Well, gentlemen, here goes. My name is Avraham, and I am indeed a Fortunate Man, with a wonderful wife, and incredible children. And I am in trouble. I found this website on the Yeshiva World News website. And after a seeming inability to control my taavos, here I am. I'm glad to be connecting with frum men with similar weaknesses, because as I look back over my life, the amount of days and hours that I have spent engrossed in erotic literature and websites is probably 10-20% of my waking hours.
Ever since I was ten years old and found my first dirty magazine, and started collecting them. Then in my twenties I wound up in Israel in yeshiva, threw them all away, and tried to go cold turkey. It lasted for a few years, but then we came back to America, and lo and behold there's this new thing called the internet. And I'm right back where I started.
Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself, because, I need the chizuk of chaverim, and a lot of siyatta d'shmaya. S"D in overcoming it, and resisting it, in doing teshuva, and in avoiding the abyss of depression. I've got alot to be thankful for, have many years of learning under my belt, have ben mesayem Shas twice, now on my third time, am a respected rabbi in my community, and have good friends and parents. But this is my dark secret, and I can't live with myself knowing that in some respects I am a fake.

Welcome to GYE!

We're all in the same boat here and can relate to you as we have been or still are in the situation you find yourself in.

Looking forward to getting to know you!

Welcome to gye,

You're definitely not alone.
We have people of all types, choshuv and very choshuv.
For chizzuk you're definitely in the right place (and for healing as well)

So what's your plan to stop? If you think that you're addicted then you may want to look into the 12 steps.

Either way,
Hatzlacha merubah and keep on posting

I'm just working on it now. I did my first call in class this evening with Shlomo, and about 6 other guys. I think engaging, talking about it, and interacting with others is the way to start. You know, Torah is the tavlin for the yetzer hara, but it doesn't suppress it. It's a tavlin, a spice. It makes it taste better. But it's not malicha, removing the dam. It's a tavlin that you put on the yetzer hara to make it edible.

Fighting the yetzer hara by suppressing my taavah for forbidden images was just not working. Engaging in good mussardik sichos whose foundations are inyanei Torah is definitely helping.

Nice.


KUTGW

Welcome!! Keep us updating with news and insights!

KOT

Welcome!

We are all fortunate men to have you in our presence. We look forward to growing together with you.

WELCOME Fortunate Man! I can relate to your story very well (except the part about being mesayem shas ) You are in the right place. Many of us have found that the only way to break free is to have a chevra. The 12 step phone calls have helped lots of people too. Just getting out of hiding and opening up is really helpful. We have all tried using mussar and standard approaches. They are fine and good, but those of us here found that we needed more. We needed to share will real people. MAZAL TOV on taking this great step! Honesty and Humility pave the road outa this mess.

Welcome

I understand the "wife" part from your other posts

like skeptical and others said, "you should get someone else involved to help," especially because she knows somewhat already.

don't be a stranger

bhatzlachah

Welcome aboard! I also am happily married with children and grandchildren and I found that since my teens masturbation which was aided by porn which the web made so easily available and downloadable really became an addiction. After my wife discovered a huge cache of porn in the house, I decided to face , confront and conquer this addiction with the help of others who are confronting the same issue. I can only tell you and anyone else that porn and masturbation are an escape from intimacy with those who really love you and want to share emotional and physical intimacy. Stay in touch-there are numerous alternatives being discussed here, all of which are helpful-but I think that we should all realize that Chazal advocated a view on marital intimacy that neither was the Greco-Roman hedonistic view nor the Victorian prudish view. Think of how the Talmud describes and discusses these issues-that which really is shmutz in the secular world is the subject of study in any yeshiva where Kesuvos, Kiddushin, etc are learned Biyun on any given day.

Fortunate Man,
I think I can relate very much to you. I've been married almost 10 years and learned in kollel for most of those years. I can't say I've finished shas, but I think I've learned through more than a third of it! I have had similar challenges since middle school. When I got married I was "clean" for almost 2 years thinking I didn't have to worry about these issues, but after falling up and down over the next several years, I finally decided (after seeing this website!) that enough is enough. I realized my problem is more than just needing oversight on my computer activity - it's much deeper than that - if I feel an urge, it's not just a computer/internet that's a danger to me; it could be "innocent" pictures in an ad in a magazine, or even my wife's b'gadim that can ignite my yetzer hara. I realize I'll probably be struggling with this for the rest of my life. But I want to not live with these secrets anymore and I want to be an ideal role model for my children. I don't want to keep feeling like I'm a hyprocrite. But now I realize I'm not bad, I just have a problem I can't control and I need help from others. Maybe we can be m'chazeik each other - I think the more we open up and stay in touch the better we'll be in the long run! I guess as they say - one day at a time. Hatzlacha!

Fortunate Man wrote:

That's all? If I include the images and fantasies I kept entertaining in my head, my estimate would have been in the 90's.

Fortunate Man wrote:


(I just posted this on another thread.)
We frum Jews make a big mistake that the Y"H takes full advantage of.
We think that the REAL ME is whatever I'm up to that's ossur.
We let our aveiros define us. (I used to call myself an evil bastard who's going straight to hell.)

Remember the basics? Our goal is to make tocho k'baro -- the inside like the outside. We perfect ourselves from the outside in. The chitzonios is meoreres the pnimius. Right? I didn't make that up.

It's not a show. It's what you really want to be. If you want to know who a man is, ask him who he admires. Because that's who he strives to be.

I know, I know. We sex and lust addicts think we really want to be doing even worse things, the things we fantasize about and look at (and some of us do).

But that's just the addict inside us looking for a steady supply of his stuff.
He's with us for life. Our only hope is to keep him starved and DAVEN A LOT for syata dishmaya.

Thanks for joining us.
I hope you'll stick around and give the next guy chizuk.

Alex

Dear Fortunate Man,

It's too bad about that whole thing that came up on the other thread. We're all in this together, really.

How are things going regarding our struggles? Have the struggles lessened?

Stay with us please, we need everyone we can get!!

just to echo what my good friend and advisor Pidaini just said, and especially due to my harsh words, we are all here to help and be helped...give a little, take a lot (which is the opposite of what we should be doing with our wives; there it should be give a lot, take a little); so let us all KOT! We all belong to the same group. So let's move onward!

b'hatzlachah