I wasn't in the dumps because of these issues, it was for other things that was going on in my life. Those times though are the hardest because we then look for an escape, baruch Hashem through the help of the chevra I got through that tekufa, for this round.

Also, I am starting to get the message that everyone is telling me that counting the days is not the important thing and that the 90 days is not the end goal. I finally realize the importance put on the first three days because once i passed them I got back a sense of clarity of the big picture, hence the understanding of the first lessons i mentioned.

Either way things are great. Baruch Hashem.

Here is the post pesach update.
on day 22 but the truth is, as everyone advised I really stopped paying attention to the days.
The real gain for me has been that as a result of committing to the 90 day program, I had made a real decision that I am working on this. Indeed, no one here knows me, and I am starting to get the feeling that if I just fell out of the whole GYE program, no one would really notice or care. Nonetheless, inwardly, I have made my own commitment to help myself. And if I need to reach out on my own initiative to get help, advice, or encouragement, I have a place to go. Also, this forum is a great way to put my thoughts down and get them off my chest in a way that I know people will be paying attention, and correct me if my way of thinking is wrong and be mechazek me if it is right.
I have so much to say, I guess I will be making this thread my home thread. I think I will break it up into separate posts to help clarify the separate points for myself (and because more people probably read the shorter posts than the longer ones - I am starting to see that my behaviors are pretty common indeed thanks to GYE)

Over the course of the last two weeks, after being away on business where historically I have had always fallen prey to P* and M*,I was back home in my environment.
Through the process of focusing on staying clean and after intensively spending many hours on the website and going through the handbook and other articles, I have really gotten to be much more aware of what makes me tick, and how my thought processes have been.
While in the past I would look at each bout with the yetzer harah as an isolated incident, I now see the totality of the situation I am in. I never even took the step back to realize indeed how often these bouts were happening.
Also, in regards to the relationship with my wife, I always saw that as a separate issue. In a sense, her not being available on demand was in my mind a separate problem that also would lead to bouts with the yetzer harah. The results would often be the same but I looked at that aspect as a difficult result of a healthy tayva that wan't being satisfied. And I felt that I was less guilty for acting out, after all what does Hashem want from me? I am not a malach and I have a tayva and what can I do if I am not being satisfied as i ought to be.

Well, now only three and a half weeks of being connected to GYE, I have realized that there is really one common thread throughout. I HAVE A LUST PROBLEM. My desire to act out, and my desire for my wife comes quite often from the same place.
(Yes I have had instances of being with my wife that didn't come from lust, but indeed those cases came up on their own,there was no pre-planning before going into the bedroom, there was no thinking about it for hours beforehand- it was just a natural result of becoming closer to my wife emotionally and things led to relations on their own. perhaps that is how it is meant to be)
Back to the lust issue, I realize now that the desire to look at women in the street, the fantasizing, the urge to find porn, the urge to act out, and the urge to be with my wife, are all part and parcel of my issues of lust. As Dov says many times, I am looking for sex on demand as I want it. sometimes with myself, sometimes in my mind, and sometimes with my wife. bottome line ALL LUST.
It has been a great learning experience.

Having realized that I have a lust problem has been an eye opener in general.
However it has been an additional experience paying attention to it on a day to day, or hour to hour basis.
I notice that I get desires for lust without triggers, just all of a sudden I get this feeling. Sometimes it goes away and sometimes it lingers. Once you pay attention to it, it becomes rather annoying.
Don't get me wrong triggers do it to, but sometimes I can be driving down the block and see women dressed not particularly in a tzniyusdike fashion and i continue on barely paying attention and sometimes I notice every woman, even the tzniyusdike ones.
I think it depends on where the lust meter is holding. I am not sure what causes it to come and not sure what causes it to go away. I used to think that it was dependent on how recently I was with my wife, but I don't think that it is the key. It might make a difference on where I am holding in terms of learning but i don't think so either.
maybe it is a combination of a few factors. Either way, despite the fact that i have a Lust problem, i am becoming pretty sure that it is not an addiction. It seems that just being around here to focus on working on combating lust, is enough for the time being. Although, I do think that once I got to the realization that I have a problem through the first of the 12 steps there was tremendous improvement in my approach to the issue.
also it does seem to be that I am coming to the maskana that only Hashem can help me as I can't really see what else is causing the lust attacks and what causes them to go away.
so maybe it is an addiction and i am on a road to recovery already. Maybe like being addicted to a few cigarettes a day, while an addiction, it is easier to stop than being addicted to three packs a day, provided that you realize that even the few cigarettes are an addiction.
Either way thanks to the oilem and all the special people that make GYE such a wonderful tool.

and now, one last post to summarize the pats on the back, the summary of some near slips and falls.
One morning as I was about to get in the shower, I felt the urge coming and just did an about face. went back to bed for a few hours. (smelled a little the rest of the day but it was worth it.) i actually ended up missing zman tefila but I didn't let the yetzer harah make me feel bad about it - I won the bigger battle of the day against him and I was sure Hashem loved my late davening that day (it was a pretty good one)
another day i was fiddling with some apps in appworld and got the urge to look through some particularly erotic apps (we all know what happens next) well immediately after pressing the entertainment category on the main screen,(which is a very general category and still several steps away from trouble) i quickly exited the program. - another win that can be credited to GYE. the forum might actually have crossed my mind that nano second. but for sure just the focus on the war was a big help.
another night over chol hamoed, after getting the lust desire and realizing that my wife was not too interested in anything, i went to my own bed like a good boy with the realization that i am the problem and not her and guess what, I had a great night's sleep.
and one last pat on the back, my blackberry crashed and after much agonizing over getting it to start, i took out and old blackberry laying around the house,charged it up, and put my sim card in in to use till I sort out my phone. however i immediately realized that the internet browser lock was never installed on that phone. for some reason that got me thinking - "hey, unfiltered internet, cool." (crazy that my mind is so messed up) . so before I even set up my email account to get my emails i downloaded the app and had my wife lock it with a code just like on my phone that crashed. (i told her that if i didn't put the lock on the phone i would probably just end up reading the news all day and not getting work done. I don't think she believed that that was what i was really worried about. perhaps she has some suspicion that i had once been using my phone for porn. although i doubt it. strange reaction though ) there an ounce of prevention is worth..... (whatever the end of that quote is)

unanumun those posts are great!!!!

you really seem to be putting your mind to this, lots to learn from your attitude and your focus on figuring things out.

so KUTGW!!!!!

Reading this thread for the first time. I relate to a bunch of what you wrote. Sounds like you are heading in the right path.

Keep winning those battles as they come up. Keep make the right decisions one at at time.
Keep up the good work.

Reading this thread for the first time. I relate to a bunch of what you wrote. Sounds like you are heading in the right path.

Keep winning those battles as they come up. Keep make the right decisions one at at time.
Keep up the good work.

Had an interesting thought this morning. Related somewhat to GYE.
I came across an app for my phone that has some kind of weird alarm clock, that when it rings you have to answer some kind of riddle or math questions before it turns off. basically, instead of those few seconds that you instinctively turn off your alarm and/or press snooze and fall right back asleep, you are forced to start getting your brain to work before you can shut off your phone. You are then in a better position to actually decide to get up or go back to sleep.
Anyways, after a long time of not being able to beat the yetzer hara and get up in the morning without hitting snooze for an hour and a half, today was the first time that I managed to get up on the first ring, 2 minutes after the alarm went off (including finishing the memory game riddle that I had to solve)
WOW. unbelievable.... Then I got to thinking, gee am I really so great?. I need a whole crazy alarm program (also the ring was a voice note of my own personal mussar shmooze that kept repeating itself until i solved the puzzle)to actually beat the yetzer harah. Is that normal? i can hear the yetzer harah saying "yea sure. that's not beating me, that's a cop out. try to really beat me the normal old fashioned way -hisgaber kaari."
and you know what my answer to the yetzer hara was in my mind's conversation? something I learnt here on GYE. "who cares? If it works, it works." that was the response that i understood when i was wondering if this whole gye thing is the solution and why should it work more than just fighting the yetzer harah (yea yeah I know now that the yiras shamayim business doesn't help most people and the 12 steps are needed, etc. etc. etc. but that was the original thought process before i finally got the point. either way it is still true of the 12 steps and the forums and the chats, who cares? if it works it works.)

Another thought if there is anyone out there reading this (and if not, at least I am making for myself some kind of journal for my thoughts that I can go back and get chizuk from)
I once heard from a mashgiach that the different middos of a person are like points on a ball. It doesn't make a difference where you push the ball, all the points move nonetheless.
I feel the same thing is with Avodas Hashem. The chizuk and rejuvenation that I got from being here at GYE over the last few weeks have started to make a difference in other areas of Avodas Hashem.
The poshut pshat is that once one gets into the habit of controlling himself and feeling good about it, it naturally flows over to other areas that we need to fight the Yetzer Harah. But what might also be a big part of the picture is the siyaata dishmaya we get for fighting this particular yetzer harah. I heard recently in a shiur (the timing was quite interesting because I very rarely go to shiurim maybe two or three times a year) that the central tayva of all tayvos is the tayvos of these inyonim. (actually that ended up being the main part of the shiur and a particular eytzoh - which he claimed to be baduk umenuseh to help remove hirhurim roim, and remove the pgam from being an inherent part of the neshama)
So therefore it makes sense that if one controls his tayvah in these inyanim, he will get siyata dishmaya in other areas of avodas hashem

and one more thought, (i don't remember ever thinking so much. I guess my mind was preoccupied with other things )
I always thought that I had an amazing relationship with my wife, and when I first started reading some of other people's issues with shalom bayis here on the forum, I thought wow, some people have it hard. Baruch Hashem, these aren't my issues.
But the more I read and think, I started to realize that although my issues aren't anywhere near the others, I am quite a selfish guy. never realized that about myself. I am so involved in giving and helping others that I never noticed. So I am Baruch Hashem starting to make an effort in being even greater than the perfect husband that I already was.
So for the umpteenth time, thanks again to all you out there.

unanumun wrote:


Sounds interesting. Care to share? Thanx

MT

MT,
I will send you a PM. I am still scared to publicly share anything that is not 12 steps related. Also, I can't personally vouch for it (even annpnymously)

27 days and counting. (but who's counting? - today is going great)
I fell into the "figuring things out" trap. I was reading this article about psychological factors of the internet addictions (it is posted on the books and articles section)It got me thinking, what is it that attracted me to the P* and m* in the first place? and then i started thinking back to different times that i had reached out to P&M through the course of my life.
The thought process backfired and it just turned into triggers for me. Remembering all sorts of experiences from my life, and as I saw somewhere recently (maybe in that article itself) the mind blocks out the pain and discomfort and only remembers the good times.
And then I came to appreciate what many people told me in the first days of my exposure to GYE, that the important things are the whats and not the whys. and sure enough that is probably a safer route to stay on.
The only issue I have is that if I can figure out what my need was that sent me to P&M, I could try to find some way to fill the void in a positive way. Or maybe the best thing is to just move forward and fill only the new voids that come up in the process, ignoring what was in the past. Perhaps it depends on how hung up you get with the psychology business of how your past affects your psyche.

I feel this is normal. It's like withdrawal because we can't get the highs of our drug. Try to ride it out an KOTTT!!!

How are you living life? Are you just trying bit to fall or are you actually seeking to grow?