60 days! 

With Hashem's help, a huge accomplishment!

The fight is still as tough as ever, the trick for me, is to not get caught in the ring in the first pace.

Who wants to get stuck in the ring with a heavyweight champion and try to faneigel a way to win? 

Although staying out of the fight is also a struggle, at least it's not a hopeless battle.

I now know that if I let myself even the slightest little bit it will end up at best with a huge setback and at worst, well... 

I now know that in order  survive and come out of this fight on the right end, I need to understand that physical pleasure cannot be the goal and it has to be optional. I can and I will survive and live perfectly fine without it.

There are always going to be things that trigger a person, it used to be that I absolutely had to look. I would struggle every second that I controlled myself until I felt like I would burst.

IY"H lots more good news coming.
Wilnevergiveup

Mazel tov. Very well written and completely true, but it does iyh get easier when you move further away from the imagined need for that particular pleasure. Keep it up tzaddik!

Level 7! Very grateful to Hashem as well as to GYE and the chevra here for where I am today.

I daven every day that Hashem should give me the strength to have a lust free day and a "pleasure seeking" free day. I daven that I should be able to have the correct mindset about why I am here and what role pleasure has in bringing me closer to Hashem.

May Hashem grant me and everyone else here the ability to continue to grow on our journey.

All the best,
Wilnevergiveup

Keep pounding away and being a chizuk for me. Really appreciate you posting up on my forum and other forums around. BZH you will continue to me be matzliach and overcome this struggle. Keep us updated

Had a little slip up today, b"h nothing more but still really scary that these things could happen at this point... shows that I can never leave my guard down. Nothing major, I was working on a project on a certain website and found loads of images that I shouldn't be looking at. It took some time for me to realize that I really need to close it and take it off my whitelist. Sometimes we have to sacrifice a little to beat this thing.

I thought about it afterwards and felt really upset about what happened. What happened to me, to my attitude to everything about this fight that I know are true? How could I forget everything just because I was "curious"? Seriously! what happened to me?

I feel like Hashem gave me a freebie because what caught me in the end was my child waking up. I was so stressed out that, theoretically I could have fallen if not for that...

I saw where this was going and by some miracle, made a conscious decision cut my losses and move past it. Then I realized how Hashem must be looking out for me and for whatever reason I deserved that he protect me.

Wow that was close, the Y"H knows his beans, the road of "you messed up anyway you can just forget everything you learned because it obviously doesn't work... You just have to start over tomorrow, today is all messed up already... etc."

Thank you Hashem for looking out for me and giving me some level of sanity. 

Really without Hashem's help I am totally powerless, I am seeing this time and again. Please Hashem keep me strong and sane. Please help me grow closer to you and use physical pleasure only for that purpose. 

Looking forward to posting more good news.

All the best, 
Wilnevergiveup

I speak for myself as an addict, I think we will always have these "close call" moments where mamash Hashem saves us from ourselves. I think if we are doing everything in our power to stop this Hashem "fills in the blanks" for us.
Of course we must always up our defenses, but I think there's always that what you mentioned. For me it has been really helping doing exactly what you mentioned, davening to Hashem that I should have a clean day. 
Congratulations on your progress! Please keep inspiring us!!

wilnevergiveup wrote on 30 Jun 2020 12:08:

The yetzer has this way of flipping the switch like that. Really scary.
You do have to daher that although you have been working on yourself, that old feeling and mindset was something that was you for a while, and its prob gonna take some time till its fully gone from you. So BH its less frequent and prob less fierce now but the yetzer isnt reaching too far down in your mind to find it. We just have to be wary of that and not trip out when it does happen(like oh Im still the same person- cause no your not). And realize that the attitude and mindset you created is still there, just got a bit shocked for a little. But 72 days! Thats big.
Thats my two cents.
Hatzlacha!

80 days clean! 

Boruch Hashem. Thank you Hashem, Thank you GYE, and thank you to everyone here for their advice and support!

All the best,
Wilnevergiveup

I hope you have a plan for the next 90, in a way it can very challenging when you don’t have “that” goal anymore...


I_willnevergiveup 

For me 90 days is really not the goal. Really, honestly, it's just an ego booster for me, it has no real benefit, it just made me crazy in the beginning. When I was focused on the 90 day goal as my only goal, my struggle was just stronger then the drive to hit 90. The 90 days served as yet another reason to sink even lower in my self doubt and low self esteem after a fall.
Is the 90 day goal a powerful tool? Of course, but only in context.

For me I only saw success once I figured out what's important in my life and how my actions were destroying those things. I've been down the "making goals" road as well as the "you are destroying your connection with Hashem" road for many years with nothing but shame and guilt as a result. If you've been at it long enough, none of this is going to help, your brain (or Y"H who btw takes up most of your brain) has already figured out a way around this.
For me I needed to realize that it wasn't about not going to hell when I die, or being chayiv misah I needed a new life. I was sick of my old life, of betraying my family of living against my will, of having utterly no control of myself. I was sick of myself and didn't know how to cure myself. 

With tremendous hakaras hatov to Guard Your Eyes, I just want to mention that the real life changer for me was Rabbi Twerski's book "Teshuva Through Recovery" which gave me the outlook I needed in order to recover and is what actually introduced me to this site in the first place. It's an amazing book with a new perspective on teshuva based on the 12 steps that gave me the perspective that I needed in order for teshuva to actually be a productive process instead of a cycle of guilt/acting out. 

So as far as a plan? I am on for lap 2 of a life clean, of being a changed person. Perfect? no! Changed? Yes! 

In other news, 90 days clean is coming up on Shabbos and I have no words other than that it seems that the impossible can be done.

I guess I will let you all know what happens Motzei Shabbos and whether there were fireworks and stuff...

All the best,
Wilnevergiveup

mazel tov 
what an achievement 
youre an inspiration to all of us!!
how fitting that the parsha is [partly] about getting rid of the tumah of  goyim in keilim.
keep shteiging!
jack123

I made it guys!!!

90 days in the books.

No fireworks but I did buy a bottle of Bacardi to celebrate and made some mojitos  on Shabbos.

My wife also bought me a present so that was nice too.

I am not going to lie here, it does feel good to reach 90 days. Working on not losing my focus moving forward.

Thank you to everyone here for always being there when I needed you most and for showing me how to accomplish what I thought was the impossible.

With gratitude,
Wilnevergiveup

Mazal tov! Bzh to a lifetime of being clean overall. In my eyes, 90 is a siman of the path and lifestyle you worked to live. Kind of like a birthday, your not done living life by your birthday; your celebrating everything until now and looking forward to the rest of it. Keep plugging and enjoy the benefits of a clean life. Thanks for being a great chizuk!

wilnevergiveup wrote on 18 Jul 2020 18:59:

If you don't want to lose focus, keep setting future goals. They can be 120 days, 15 Av, Rosh Chodesh Elul, a birthday, or any other milestone. As we get closer to the yomim noraim, you can remind yourself "Wouldn't it be great to come to Rosh Hashan clean?"

Hashem Help Me wrote on 29 Jul 2020 21:14:

First of all, it's really nice to have you back here.

You are absolutely right, I do need to set a new goal but I think that my goal is my "why". I think all the time "why am I doing this", and I think that as long as I have an answer to that question then that should be my goal. I find it hard to become inspired with goals that have no meaning and sadly the only meaning goals that are associated with Jewish events have for me is guilt. Guilt has never been a recipe for success in the past.

You have to have a "why" otherwise you will never have the strength to fight. I am fighting because I want to be a honest husband, because I want to be loyal to my family to my wife, because I can't stand anymore the feeling of being controlled by a demon.

I do have incentives (I guess you can call that goals) like giving my children a pure home. I sometimes try to imagine our baby on the way Iy"h, the neshamah hovering over our home (like in Abie Rottenberg's song from Journeys 2) peering inside and seeing me do the things that I used to do. The neshamah would say here? Of all places to this place? This is who you are giving me as a father? This is the kind of impurity you want me to live in?
We may be able to fool our children when they are alive but when they are still just their holy nashamah without the restrictions that come with the body they can see everything. I imagine my very own child not wanting to come down because of me.

So for now I want to provide an atmosphere where my child's holy neshamah will see a pure home. Trust me there is enough for the neshamah to be repulsed by, my goal is to provide a pure home so as not to add any more.

I daven to Hashem that this holy neshamah should never witness me C"V acting in any way that I wouldn't want my real live children to see.