hi,

im a recently married guy, mid 20s, living in america, (and for anyone reading, the username is not my real name) and love growing. i am a bal teshuva since high school. I attended public high school but through chabad and ncsy i came closer to yidishkeit. after high school i learnt in yeshivas in america and erets yisroel and mamash grew so much baruch hashem in my torah and avodas hashem. around the time of my bar mitsva i already started getting curious about sex (what it was, how does it work etc.) and I used my family computer to explore. unfortunately this lead me to discover serious pornography and masterbation. in high school, when i started to become frum i learned that this behavior was against halacha. it was so hard for me to stop and i honestly did try to stop many many times and davened alot to hashem to help me, but usually i would fall every week  though sometimes i could last up to a couple months. I decided at the time (high school) since i was still growing in the areas of Shabos, Kashrus, shomer negia, etc. I would work on those areas because they (in my mind) were more important to becoming shomer torah umitsvos than shmiras habris. During high school, though I grew to great heights I fell many many times, especially because I had my own room in the basement with unfiltered unlimited internet access at any time of the day. then I went off to yeshiva for a couple years. in yeshiva i didnt have internet access (besides email on the yeshivas computer) so it was a good environment for growth. i lasted over half a year (which was and is my all time record). i ended up falling with my shmiras habris even without internet access. after that fall it only continued for the next couple of years in this manner: i would fall, then immediately decide to do teshuva/grow in torah/grow in yiras shamayim/get inspired and then a week or two later would fall again and repeat the process. after a few years I got married baruch hashem and told my wife of my past (not just being a bal teshuva, but also the history of internet abuse and shmiras habris) and she was pretty understanding. I told her that I had changed and that I didnt do it anymore (and when I said it I meant it, even though my last fall had been within a week or two). and after marriage, though I thought the sexual drives would stop, they absolutely did not and i continued in the almost exact path i was before being married (falling, doing teshuva, falling, etc.). And when I say doing teshuva i dont' mean superficially, i mean sometimes I would really passionately daven and take on new kabalos and try to change my negative habits. I realized that i had a Tayva problem that needed serious work.  my wife has never found out and i have decided not to tell her because i think it will hurt our shalom bayis. I am so thankful to have amazing amazing amazing shalom bayis with my wife (which is a nes in itself because we are very different), we truly respect eachother and i make sure to honor her more than myself. She loves me very much and dont want to make her sad by telling her of my issue. I work in an office which has internet, and though my phone doesnt have open internet access, my wife has an unfiltered computer at home (which she assumes I never use, and I try not to, though unfortunatley i have used it for the wrong things in the past). my computer has a filter installed. Im just trying to grow. I love growth but pretty much consistantly fall ever 1-3 weeks with shmiras einayim and shmiras habris. I want to grow! and get out of this practice which is killing me and may affect my family. any advice?

Dear brother,

You have a very powerful story. Your growth from when you started observing torah and mitzvos until today is massive. Its important to keep that in mind. People label themselves as failures when dealing with this addiction but in the bigger picture one can truly have made great strides both in this battle specifically and in his avodas hashem generally. 

Please dont take what im going to say next personally but i grew up in a baal teshuva home and community and something which i have commonly seen is unrealistic goals and expectations. Or phrased differently, not fully understanding the levels and steps that growth involves and therefore we often talk about trying to work on yiras shamayim and ahavas hashem and kabalos and all the things which "a serious ben torah does." the reality is that one has to recognize that the smaller the better.... When we accept on ourselves to grow in a specific area if we aim large and fail we lose trust in ourselves and lose the drive to grow. However if we choose something small and realistic. Something for our madreiga. Then even though its easy but its a boost for my moral and i start trusting myself more. The most important thing is aim for the sky but reach for whats within hands reach. Small. Day by day. No kabalos ( speak to profesional first) no yiras hashem work on fearing man first .acountability. No ahavas hashem work on loving your wife and yourself. Step by step. Lets say it takes a few years at the end of the day youll be succesful. Bh. The chazon ish wrote that greater than hishtadlus is tefilla. Always pray and stick around these groups we are here for eachother

Welcome Uriel
This is the land of the Trucks, and the guy that gives the best screech on the highway on his Tricycle is called Dov

He says



His full quote is found HERE

Hatzlacha

Welcome Uriel! I have a friend with that name! But I guess your note him as that's not your real name. But maybe your one of my other friends? I might not ever know! 
In any case, I wish you hatzlacha on this often frustrating journey. I have had similar experiences. I am not a BT in the full sense of the word, but I consider myself a BT with all my growth in yeshivah. Who cares if technically I was always wearing a yalmika? But sadly through my growth in yeshivah my problem became progressively worse, making Dov's quote Markz was kind enough to share with us apply to me. I am also recently married to a wonderful wife (who I don't think is aware of my situation, definitely not to its fullest).
again I wish you much hatzlacha, still around, read the GYE handbook, and take out what you can from the forums and all the other tools GYE has to offer.

Dov once wrote the followin':


But the words themselves ('spiritual perfection') are so incredibly lust-filled for many of us masturbating frummies. The lust for 'high madreigos' and feelings of deveikus is just out of proportion for us. It is lust for religious aliyah. It twists so many of us and makes our need to act out so much worse. (If u r interested, do a search for a post with the words, "Nuclear Reset Button" and it should clarify a bit.) It is really just lust, though it's not about sex.

Yeah, there is religious lust, and it's a twisted version of kin'as sofrim tarbeh chochma. And it works just fine for many normals (which most masturbating and porn-using Jews probably are). But for addicts, religious lust (focus on deveikus and Teshuvah gemurah) is not really religion at all...it is just ego in religious garb. (It often goes unrecognized by many normals, and taken for the Real Thing for years and years, and some of those who suffer from it can be successful authors, mechanchim, etc. I knew one who hurt many people before he was finally exposed.) 

And in the exact same way, our desperate and compulsive porn-searching and masturbation adventures are not really sexuality, either, but just ego-desperation filling some need by misusing those organs and neurons for excitement and numbing. It just happens to be our drug-of-choice. We know it's not the Real Thing even sexually! That's why addicts who try the comfy route of 'studying proper human sexuality to get my addiction fixed', just find a bitter dead end (usually after about ten years of trying). Just as alcoholics usually fail at fixing their alcoholism by 'working harder on drinking like a normal person'...over and over...and over. 'hic!' It's not about the alcohol. It's about themselves being basically screwed up. And our problem is not of sexuality, either, any more than it is religious!

Our problem is us. Lust/alcohol/gambling/heroin is our solution. That view is sometimes despised by some religious-minded people who want deeply to frame everything as a religious struggle. Nu. 

Sure our sweet-tasting solution happens to involvedoing issurim...and sure it happens to involve use of the sexual organs of the body...but if it's an addiction, then it is about something far deeper than just the inappropriate use of sex. (Heck, probably 99% ofnormal people mess sex up a whole lot, anyhow!) Addiction is more powerful than self-control because in some way it's about self-preservation, the ego itself. No wonder actually giving it up feels nothing less than suicidal. Addiction is certainly far deeper that the issue of being naughty or not.

And no wonder the 12 steps of SA, NA, AA, etc...are not about the drug, at all. Heck, 11 of 12 do not evenmention alcohol, heroin or lust, at all! Instead, they are only about quitting our religious and social faking and being decent, real people...Derech Eretz (which takes a front seat to Torah, we are told). 

Everything you said is 100% on the spot! Thanks.

Hi


alot has happened.

in a serious way.
thanks all for your help and support.

i have fallen and crashed. i feel like i am in the complete dark.
we will start with the good news:
i have tried to stop HUNDREDSSSSS of times. ive figured out knew eitsas, emotional tricks, spiritual tricks, ive read tons of self help books, recognized that i am addicted to lust (or the dopamine rush in my head, whateverheard the shiurim, starting reading on the 12 steps, bought a copy of sexaholics anonymous, listened to many dov workshops......

and heres the bad news:
ive been falling to my lust addiction. sometimes i fall many times in a day, sometimes i can pretend to be clean for a few days. i even was with a prostitute. i have a terrible self image. ive thought of crazy things. i might even have an STD, i dont know. and that scares me a lot. it makes me cry sometimes. the addiciton has made me do things i dont want to do. It has made me miss a day of Tefilin, on multiple occasions. it has made me miss krias shema, on multiple occasions, not to mention davenin. it has made me spend large sums of money which i really cant afford. it has made me break a Shvua i made using Shem Hashem!!! it made me eat a treif sandwhich. it made me buy dirty magazines. 

my wife is still unaware of everything. as far as she knows im a loving husband. 

i am petrified so so so scared of what could be of my life. i am TOTALLY out of control i am worried that if i stay on this route im going to end up ruined. And though i know that i have these powerful internal feelings of fear, sadness, anger at myself, and confusion about everything, on the outside i am a cheerful guy that everyone likes......oy ribono shel olam please help me....

as im writing this im sort of emotional (as you can probably see in the writing).
anyone who wants to share personal experience, advice, chizuk, etc. please do. you should know that all of you who reach out to help mean the world to me.


Much love to all my brothers,
Rachamim

Welcome. May God be with you.

Shlomo24 wrote on 29 Nov 2016 02:20:

And we are with you!!!

Shlomo may have meant to say "may you let Gd in"

Wanna know how?

Ask him, or ask Dov

You did mention dov. Have you spoken to him? He's
A
M
A
Z
I
N'

And he was once in the hell hole you're in, so probably has the rope you may want to grab onto

Just be warned - the threads are as long as his posts 

Welcome,

Recovery should be with hatzlachah.

This is not advice, per se, just an observation.
I noticed that among all the ways you have tried to stop you left out two things:
1. Met with a real live fellow addict.
2. Gone to a 12 step meeting.

Just sayin'.

I think we should make a thread called "Just Saying." All of the stuff that we are Just Saying. That would be fun. 

Welcome!  You have come to the right place. That is a beautiful share.  I can hear the desparation.  I have to agree with bigmoish.  The next step is to reach out in person or at least on the phone.  Reading 12 steps is not the same as going to a meeting.  "listening" to dov is not the same as talking to him, or at least joining his phone conference and sharing.  You seem to be relying on "self"-help.  You may need "other"-help.

I wish you all the best.  Keep posting.

Agree?

I don't know if this will help you brother, but here's what I'm going through these days.

After being threatened with divorce and who knows what 4 years ago, I saw a therapist for a long time on weekly bases and some times even twice a week, it helped me not masturbate for a year ahalf and to stay away from women for 4 whole years, no meeting and not even chatting or phone calls.

Then I fell and I fell really bad, going from 52 days of not masturbating to doing it 3 times in one day and first time was already afternoon. This fall made me so depressed that I hooked up with a few women again, we met up, and I did worse stuff than 4 years ago (I never had intercourse back then, now I crossed even that line).

I was so much and in pain and I so couldn't live with myself like that, that I decided to join SA. This was 3 weeks ago, and the past close to 2 weeks I didn't act out and I was really feeling that maybe I'm finally on my way to recovery, till today when I acted out TWICE.

At this point I'm so down and in so much pain that I dont know if or how the hell I'll take the courage to get up, dust off, and try again.

Guess all I'm trying to tell you is that I can relate to your struggle and I  feel for you.

Tflms brothers.