Hello all,

I had had 180 days clean up until this past December, when I went on my first trip to Israel. When I got back, I don't know exactly why, but my faith in HASHEM was damaged, and I caved in and watched porn + masturbated. Ever since then I cannot get to 30 days. The longest is like 3 weeks. I want to get back to 6 months clean, I was happy then. I am unhappy now that I give in every time my yetzer hara brings it up. Really want to get back to 6 months, and then go futher than that. I know from personal experience that after 60 days it's much easier to resist. Whiel I've been slipping, I don't reach out to anyone for help - now I want to do that. I want someone I can reach out to when that urge overtakes me to help me talk it out and remind me of my goal. Thank you.

Possibly after your trip to Israel you ascended to a higher spiritual level?
​It is known that when one does this, the negative Klipa of that level will then push you back, as if to trick you to think you did not reach that level.

​So you have to be aware of this and strengthen yourself to break through the Klipa.

Or it might be that you felt depressed because you had to leave Eretz Yisrael?
​I know I can be depressed if I am not in Eretz Yisrael.
Making Aliyah is great, but Hashem can place us in different parts of the world for spiritual missions, and we can not always know those missions.

Either way, use your good memories of Israel to help strengthen you.

Take it day by day.

It could be. Although besides the porn bug coming back with a vengeance, I actually had a crisis of faith in Hashem when I got back (which may very well have aided my yetzer with its ruses). I was sad to see most of Israel mostly secular, and even a lot atheistic (one man when we were out after shabbat made a point to tell me, after I described how much I enjoyed the kotel, that it's all nonsense, G-d's not real, and no one is answering those notes put into the wall. Granted, this was at a bar in Tel-Aviv, but it still stuck with me. Also, maybe I had this idea that going to Israel was going to take me to another level, but I honestly wish I hadn't gone, because for whatever reason(s), I fell from the state I had achieved in the 6-8 months prior to going. Don't get me wrong, I still loved the trip, but the damage to my faith in G-d, whether caused by someone else or by my own yetzer, was and is undeniable.

Anyway, there's no excuse for giving up on my spiritual growth, nor an excuse for giving into porn/spilling seed, which is why I came here because I just cannot do it on my own. I'm on day 3 now, so my yetzer is nice and quiet, but I know come day 7 is when that scumbag rears his ugly head with his false, yet convincing arguments, and that is why I am gaining my ammunition now. I WILL make it to 30 days. That is my goal right now, and the hardest part of it (I did make it to 6 months, and after 60 days it was much more managable).

Thank you so much for your encouraging words and for reaching out.

Thank you for the share...
If you made it to 180 one time, for sure it will be easier to make it again.

But I have just a little advice to say to you about this : if it's good to have goal to stay sober for 30/60/90/180 days,  be careful that is not becoming an absolute goal... Like a competition. Like : "I have to, I will. I must not fall for 30 days"

I managed to stay sober for 1 year, and since then I can barely stay sober for 60 or 80 days. 
But, this is not meaning that things are worse now than my entire year of staying sober. In fact, I am seeing that I am now working on myself, searching how to change my vision of life, in a more deeper way than my year of sobriety.

In the first months after the end of this year, I wanted to make one year of sobriety again, and it became a very important goal. But I just managed to put more and more pressure on me. To be more sad about I couldn't manage to do it again. This became more destructive than constructive
And, well, pressure is a very efficient trigger for falls... 

I think that, better than the number of days of sobriety, the best indicators if you are on the good path are : am I working on myself ? Am I changing my vision of life ? Am I quickly recover from a fall ? Am I honest ?
It's not just "I must don't fall"

So, just a day at a time ! Your primary goal is to stay sober for this day, this hour, this minute ! Tomorrow is far enough

Yes there are some very secular people in Israel.
But knowing why helps lessen the impact.

Some are the children and grandchildren of Shoah survivors.
Their faith in Hashem was shattered.

Others are the great-grandchildren and grandchildren of people who made Aliyah between the world wars...their motivation was Nationalism, not Judaism.
They bought into a flawed theory of "The New Jew"...a physically tough Hebrew speaker, who would thrive in his own country as opposed to a pale skinny ghetto Jew of Eastern Europe who would forever live in fear of anti-Semites.  

But this is just a myth....though has some benefits...the spread of Hebrew is of benefit if someone becomes a Baal Teshuvah.

Others are products of atheist Marxism and Communism...whether decendants of people from early Kibbutzes, or people from the ex Soviet Union who made Aliyah from 1991 onwards.
Remember that a significant amount of these are not halachically Jewish, and had little Jewish education in the Soviet Union.

So what Israel constitutes today is a physical step toward Mashiach...the infrastructure of  the eventual Messianic State...the building, railways, roads, farms, factories etc.
The Hebrew language. 
The emphasis on health.
An ingathering of Jews from many countries around the world.

All this is a positive as a stepping stone, but there remains much spiritual progress to be made.

Wow, that is a great perspective, thank you for that. You're right, I should keep it to one day at a time, just for today. Setting goals could overwhelm myself, and even give ammunition to the yetzer. Thank you for your thoughts, they are much appreciated.

Excellent points. I know of many of these precursor situations, but I still don't understand them completely and how they helped shape society (specifically in Israel) today. Also, I fully acknowledge that my slipping was no one else's fault but my own. I just understand the rationalizations that my yetzer uses - - In all honesty, I don't know 100 percent why I slipped. I just know that there was a connection between my crisis in faith In G-d and my giving in to porn + masturbation. With G-d's help, I will build that faith back up and try and be holy to the best of my abilities. Thank you for your feedback and enlightening historical points.