Hi,

  I just wanted to introduce myself as a former addict that has remained clean for the past 3 years and it feels wonderful. My problem was in not understanding the magnitude of the sin, and by learning and understanding it and following proper steps,I was able to break free of it.
I am glad to participate in this site.

Great! Welcome aboard!
How did you do it?

Welcome!
Emes 4 us!
Click Here to learn all about this wonderful site and everything it has to offer you!
Great step you took by posting here, we hope you stick around and KOP [if you stick around you'll figure out what that means  ;) ].
Around here we all have the same story, our souls cry inside of us, but we have accustomed ourselves to block out that cry. Today we can begin to be who we really want to be.

I will try to post it sometime very soon as there is much information,but a lot involved baby steps. I just counted out loud the end of each successful day. It started - "3 days!!"  then it became "2 weeks!!!" then "one month!!!!" and so on. As I continued counting,I got more determined and excited and all I had in my head was the concept that Hashem was pleased with my progress and I want to go on and continue pleasing Hashem. "Just keep going!....Don't stop....

Wow, pretty impressive to get out all by yourself. I've been fighting for years, but always from the perspective of living with the struggle, never succeeding to recover from the addiction. Only now with GYE  am i starting that leg of my journey. It's really interesting to me that also a recovered fellow would want to hop on board, I mean if i was free i would take the money and run!

If there is something that you have that you know can help another Jew then you should share it. I can take the money and run but what about my Jewish brothers. I would love to offer advice if it can help others.

we're waiting....

I took the money and ran for two years.  I discovered GYE almost three years ago, read tons, got sober and disappeared.  B"H I haven't fallen since.  I felt (rightly or wrongly) that being involved with other addicts might drag me back in.  So I was off on my own for 2 years, before deciding to post my story almost a year ago.

Since then, I've learned so much about recovery from the people here.  I learned that although I was good at getting sober and not falling (steps 1-3), I hadn't begun to repair the damage to myself and my family that 30 years of lusting caused.  There's much more to recovery than not acting out.

I can't wait till I get there, maybe then I'll understand better the idea. Maybe you mean step 12 of AA,  which is explained that spreading the word prevents fallbacks? Or better, the Torah concept that the כח הדיבור is the essence of humanity and is what distinguishes us from the primates in Africa, so disscusing is internalizing.
And most important and simple (and also applicable at my stage of the game), to get out of our closed selves and connect with others in our situation (support group), also a Torah idea - the subject of the first 2 letters in the אור ישראל of R' Yisroel Salanter. The forum is really helping me with this.
This thing I can relate to so well, that I can't understand how you and some other guys pulled out alone.

Not alone. With Hashem.  It's not just a cute thing to say.  Hashem is the ikkar in recovery.

got it.

tell us what life is like in the Land of the Living.

  I learned from a shiur that when you commit the sin of wasting seed, you will lose your Mazal (luck). Things won't open up for you and many things that should be acquiring in life,you won't attain because you have this horrible thing that you committed blocking it.
  Let me tell you something. It was only after stopping to commit this sin, I was able to get married, and many things are opening up and I am able to embrace Yidishkeit without any schmutz. It is worth anything in the world to do!!
  Do whatever you can to avoid the sin. Build fences which consist of:
1) Don't ever be alone in your home - Just go out(Go to Library,shopping center,etc...)
2) Install K-9 web security or any other good filtering system in your computer that will filter out Porn and all other bad things(Schmutz).
3) ALWAYS LEARN TORAH - This works Very well!!!!
4) Never have any magazines,catalogs,newspapers in your house !
5) If you can, get the TV out of the house. Fill the house with Judaica books.
6)Make sure the bedroom is not too hot and you can feel comfortable and fall asleep quickly
  These are some of the main fences to put.

emes4us wrote on 06 Mar 2012 17:03:


This is apparent from the rosh hateivot of Motzi Zarah L'vatalah, which spells Mazal.

Shkoach on staying sober and on finding the fences.