lol yes, Googling and ogling is what got us here!! 

Great crack a smile via some humor here too!  I so far always take this posting so seriously - life-saving advice, and a repository for my darkest secrets.

So I just googled 'Googlers' - and it means a Google employee

btw what does KUTGW mean speaking of abbreviations?

Well - just want to thank all of those who helped - assuming I make it to Shabbos -  this could be a new kind of really clean weak for me- something special! (sorry for getting serious again!

Good Shabbos to all!

Keep
Up
The
Good
Work
KUTGW with all seriousness.  One day, one hour, one minute or one second at a time, what ever it takes to be clean.
Have a Great Shabbos(You will make it if you truly want to)
Hatzlacha in all things GOOD.
chaimyakov

Have2changeNOW wrote on 03 Feb 2012 18:53:

Sometimes laughter is the best medicine.  Many of us tend to take ourselves too seriously.

KOL and KOT!  Keep on Laughin and Keep on Truckin!

BTW, You might want to change your initials to the abbreviation for happy gas or something .  (I don't know it, and no I'm not gonna google it either.)

HAVE A GREAT SHABBOS!

Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or sweet air,^[1] is a chemical compound with the formula N₂O....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide

I'll leave it to the rest of you to figure out good names...

Have a GREAT Shabbos

Googler Shebyesod  ;D

1. ^ Tarendash, Albert S. (2001). Let's review: chemistry, the physical setting (3rd ed.). Barron's Educational Series. p. 44. ISBN 0-764-11664-9., Extract of page 44

YOU LEFT IT OUT

Hello All,

Shavua Tov!  Hope everyone had a great Shabbos, and if you are a football fan - hope you enjoyed the big Game.  I had a few experiences this weekend that turned into a few questions for this chevra:

Women that I shouldn't look at are everywhere - TV commercials, movies (duh), half time, walking to work, in shul, etc.  Is  that just the way it is? - forever?  I should just get used to it?  This is probably correct behavior for every frum yid, based on the level of pritzus in today's society - but we - the lust addicts have to really observe this fully.  Is this basic outlook correct?  i mean i just can't back down or else BIG trouble is likely lurking around the corner. Right?    I can deal with that, I think, but i just want to make sure I get this lifestyle baseline right. 

Appreciate your feedback as I'm gearing up for the long haul - one day at time. . . .

Thanks and regards,

H2CNOW

Yes.  I strongly recommend staying completely away from television.  Not even the news.  Those news honeys would do me in.  Just their pretty faces.  Sports is also too dangerous because of the commercials and the cheerleaders.

Strict shmiras eynayim means no women. No women. Period.
If you must interact with women at work, keep it brief and keep the eye contact as brief as possible.  And you don't need to look up every time someone walks by or walks in just to see who it is.

You sanity depends on this.  Take it very seriously.  I don't even check out my own wife, much as I'd love to.  I don't like having to live this way, but I can't live any other way.

Keep up the great work.  Been davening for you.

Alex

Hello Alex

Ok - I needed to hear that.  No cutting corners - my recovery and guarding my eyes has got to be a major lifestyle change and commitment.  The corner stone of my/our recovery hishtadlus - as you said so succinctly:  "Strict shmiras eynayim means no women. No women. Period."

I'm in.  That makes it simple - no rationalizations, one of my specialties.  So far Barcuh Hashem - this new level of clean in holding strong for me, 11 days!

One new occurrence- I am feeling flashes of guilt for past lows.  Hopefully I'm just seeing past reality clearly, and not getting dragged down.  Oh to recall my actions, some long ago, some recent  - and to realize now how the addict took over with no room for anything else. . . . yuch.

Thank you for davening for me - really appreciate that. 

KOT

H2CNOW

Yes the pangs of guilt are a problem for me as well.  I remember it holding me back, then it didn't, now it's back...  and it's telling me "Look, Edge, you've done this and that, you have sinned greatly.... perhaps you can never recover, so why not enjoy yourself?"  but that's narishkite. Whatever sins I have committed, what can I do.  been there done that...  the better question is, what is the plan for me now?  what is a recovering person supposed to do at this point?  I'm sure I'm not the first person to have thoughts of guilt.  Does that mean the plan is, Forget Everything And Run ("FEAR") back to the parlors?  Or should I Face Everything And Recover, thereby turning my FEARS upside down and recovering. 

Bah what am I, writing this to try to persuade others of what.  I am nothing, a putrid drop and a liar.  I've spun the truth so much i don't even know my own lies.  Hey next time I post something, just call me a liar and tell me to go home please.  Thanks.

Agree.  Guilt is not helpful and can be poison to recovery.

We do, at some point well into recovery, need to apologize to those we've hurt and make amends.

Hashem will forgive us.  Today is a new day.  Every day is a fresh start.  Uvetuvo m'chadesh b'chol yom tomid maaseh bereishis [and in His goodness renews every day, continually, the work of creation]

Well I'm not sure if my guilt pangs are dragging me down, or they are healthy and just showing me the reality how lowly my actions were.  Like its bothering me a lot that I repeatedly was texting zonahs at my kids sporting events, and they would say what are you doing and I would lie and say it was a business thing.  This is over a year ago - so i can't get too bummed out.  I feel like i just want to get some secrets out and hopefully that will deflate the memories. 

I think its best for me to make a daily seder of reading various parts of the GYE site - whether it postings, or chizzuk or Attitude hadnbook or whatever - that seems to reinvigorate my focus - i really need to keep recovery as a main daily goal. 

Plus really schedule in a few other recovery activities as each week - such as find good sa meeting (trying a new one today), get more connected on the phone with some of you.  i do feel like this is "Life or Death' and I can't back off. 

Chevra - have a great day! stay clean!

H2CNOW

Rabbainu Yonah in his short piece Yesod HaTeshuva which is printed in many Rosh Hashana machzorim says to put all feelings of guilt behind you and concentrate on staying clean.  Feelings of guilt are the tricks of the yetzar hara to get us to fall.  After you have a nice clean streak behind you (like a year or two) then you can start  doing proper Teshuva on past indiscretions.

It doesn't get more authoritative then that.

All good ideas.
Cosider also doing some things to get you back into life.
Set up a chavrusa a few times a week.
Set up a date night with your wife.
Start an exercise routine.

I cannot watch TV either, and that is why we do not have one. I already posted the awesome true story of how the TV my sister gave us melted one day about ten years ago. Very cool story.

But Shmiras Einayim (what goyim call 'custody of the eyes') is not recovery. It is only a tool for it. In my case, when I give up the sweetness of getting a good view of a lust object, in that very moment I am automatically surrendering. It is a sacrifice. I know that my body would love to take in her image, to peruse her face and body carefully to see exactly how good she'd be for me. It is a mental sex abuse of a real person - but my body does not care about morality at all, of course. It's not it's job. My body is on a lower level than R Pinchas ben Ya'ir's donkey, and that's 100% fine. With all his madreigos, the donkey still isn't making it into Olam haba, and I am! 

Intentionally looking is poison shebepoison for me, and I cannot afford it, while many other good people can. And yet, in the end, the point is not that I did not look, but the surrender that occurs when I give it up and trust G-d and the life that He gives me to be good enough without seeing this woman's figure or face, without adhering to that little fantasy I just remembered, and without getting that sex tonight with my wife.

Just another 2 cents from me...maybe not appropriate for normals, again. But I can share my experience, pain, and joy here, too.