Not even sure why I'm writing this, but I guess that hopefully sometime somewhere someone will get chizuk from this.

I grew up chasidish and went through the entire system and got married like all other's in the system, but at some point I started  feeling uncomfortable amongst my old yeshiva friends who were all still learning in kolel, I got close to new friends who had a bad influence on me (actually, I started playing with myself and m... at 14 but I never took it to the next level till then) and I slowly started  drifting away, starting with r-rated movies, leading to porn, lusting, and eventually meeting people and doing stuff no one ever should.....

When all of this was about to explode and I would've lost my wife, children, friends and family - hashem had mercy on me and sent someone to hook me up with the right people who put my life and marriage back together. (I never joined 12 steps because I wasn't in the shmutz out of addiction but rather out of looking for fulfillment of my dark desires, the person worked with me on rebuilding my relationship and on me physically getting back into yiddishkiet by doing things that have an impact on the ruchnius of a person like tzitzis and brochos with covono and that in a chain reaction helped me overcome my nisyones.)

All of this took place almost 4 years ago and currently life and marriage is beautiful B"H. The reason I now came to GYE is 1) although I was totally clean for over a year almost 3 years ago, unfortunately I did start slipping again here and there, not with meeting up but with porn and acting out by myself, and 2) I'm still struggling with shmiras einayim like crazy, in Manhattan where I work, the struggle of looking at half naked women  is only half of what it is my struggle in Monsey on shabbos or yom tov, I'm blessed with an imagination that works on overdrive and I find chasidish women and girls very attractive so for instance, taking my kids to the park shabbos afternoon turns out to be very hard on me and in a crazy way even harder than the nisyones in Manhattan.

The thing that really helps me the most on GYE is the fact that I don't feel alone in my struggles anymore and I don't feel like an outcast for having these struggles, instead I'm now part of a huge holy group of yiddin that want to be holy and are working on it together. To me, this discovery made a huge impact and gave me loads of chizuk.

May hashem help us all to overcome our YH and to be holy yiddin like Hashem wants us to be.

Me think that you will look at this post in several months (if you still log on) and it will help you.

B'hatzlachah

cordnoy wrote on 20 Oct 2016 12:42:

Good point!

Yeah, I sometimes wonder if it'll ever get easier and I won't need to log on GYE or this is how I'll be all my life and as an old man I'll still struggle with this. Gosh, just imagine an 80 year old struggling not to look at his grand daughters... lol

YidFromMonsey wrote:

I know a fellow that struggles not to look at his daughters... It's sad

Very sad!

Don't forget to keep your story and concerns in one thread (this one is great) so you / we can grow and see the growth together

Had a real white knuckling battle today AND WON! What I can't figure out is why I feel so down now?

Sometimes even though we win, the fight is exhausting. You are probably just down from the effort of fighting. Good for you!! Each battle matters. 

Teshuvahguy wrote:

If each battle brings you back to the same trenches you started with
and you're not seeing progress, perhaps it's a good idea to start a strategy. I haven't found any outside of gye

I'm very happy to see that things got better for you and that your still in the game fighting the battle to follow hashems way and being kadosh. If i was in your situation id make sure i have the least privacy as possible, its quite hard to act out when you can't hide behind a wall. I also advise the use the tools in Gye like others have proposed, you shouldn't belittle the actions that your doing, they might not be as bad as they used to but don't forget that the yetser ha rah gets you one step at a time. He convinces you to do something small that might not even be a avera like looking at a covered women, leading you to places you never thought you would go. The easiest ground to fight him is at the beginning get used to automatically turn away when you see women regardless of the tsniut. This will become a habit that will make it a lot easier. This is what ive been doing and what i took out from it is that you should never underestimate your inclination because once the lust kicks in only G-d knows what one has to go threw.

Keep fighting but don't be scared to bring up barriers that you might think you don't need. I always thought i didn't need to block myself from certain sites and believed that their was no harm for looking at moderately dressed women but I payed the full price for it too many times (according to my standards, to each his own of course). Don't take it wrong but i think that you believe just like I did that i can control myself if i live the way I am because I have Torah study in my life but even though studying is a huge help sometimes you need to add preventions and distance yourself from sin even if it might seem exaggerated at first. there are many guards to play, if you want to win this war make sure the play the high cards!

Thanks Moudmack,

I can very well relate because even real frum woman are very attractive to me so I just can't afford to look at any of them, and also, I  know for sure that if I  have the opportunity to look at porn I will look, period. My strategy is to block any possibility for me to look at porn and therefore I blocked the app store and browser from my device, no filter will stop me so I had to get rid of the browser and app store all together. I can't talk for anyone else but that's my situation.

YidFromMonsey wrote on 27 Oct 2016 04:09:

My Situation too. I do have white list of websites open eg Gye

Today is day 49, still clean bh but mood sucks, this constant battle is just some days harder than others, wish I could figure out what drives it.

git shabbos dear brothers

....And we made it to 50 B"H!!!!

YidFromMonsey wrote on 29 Oct 2016 23:24:

Mazal tov