Dear HM,

Oh - your post made me cry.  when i really think of the horrendous secret, and imagine if g-d forbid it all came out.  Facing my daughters - AGHHH. Can't even think of that.
The hypocrisy and betrayal that  my wife would justifiably feel.  And I'm the one in the family who is encouraging Torah and yiddishkeit!  Hague chillel Hasehm for so many in wider family and community.  I think i would need suicide watch, G-d forbid.

I so hope that I can change without reaching the bottom - as GYE says.  I am optimistic and looking forward.  I am admitting to myself, and to this chevra -  that I have a serious long term addition to lust, which I have manifested in many ways - including repeatedly going to zonahs, and i fully want to embrace the steps to recovery shown here at GYE.  I am immersing myself in the various parts of the programs- and IY"H G-d will let me heal and I will finally stop acting out.

As you describe/recommend - I have plugged up and removed almost all of that hidden life; contact lists etc..  But there a few that are difficult - I remember some phone numbers.  And whenever i find crack in the blocks - my addicted self exploits it.  Worst of all - its my wife's phone,  we have Blackberrys and her newer version is not compatible with the filter i put on my phone,  So nebach - I sneak onto her phone sometimes, do my zonah search,  and then remove all the history.  nebach. yechh.  weak.

thank you all so much for the chizuk and helping to keep me seeing reality and the hevel of my stupid fantasy life.

I hope to report good news in a few days about STD test - now I'm kind of scared. . . . but for some reason i think it will be clean . . .

Thank you for listening - super helpful.

Good Shabbos to you all,

Have2changeNOW

Heuni,
what a beautiful and thoughtful post, encouraging for all of us!
ChangeNOW, I will daven for your refua - either from addiction, or, chalilo, from something you may have picked up. Please G-d, it's the former. Let us know the results as soon as you know them, we are here to help you deal with it.
The most difficult harddrive to "empty out" is the one in your head, or course. But the start is the removal of physical bonds that hold you connected to the old ways. Don't think for a second you're not gonna want to call these numbers today, or tomorrow, or the day after. I would recomend to find a trusted friend you can call instead. You can PM me and I'll give you my cell#. Set up other fences: things you MUST do before you make a zona call.
Stay strong, stay clean, daven to Our Father for help.
Gut Shabbos,
Mottel

Thanks Obormottel. 

Appreciate your davening for me / my situation.

Will PM next week bli neder.  Eager to get ideas about those fences.  Right now I'm eager to read the attitudes and handbook in depth, ready to throw myself into needed recovery  - please G-d it should be without needing to deal with whole STD thing.

Good Shabbos to all, and yasher kaoch - you have helped this troubled 'newbie' very much.  I already cherish this Forum and the help, insights, chizuk and love of people who share this terrible problem in their own way,

Have2changeNOW

Have a good shabbos!

Have2changeNOW wrote on 16 Jan 2012 23:09:

I had a phone sex relationship with a woman for seven years - it was hard to forget her #...actually, it was impossible. I had three or four other phone #s that were burned into my memory that I used for sex services - burned in my mind for about a year. It was impossible to forget, too.

But I forgot it. And the only thing I can say is that I did not forget it by trying to. Like everything else in recovery so far, it was a shocking gift that G-d gave me, and I only recognized it after the fact. One day I just realized that I did not remember it...I had not made forgetting it my business - it was impossible for me to forget it. So it must be G-d's business. He gets the impossible tasks, I get the possible ones.

And I end up staying sober - which is obviously impossible for me. I end up forgetting phone numbers that I called for years and years - also impossible. I end up freed from lust most of the time - also impossible. For me the ikkar is to remember that these things are not possible, even if they happen. It makes me laugh when I see I am sober another month. A month! Ridiculous. It's not me, that's for sure!

Continued hatzlocha! And keep giggling.

Didn't she remember your number after 7 years? Or did Hashem make her forget it also?

guardureyes wrote on 22 Jan 2012 20:16:

ר' ראובן מרגליות לא שינה כלום בגוף נוסח הספר
לא כתבתי זאת מפני שאני "פערפעקשאניס"ט " רק משום שברצוני לקבל האפדעיט"ס מטהרע"ד זה
שלום רב לכולכם

ומה שתמצא לפעמים מציינים ס"ח [מרגליות] היינו משום שבצוואות ריה"ח יש כמה נוסחאות ושם כשמציינים לנוסח פורמא, מציינים למרגליות

Blind Beggar wrote on 23 Jan 2012 10:43:
Either she is my business and I am dead, or she is not my business and I have no idea. She will remain a mystery to me, like lots of other things.

But to answer your question, she dropped dead.


Just kidding. I really don't know what happenned to her! 

Ein siman brocha shoreh ella al davar hasamui min ha'ayin. It's true.

This works better in the original Yiddish, but I'll try....

Moishe is traveling, and he runs into a friend from his old hometown, Yankel. He gets himself invited for a meal. They sit down and the first course is served. Moishe digs in, but Yankel wants to catch up on all the news from his old friends. So he asks "How's our old buddy Shmerel doing?"

"Dead", says Moishe, and continues eating.

"What about Berel?"

"Dead"

"Shmuel?"

"Dead"

This kept going on. Whatever Yankel would ask, the only answer would be "Dead!"

Finally the meal was over, and Moishe leans back satisfied. Yanked could not contain himself. "All our friends are dead, and you just sit there fressing?"

"Don't worry, everyone is alive and doing fine"

"So what was that all about?"

"When I'm eating, the whole world is dead!"

Hello to All, 

Good to be back on the GYE Forum.  Last week was my first time to really get involved and its was very helpful in many ways.  i did unfortunately had some big slips over the weekend - not quite a major fall - thank G-d, but still pretty serious and enlightening to me how addicted to lust I really am.  More on that later -but  first - can someone please translate this post that was made in Hebrew to my question last week about mast### as opposed to falling further into zona.

ספר חסידים (מרגליות) סימן קעו

מעשה באחד ששאל מי שיצרו מתגבר עליו וירא פן יחטא לישכב עם אשת איש או עם אשתו נדה או שאר עריות האסורות לו אם יכול להוציא זרעו כדי שלא יחטא והשיב לו באותה שעה יש לו להוציא שאם א"א מוטב שיוציא ש"ז ואל יחטא באשה. אבל צריך כפרה ישב בקרח בימי החורף או יתענה ארבעים יום בימי החמה

Thank you!

Have2changeNOW

The one and only Guard is quoting from the Sefer Chassidim that it is better to masturbate than to sin with a woman but still he needs to do teshuva because it is still a serious sin.


And in case you are a litvak, the Sefer Chassidim was 500 years before the Baal Shem Tov.


And we are all dying to hear the results of the STD tests and are praying you are clean.

Why not indulge him and reveal the recommended atonement as well?
He says: Sit in the ice cellar in winter or fast forty days in summer (when days are long, I assume).
Hope you won't have to come to this, and that you're clean.
Hatzlocho.

Thank you Guard and Blind Beggar. 

That works for me -  feels good to have authoritative halachic support.  Even in that scenario - that its relatively ok to mast*** instead of going to zonah, I realize by my experience on this Motzi Shabbos and sunday night that my lust addiction will be pulling at me very strong.  I have to get it into my head that i need to live with this - and always be recovering, not that it will just go away one day (which i did think before). 

I am fortunate to be a BT - so I'm used to letting go of habits, and making new good ones, but its just not working with this at all.  I had such major slips over weekeend - set up a PC that i previously dismantled without a filter surfed alot, tried to pay for live webcam views but thank G-d credit card failed (haven't done that for a very  long time), called some zonahs and thank G-d didn't go.  So even just totally avoiding zonahs still leaves me struggleing at the edge.  I have to dis-assemble that PC tonight!

Its hard to accept this is a sickness, and what that means, instead of something I can do teshuva on.  Do we do tehsuva on all things in our control - such as recovery work, and daven for refuah that we are sick?  Until now - I have always davened about this in the teshuva bracha in shemona esray.  Seems like i should move to refuah shelayma?

I do feel like the only answer is throwing myself into recovery - but I'm scared,  scared of the time commitment, scared of what if it doesn't work, and scared  that this will always be me.  Seems incredible to me when people say they are clean for so long - would like to get there but not sure i can.

But first - please G-d to get a 100% ok on the STD test - should get back results  in next day or two.  Will report the news either way. 

Please keep all your suggestions coming  . . . .

Dov - did you get my PM about talking as your suggested?

thanks to all,

Troubled and

Have2changeNOW

Have2changeNOW wrote on 23 Jan 2012 20:21:

The alternative is also scary - no?

Can you be clean today?