later today

Be Matzliach!
H2CN - again

Hi H2CN,
like the Met's slogan after '86
Let's do it again!
wishing you much hatzlocha and happiness
zs

what a story! Stay tuned for the Big Post. I'm buying my front row tickets in advance.

Hello Holy Chevra,

Well - I can't go to sleep w/o getting back to you all with the real scoop of what has gone on. And to answer some of Dov's questions from May 11 - how time flies! And to address some of the other insightful and caring comments trying to encourage me to pick up my game.

Before i get into the "Big Post" I want say it is great and helpful to have GYE access again, it may be a bit spotty, but much better than it was over last month or so. In case you were wondering why - I have lost my job, so have infrequent office use, and my PC at home is too strongly filtered so i don't have GYE access here. I am writing to you now on an old PC recently set up in my basement BUT i haven't been able to get the filter to work - so it is truly a double edged sword: last week this PC has led me to the wrong place, and honestly for more than a few 10 minutes bursts i used this PC to act out instead of writing to you all. Sorry.

So here goes - I think i made one mistake that slowly/quickly snowballed into some big bad falls. In Tel Aviv (there for 5 days), i was shocked to see that there were business cards for prostitutes literally strewn all over the sidewalks. I was with my 10 yr old son who picked one up and showed it to my wife and I! i couldn't believe it! I was outraged that such a thing should be literally on eretz kedusha, and yes I've heard about Tel Aviv, but even NYC and Las Vegas don't have such shmutz so out in the open. Here was my mistake - I thought i could do a tikun and a secret Kiddush Hashem - so I went for two nights for about an hour, maybe 2 hours and picked up literally hundreds and hundreds - probably over a 1000 - of these cards each night and cleaned up maybe 20, 30 or more blocks. I felt like it was some big special thing that i was doing for Hashem and Klal Yisrael. I would almost always not look at the cards, but invariably i saw these womens' images, and i think it certainly had an effect on me. After the second night up to 3am picking them up, I made two moves the next day that showed me i was negatively affected - I called one number on a card "just to see if it was in Hebrew or English" definitely would not go. And then the next night, - "out of nowhere" I called a zonah from the US whose number i remember. Of course i couldn't go to her since she was in US, so it was different then calling when she is 15 minute drive away - but still - some very important line was crossed, I now believe. Then the next day I noticed a massage parlor, and passed it a few times, and it got 'stuck' in my mind. So i went in once and asked how much - and immediately left. Again - not close to acting out - but still crossed a line that wasn't good. Prior to this i was SUPER CLEAN for approx 3 months

I mentioned the biz card clean up act to Dov, who basically said - "really bad move - you need to protect your fragile self, and we addicts are way more sensitive to that stuff anyway" - and I totally agree. I see this now really as a classic case of: the YH making me think i was doing something good, when he was subtly pulling me into a big trap. And that's for a regular guy - al achas chama v'chama for a sick and weak sexaholic such as little old me . .

Then four days in Jerusalem, and everything was fine/great (enjoyed some great learning and davening - kudos to Tehillim Zugger for some of that) , but the seed was planted. So back in the USA - the disease progressed quickly - - i posted about that a bit. Basically I would take a drop in a flash, doing fine for 3 or 4 days, and then boom - looked at porn, but no masturbating (which is surprising and made me think i had changed a bit), but then a few days later masturbating, and then walking by a massage parlor for a few days, but not going in, but boom - then going in, and as I've mentioned if the lady will go way above and beyond the call of duty - I have been apt at finding that out .

Well - not to leave out any details - things got even worse - I have gone to 3 massage parlors and 6 zonahs (BOO!) in about 2 weeks, (hopefully) stopped on this past Monday. Pretty clean since then, but tonight fell to the easy access to unfiltered porn on this very PC - really need to find out how to install filter and/or pay the small price for no porn and buy an updated PC.

I do hate to say this - but with one of the 6 zonahs i proved my theory regarding lowest level of sickness - that i would go right to the bottom really quickly - meaning unprotected again!! And now I'm thinking to be on the safe side STD test again - UGH . . . Yes i know that is ridiculous, and I'm generally embarrassed and ashamed, but more so than that - just amazed and kind of shocked how irrational this addiction can make me. I think i need to realize even deeper down some of the basics- that i am helpless and addicted, sick, unmanageable. etc. Really . . .

This is a good place to address a recent post by Intervelnik (thanks for the boost) vs Dovs comments . I noticed that when acting out - seeking the MP and zonahs - i was really on the hunt - for the ideal woman's body shape & act - 'worshiping' their perceived sexiness. if I had a 'good session' the feeling of satisfaction would be strong for a temporary period of time and then fade foe the next 'fix'. More importantly - I noticed after a few days that i had a steady underlying feeling of being upset and going against Hashem - kind of a lower negative 'baseline' within me that was troubling, as opposed to feeling 'right with Hashem' and that I was 'in flow' with his will. This, to me, is like what Dov said about that the pain was too strong so I had to stop. It was not that i passed tests before during the 100 days (I mean i did, BH, do a lot of hishtadlus to guard my eyes and other recovery acts, like surrendering often to Hashem, but the 100 days clean - really seems to be a MIRACLE from above, much more than me passing tests! I see my hishtadlus compared to Hashem's miracle as the famous quote that I've seen several versions of: If we open the eye of the needle, Hashem will opens enough room for a chariot [a cavern]. At least for me =- being clean for the 100 days got rid of that lower negative baseline that i must have been in for years when i was generally always acting out. Yech. Really much better aligned when that goes away, and hopefully on good motivator to stay sober.

As background for all this - I have become unemployed - with much less access to PC as i have mentioned, WHICH HAS RESULTED IN A SIGNIFICANT DROP OF - much less going to the SA meeting, much less GYE reading/ posting. Traveling overseas - missed my SA call that i was on 2x per week. So - i have been much less connected to you guys, and my SA meeting, and calls, PLUS having a lot of unstructured time, has been a test that i have not passed . . . in a way that has decayed rapidly, but interesting it started as a fake-out to do good. and hopefully (on the bright side - need to find it in here) can give me insights of where i need to fortify! Seems obvious:

KOT on GYE -
Get PC access that is filtered - duh!!
try to make some structure in my day
get back on Calls
Go to SA meetings and.or find one closer to my home town
Get a Sponsor (never had one yet)
STD again ???
Re-commit to reading and recovery steps
Realize I really am Addicted

Any thing i missed?

Well hope this Big Post is worthwhile for you all too in some way - and not to much too little too late.

It is a relief for me to get this off my chest. All i can say is thanks for letting me tell the truth - or pretty darn close to it like we can do with each other like no where else, and to get back in the conversation with you all!

A good YOM TOV to all!

All the best and missed you guys!
Be Matzliach
Have2change - 4 real

I don't have anything to add, but I do want to wish you a...
Good Yom Tov

Good lessons on the basics of recovery:

Our sobriety is our top priority (even if it means leaving cards all over the sidewalks of artzeinu hakdosha). Anything that might compromise our sobriety must be avoided without exception.

The Y"H is tricky and methodical. In addiction, our only hope is to avoid lust and anything connected to it.

"Just checkin into" this or that is an old trick that we need to learn to recognize and avoid.

When we're sober, we're not cured. Sobriety is a daily gift which we must cherish and never take for granted. We should never test our sobriety to see if maybe we're cured, or to see if we're just a little better.

Have a wonderful Shabos Kodesh and Chag Matan Toraseinu with your family.
Count 49 tonight and catapult back up.

Love you!
Alex

Hi H₂

I have seen written here, and I have experienced it myself: That when one commits to improving himself, Hashem will make him quickly reach a high level and show him what is possible. It's a gift to motivate, to show what can be accomplished. Then He takes it away, as if to say "You can have that back again, but this time you have to EARN it!"

It was like that for me, a few months back I had a long stretch where i felt so connected and was really feeling an improvement. And there were a couple of times when I really felt "cured", just for a day or 2. Then suddenly I just went numb, and I lost all my Cheshek and fell into a depression. And I started slipping, and pushing at the lines, and I had a couple of falls. But I think I learned from them, and even though I am still struggling constantly (in fact this week I had a few hard times) I think I bounce up faster from the slips now. So it's really all for our good, and part of the long-term process of growth.

And I can totally relate to the tricky YH. Sometimes I catch myself looking around "just to see if there's someone I shouldn't be looking at". And I will go places that are for a "toeles", but knowing that there's a chance it might be full of triggers. It's a judgement call each time, but we are biased by our sickness. And often in the end it is "Yotzo Schoro b'Hefseida".

BTW how old is that PC? K9 should work on anything XP or newer.

Now get back in the Monster Hummer and Truck!!!!

Have a great Yom Tov, KOMT, KOP, etc.

And may Hashem send you Parnassa bShefa in a way that keeps you too busy to act out, but not too busy to LIVE!!

All the best,

Gevura!