I live in Israel. I am a yeshivish frum man around 50,I'm married for more than 25 years.
My main issue is with chatting and chatting and chatting and chatting...
I dont mean chats about obama-care or about the weather in Tibet. I mean chats, often of sexual nature with the opposite gender or inappropriate subjects with othe men.
I wasn't extremely involved in viewing porn, because on our home computers we always had a pretty good filter. yes- I know that filters are not foolproof, and I have from time to time found ways to circumvent them, and fall into porn viewing, but I guess i hadn't been into it before the filter, since I didn't own my own computer, nor have much access to one until after my marriage, and thus I usually allowed the filter to let it stop me, or at least alert me before I fell.
I had my ups and downs, with masturbation struggles, since I was teen, using materials such as adult books and magazines, sometimes being totally controlled by it acting out numerous times a day, and sometimes being somewhat in control having different lengths of clean streaks over the years.

I want to to skip to the part about what brought me here to GYE.
No great fall or disaster or being caught - BH thank G-d - caused me to "wake up" -
rather it came through the chat itself!
I will copy and paste it from a conversation i had with someone in chat here:

For almost 2and1 1/2 years!!!! I was involved in a long time CHAT relationship- with a woman in usa
I live in israel
.. Did you and her ever meet?
..although we never met or even spoke on the phone- we had become quite "close"
and we would often share emotions and issues etc
.. Was it sexual?
.. quite often it was but not always, we discussed everythig andanything, and wewere completely open abpout ouselves to each other.
So one day about 3 weeks ago she said to me-
Do you ever feel bad about what wer'e doing??
Then we got into a long discussion about guilt and self hate and self control etc etc
so she then asks me-
do you think there's any way out of this mess???

so i said- I know of this site called watch your eyes or something like it -
they supposedly help people get out of problems like our's-
.. was she Jewish? frum?
yes she was about the same type as myself, we found that we had very much in common
she said-
she had also heard about it but its very long and complicated and full of psychology and all kinds of programs and homework and reports etcetc
she said "im not interested it all that"
so -
believe it or not I said to her-
"how about if we try it on our own"-
let's try to take a break from each other for 2 weeks!-
and see what happens
she agreed.
-
I'm sad to say she was stronger than me-
I tried to contact her after about 3 days
but she totally ignored my emails
I begged and pleaded and said I NEEEEED her for my sanity!!!
but she just once answered me with a 2 word answer -
2 weeks!!!
Thatswhen I began thinking to myself…
"HEY!- I told her to go to GYE to seek help - Why dont I ??!!???"
and -
HERE I AM!!

welcome! wow that's an amazing story!

welcome shvisi!

thats a amazing story and really a leson that you never know where hashem is going to help you from as in your story its really amazing how you got here. so keep on hanging out here and with hashems help these two weeks will never end.

kol tuv .

have a great shabbos!

KUTGW

wow
לא לשכוח חברים שאנחנו באמת חייבים תודה לכל אחד מאתנו ששומר את עצמו לכל יום בנפרד
אחז"ל: עשה מצוה אחת זוכה ומכריע את עצמו ואת כל העולם כולו לכף זכות
ופירשו בספה"ק שמי שמתגבר על היצה"ר מביא אור וממשיך רוח טהרה ממרום ועי"ז גם אנחנו מתגברים להילחם עם היצה"ר
ולכן לכולם תודה רבה שהתגברתם,
ועי"ז התגברתי ג"כ
וז"ש חזק חזק ונתחזק‬
thanks for helping us

Wow, definitely a good story, good on you! But I am curious, can you share more of your story please?

Welcome shivisi!!!

It's really great that you're here!!

What's the plan? What have you done to try stopping?

KOT!!

Hey there, welcome aboard.

Personally, though I've been involved in most of the other garbage so freely available on the internet, I also consider my main issue chatting.

As a Lust Addict I want to feel in control of my life, I'm not in control so I seek oblivion. What greater escape than if there is control in the oblivion?
See, if I watch porn, I am conscious that I'm not in control but at least I'm in oblivion. If I'm chatting, I'm in oblivion [nothing else in the world exists] and I'm totally in control, I can sign out whenever I feel like it and what's more, next time I sign in, there'll be a message waiting for me!

OOH... I had fun in chats... More than once I started a whole email account with a whole identity. It was all part of the fun, researching the cities I suppposedly lived in, the details of my fake lives. I was creating fantasies and living in them, it was awesome! And I was in control the whole time! [Well until I felt compelled to reveal to my friend's sister who REALLY is chatting with her, Zemmy called that reputational suicide, but that's a story for another time...]

P.S. What's the other part?

wow, crazy story.

welcome. It's almost as if Hashem sent you your own private message.

I can only tell you how I'm feeling right now, if it helps. Quitting is hard. It feels like it's making me insane. But in truth, that just proves how insane I've been all along.

Keep up the good work.

Welcome my dear friend Shivsi!
Really, it is you who has already welcomed me back to GYE but I want you to know that I get great chizzuk from every member on GYE and use your story to help strengthen myself.
We are on the right track and we have all shown and sacrificed to show HKB"H that we mean business, so he will surely help us.
I am close in age to you and know how scary it feels to be at this age and not "solved" this issue. I know I am quickly running out of time to overcome this YH before I don't have it anymore. I envy the young tzadikkim on this site who have been so smart to have started earnestly working on this at their young age and did not wait as long as I did. But, now is my time and with your help, I will be saved from this raging war.
Thank you for being a friend.

pischoshelmachat wrote:


Shivisi responds:

I’m debating how to respond to the point you made concerning "running out of time to overcome this YH before I don't have it anymore". There are two sides to this issue. The first is that being that [if I understand correctly] you have a problem with pornography addiction. This addiction does not necessarily go away when you reach advanced age. Unfortunately I have come across people who are in their 60s and even 70s, who still have a very strong porn-addiction. (as matter of fact, some say that as the strength of ability for physical "acting out" diminishes, the crave for lusting through pornography becomes even stronger. there is a known concept from one of the great baalei mussar, (R' Elyohu lopian zatzal) that the Yetzer-horah can make a tired person refreshed, a lazy person energetic, an old person young, and a weak person strong, and an ugly person pretty, just to tempt him with aveiros." I once heard a story about a bochur who came to R' Eliyahu Lopian and said to him "I feel that I’ve overcome the temptation of looking at women in the streets, and especially when they're dressed in a non tznius way, I'm simply appalled by it, and it doesn’t tempt me, so what should my job of "i]shmiras einayim[/i]" be now?" Rav Elyohu Lopian zt"l answered him, "I am 75 years old, I'm weak and sickly, I can barely see through one of my eyes, and I’ve learned a thing or two about shmira and kedusha, and yet when I pass a woman on the street the yetzer Horah still whispers into my ear "look!" and you as a young healthy bochur, full of hot energy, never yet married, think that you are "free" of his traps???!!"
Yes, I’m aware of the chazal which says that " tshuvas Hamishkal" is when you overcome the temptations with the same circumstances as when you fell into the aveiros, and other mamorei chazal which refer to the concept that overcoming the Yetzer hora in its prime is the teshuva shleima, yet we must remember that we must always be alert and on watch and never think that we "don't have that YH anymore" especially and all the more so when it comes to addiction, as the saying goes "once an addict always an addict" there is always the danger of relapse lurking, and if not in its original form, then the YH always comes up with new ways to tempt the person. As the gemoro says in kedushin, "yitzro shel Odom mischadesh olov bechol yom". with new ideas and new tactics. As I write this I thought of a new explanation of the words "shuv yom echad lifnei misascha" , The simple pshat is, as you pointed out, that a person must hurry and do teshuva, as soon as possible, because later he may miss the opportunity, as today may be his last day, but Maybe it may also be explained as "Do teshuva EVEN one day before you die, don't think that by then the yetzer horah is old and frail and you don't have any temptations anymore, so A. you don’t have to worry about falling into aveiros and needing tshuva then, and B. your teshuva on past aveiros is hardly worth anything because you missed the time of temptation. So it teaches us that even then there is a need for watching out for nisyonos, and need for teshuva, and the teshuva will be accepted.
As a second part, I will point out that although there definitely is advantage in "overcoming" the temptations of the Yh, a person would never WANT to have temptations, as we say everyday "Al tevieinu leydei nisayon. On the contrary, we should daven and hope for the time when we will have less nisyonos.
[This does NOT mean that one should just ask Hashem to REMOVE all temptations and nisyonos, without making an active effort on his part to OVERCOME nisyonos, as has been discussed on another thread].
after all this I want to thank you again for the chizuk and the zrizus which i gain from your posts. And thank you for bringing up this important point of Recovering quickly, so that we can have the zchus of teshuva Sheleima. May Hashem help all the wonderful chaveirim of GYE who are making a tremendous kiddush Hashem, by working very hard to be mechazek themselves and each other, in kedusha vetahara, and may we all be zoche to full refuas hanefesh, Amen.

Wow,
what a great response. Thank you for taking the time. I feel energized by your enthusiasm. Let's climb together. I am under you on the ladder so I will try to follow your lead.

Dr.Watson wrote:


WOW!! I never thought of it this way! This is a great statement and it gives me a lot of Chizok.

Thanks Dr.Watson, and be Matzliach!