Hi Guys,

My name is Moshe and Ive been addicted to porn for a long time.
It all started when I was 15 and saw a regular magazine with racy photos by a neighboors house. a few years later I got porn thru the free aol dialup in my house and then in highschool I would go sometimes to my neighbors house and look at porn online. BUT this all wasnt an every day thing for me and I didnt even motze zera UNTIL I went away for beis medrash. Than I started being motze zera to porn 4x a day! for 2yrs.
Finally i got some help and learned not to beat up on myself etc. and the acting out became lest frequent but it still has never totaly stopped.
filters dont help me because i can get around anything and cell phones are very difficult to fool proof.

I want to stop but I never learned how to stop without beating myself up, so now I dont even try.

Please help!!!!!!!!
I feel like I will always be addicted!
I hate how after you stop acting out by using the 12 steps, your always considered an addict. my whole life i never even let myself become addicted to coffee and now im always going to be addicted to this

I think the 12 stpe groups would help me but Im married and dont think I can pull it off(even the phone calls) without my wife finding out. and shes deff not ready to hear.

shkoyach, moshe

Welcome Moshe!

I B"H was able to quit without joining a 12-step group of any kind. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy. Just in this case it wasn't really myself, it was the Ribono Shel Olam.

I just posted my basic approach here:
guardyoureyes.com/forum/19-Introduce-Yourself/202385-HELLO-I-would-like-to-introduce-myself (scroll down a few messages)

Keep in touch
Alex

Hi Alex,

thanks for the welcome!

Your approach sounds very difficult, especially the no movies or news sites part. how long have you been clean?
your aproach is the 12 steps approach just without the groups. which i think makes it even more difficult to implement....

i dont think i have the motivation/stamina to pull that off but thanks

moshe

So do you feel better about yourself now that you've posted here? Now that you've said that you really need to change but you are not motivated enough or willing to put in any effort? Really, why did you come here?

Welcome Moshe,
your story sounds very much like a lot of others experience. the first exposure becoming a bad habit over time and then becoming firmly entrenched.
The good news is that you can get out it.
The other news is that it's not easy. Think of a guy addicted to cigarettes. It takes a lot of effort and determination to change. there are no quick fixes. If you thought there is some technique that you can adopt and magically live differently you are mistaken.
there is a saying here on the forum "keep on trucking". it contains a secret. the secret is really a simple truth. you need to keep on working on getting to your objective in order to realize the objective.
wishing you much hatzlocha
zs

Hi Moshe eyes (is your name Moshe, chaver?). Great that you posted here! My name (really) is Dov, and I agree with you that implementing the 12 steps is much harder to do alone. For the honesty we can have being only with ourselves is unchanged from the way it has always been, all the years we struggled with porn! The (same) fox is (still) guarding the (same) henhouse! If it works for some people, that's great, and I hear that it does. But I'd venture to say that if you think that you tend - as do I and other good people - to trick yourself and end up masturbating or looking at the porn again even though your intentions are good to quit...then you are probably right about needing other real people to be open with.

Real people - not virtual ones - are often needed for people to just get real. It was actually quite a relief for me to discover that my greatest problem was actually the hiding and pretending and covering up - even more than the porn itself. When I started to get open and honest with other safe people, things started to get better.

You are also probably right, that your wife is a very poor choice of person for you to use as the 'reality-check' in your life. Sometimes Hashem arranges that our wives become just that - by catching us red-handed...it's very messy. But the fair thing to so for her sake and yours, may very well be finding other safe men who have your problem but are clean from it. There are many.

If you feel certain that meetings are not an option for you, then talking on the phone just to open up may help you a great deal. It may actually be a total game-changer...even though it is not a long term solution, by itself. (Kind of the way 'getting a wad of cash' is not a long-term solution for a poor economy.)

Finally, I just want to say that I never saw "the 12 steos" as a perscription for stopping drinking, porning, having sex with ourselves (or with others that we shouldn't) - it is a perscription for remaining sober once we quit because we need to, that's all. And working the steps saved my life so far, and our marriage, and our family, etc. So take it easy, hatzlocha - you are far from alone. Keep sharing as openly as you can with safe people in a safe way, amigo! It makes the trip a lot easier than it could be.

Hatzlocha!

Moshe eyes wrote:


I really identify with this, after I heard about the Steps I continued acting out progressivly for almost a year because I didn't want to admit that I am essentiall different - and sicker - than all my friends and enemies. So I worked overtime on finding how the 12 step approach is really the same thing as the Torah approach, and since I am such a mussar and machshovoh person anyways, I'll get the help from Chazal's methods of conquering the Yetzer Horah, without having to admit that I am a sexoholic.

But when on Rosh Hashonoh this year I felt a bit tense, and went to the bathroom and masturbated an hour before Tekias Shofar, and continued on a 3 week spree the likes of which I hadn't seen in years, I knew that something was dreadfully wrong. So I joined SA and am now sober for 4 and a half months.

I still try to keep my drowning ego alive, that a recovering addict is about the highest place a person can be in his a person can be in his avodas hashem, or that I will be the one to finally reveal to Orthodox Jewry about the hidden glory of SA, these things are very much on my mind. But I am no longer alone, I can share them with dozens of friends going through similar things, I am starting to build a real, live, relationship with Hashem, and many other things which my sick mind just wouldn't let me do by myself.

All the best!!!!

Hi Dov

thanks for the warm welcome. Yes my real name is Moshe(I read in the handbook why its better for recovery to use your real name).

Thanks for the great advice in this post!
you said "If you feel certain that meetings are not an option for you, then talking on the phone just to open up may help you a great deal. It may actually be a total game-changer...even though it is not a long term solution, by itself" Do you mean that only a real group is a long term solution?

I feel a real group can really help me but can also be a big risk for me, because even though Ive been addicted for years but Ive kept my viewing pretty softcore compared to others.

how often do i need to call in for it to be effective?
also how do you live with the 12 steps knowing that any day you can fall, doesnt that stink?

sincerely, moshe

see reply to me3

me3 wrote:


coming here is my effort.
Im not coming to gye to make myself feel better- Im coming to gye to GET better.
I am willing to put in the effort once I am totally convinced its the right way. I`m not interested in getting back on the roller coaster of constant up and down and using guilt as my only tool to change

As Dov said, the 12 steps are about remaining sober. To get sober, you need to stop taking the substance. In our case, that substance is lust. Just as cough syrup made with alcohol is too dangerous for an alcoholic in recovery, so too are the women we would see on TV, in movies, etc. Sorry friend, that's the drug. That's what you're trying to get away from. You can't just stop actual porn and masturbation, but keep everything else. It simply won't work. An alcoholic can't give up getting drunk and just have a glass of wine with dinner. Because his brain has been changed permanently by his addiction. Once sober, any sip re-awakens the addiction and puts him back on the bar room floor faster than he can say "this little bit won't hurt."

Even if you were to join a 12-step group, you would have to give up all your sources of lust. I don't like it either. But I've learned to live with it. And in the process, I learned to live.

alexeliezer wrote:


Thanks Alex I understand where you are coming from but like you said its very hard to accept. so basically theres no entertainment options. Is this SA`s opinion as well?

lot's of entertainment, but not a lot of hollywood!
try reading, or playing an instrument.
cheers mate!

I don't know anything about SA (the 12 steps are generic) but it's certainly CHZ"L's opinion. Entertainment is an escape, but like any escape, can become a habit, and can even be perceived as the ikkar of life. I think if you work on improving your life, your relationship with your loved ones, and with HKB"H, you will not miss the entertainment. You will be too busy with life. Real life.

To answer your other question, bchasdei Hashem, and b'ezras Hashem, Rosh Chodesh Nisan will mark 4 years of uninterrupted sobriety. One day at a time.

Dear Moshe,

An observation:

Here you are asking about entertainment options, and if SA 'believes' in that as well....yet have you stopped entertaining yourself with the nudes and the sex yet? Are you actually busy trying out a new way of life yet - and feeling the pinch of how incredibly boring it is to be clean in this life? Really?

...or is this just worrying about your image of what the the future 'must' be like without masturbating yourself and using porn any more - getting frantic about bogeymen? And what is 'any more'? Does tomorrow even exist? Last time I checked, it was still today. I am not joking or being cute here, at all. This reality, here we are talking about.

And then you wrote:

Moshe, in the middle of seriously entertaining the option of making phone calls to open up with real, live safe people - which is your next step - why do you bother bringing up the idea that live meetings may eventually be even better? So what. Just do what you can now. Life is a long, long time, Moshe. You can squeeze all that you can out of phone calls and phone groups now...and then graduate to meetings if you want to then. Why let possibilities that are not relevant now throw monkey-wrenches into your present progress?

There is a pattern, here, chaver. And I suspect that if you are anything like me and most frum guys with problems like this, you do this sometimes:

Think too much. Way too much for your own good. Yup...we are victims of that, especially yeshivah guys. We think of the possibilities, get terrified or lose taste for the nightmares we conjure, and then give up the entire project....and who loses? And over what?

Guys in recovery will tell you b'peh echod, that the way they feel about things changes drastically when they take real steps. AA teaches that you cannot think yourself into right living. Rather, you can only live yourself into right thinking. This is a yesod for me and many others.

Mesilas Yeshorim writes that "Hachassidus ha'amiti - rachok hee mitziyur sichleinu." Meaning that from where we are right now, we cannot imagine how we ourselves will see things in the future, if we grow. NO matter how hard we think and try to envision it, we simply cannot know what it will be like to be different than we are now. So in otherwords, he is saying: don't bother, brother. Don't listen to the thoughts that deter you. Bogeymen. A waste of your time and heart, they are.

Sure, it is great to look into something so that we know about it before trying it...but why ask about the next step that comes afterward? Why ask about how we will be able to handle the aweful bogeymen (boredom, shame of a group) we suspect may arise and trouble you on that journey? Rachok hi mitziyur sichleinu, man. Gayvoh makes us convinced Rmch"l was dead wrong - "he did not know that I [i]could [/i]figure it out!" Pulease. That's just our old familiar companion, fear.

Chill, mon. Everyting iz ganna bee allrite. Real life without playing with our barbie dolls is not hell. It's real life. Do you really think G-d is a ogre? Did He give you garbage? I think not. real life is actually great...when we know how to live it.

But fantasy junkies like us are experts at running from every pain and problem, to the 'arms' of our beauty-queens...they are sweet, they are naked...and they are fake. Wondrful. Well, that sure does a poor job of preparing us to accept real life, now, doesn't it? Get my drift yet?

Life really is good. If you know how to live it. And that is what the 12 steps is ONLY about.

And hey - there is no 'obligation'. If you do phone calls and open up with real safe men about your stuff, you will improve in some respect, then just like with everything else in real life you will then be able to decide if you want to pursue it further into live meetings! Who is forcing you to do anything? Who is even forcing you to post on GYE again? Nobody. There is no real accountability here, chaver. You pick your path - you always will. You pick to go go it alone - or to join with real people. And still it is a choice and remains so, and still it is really just you and G-d...forever. That's just reality. And it's OK.

For some, posting here IS joining with real people, and it helps them tremendously! It is all they need. But after writing the following, I think you may need/be ready for more:




Those are true pearls. Many have made great speeches, but few understand all that in their hearts. The limitations and weakness of guilt as a guide, the poison of isolation, and the futility of the Teshuvah roller-coaster...geshmak. You are lucky, in my book.

So worry less, do more. That's all. If there is ever a place for not demanding chochmaso should be merubah mima'asov, it is in recovery!

Hatzlocha!

- Dov