We need to set gedarim so we can work on ourselves until we reach the point where we are healthy enough to live somewhat normally. We may choose to keep the gedarim forever, but obviously every filter has flaws. The real objective is to overcome the underlying issues.
Dov has mentioned, and this really made an impact on me, that for his first two years sober, he wouldn't carry change in his pockets, lest he come across a pay phone and feel the urge to call a sex line. Stick with the gedarim as long as you need, but remember that it's all worthless if you don't fix yourself.

guardyoureyes.com/forum/20-Important-Threads/214619-Gibbors-Insights?limit=15&start=15#219156



inastruggle wrote:

Bigmoish wrote:

This is gold. I totally agree. A filter will not make anyone get sober, nor will any gedarim. They can be useful and necessary but they don't accomplish sobriety in it of itself. I also found that in my experience the more gedarim i put on myself the more I acted out because I would be so stressed and intense about everything.

No, THIS is gold

I find for myself the filters are a delay, not a total protection. With that realistic expectation in place, they were crucial.
When I wasn't doing well, they helped to give me a pause. Sometimes the urges show up but if you need to work your way around the filters, the extra delay can help you regain your footing.
When I started doing better, I found that filters just makes the possibility of browsing-out (as a precursor to acting out) even further off the radar, freeing me to focus on living, not just fighting.

I totally relate to this....only not just in the bathroom, but to try and get some alone time wherever I am. Be it my wife asking if its ok she goes out with friends (which is perfect) or being alone in my office.

Well done for fighting this terrible yetzer horah and I hope we can all succeed over time!

I agree. The truth is, that for each person it's different and on a different level. There are some people for whom putting in filters and protections are most of the battle because when they're bored and alone they end up surfing and going from one thing to the other, and then, whoops! How did that happen? I had no intention to act out!! Those people often find that once the accessibility is taken away they don't necessarily have much of a struggle, and maybe they weren't even true addicts.

Others, like myself in the past, can be clean for months but when they discover a loophole in the filter have a on obsessive urge to try to get through and are just waiting for the opportunity. Regardless, everyone agrees that the filters are a good idea. Someone above mentioned that too much restriction drives him crazy and causes him to act out, and hat can be true as well. Considering that sexuality is, in the words of R Wolbe, a spring that pushes back the more you push against it, one has to really figure out how much restriction is too much for them and will contribute to the problem.

In an SAA group that I used to go to, they used to make fun of filters bc if you're sober, who needs it? Then, inadvertently when one of them acted out which started on "innocent" sites, they were SO surprised, and I remember thinking "Idiot, just get a filter"!

the way i understand it now is that gedarim like filters are like a walking stick that help people who have difficultly walking to walk. however if your legs are broken no walking stick will help first you need let your legs heal and then when you can walk somewhat a walking stick can help!

It's a geder. Like any geder - it offers a certain amount of protection. There are plenty of nisyonos already, it's wise to remove, or at least minimize, the ones we can.

ur-a-jew wrote:

The bathroom my Beis Medrash
abie wrote:

You have to work on 2 fronts, You must do gedurim/fences, while you work on your mind to became more a sober man, gedurim is not enough because you will always find times or places where the gedurim disappear (willing or without willing), and in the other hand if you don't make gedurim you will have an hard time to never have a fall.

Hello I'm a bachur struggling with zera levatala and I was in a department store in latonight and I walked into the bathroom and was moitze zera. When I finished I walked outside and a police officer was standing outside the restroom and he told me 3 employees heard you masturbating and saw your reflection he then asked me for my I'd wrote down my address on a notepad and radioed a cop to do a background check who radioed back that I had no record he told me that had a child seen you it would have been a misdemeanor and he's is going to write this on the record it's was very humiliating I'm not sure if this is a lapses because I made a big chillul hashem I don't think any other Jews saw but all employees saw me he told me that if there's any other evidence comes to light we'll follow up he also told me I have to leave very scary humiliating experience he wrote down my name and address on a notepad do you think he will follow up? He has my home address bizyoinis and I'm very afraid it might be written down on a record Im in shidduchim  and I'm afraid I could be stopped by a cop who wil see this on record and I'm also afraid that it would show up on a background check do you have a way of findi out if it was written down ? And if it can be removed slach lanu  mechal lanu like it was never ever there? I'm really scared to death I can easily afford to pay a few thousand to have a lawyer remove it confidentially? Thank you please let me know asap

Sorry to hear you had such a traumatic experience and I sincerely hope it clears up. However as a GYE chaver my reaction is that maybe this was a big chessed from Hashem to really wake you up. Lets utilize this shake up to learn how to stop being motzi zera. Please be mochel me for manipulating this scary situation to further the agenda, however I really mean your benefit. Take this hisorerus, however strange it may be, and fly with it. Best wishes for yishuv ha'daas and menuchas hanefesh. 

I definitely realize it was a message from hashem