Thanks Dave I appreciate the support! 

Hey AnonyJew, I just read through your thread and am so inspired! Your resilience and openness are amazing. 

Hey everyone, 

Today would have been day 26 clean but last night I fell. I'm not sure why last night my resolve was weaker than other times but I have a few things on my mind. 

First of all I had let too much time go by without posting or connecting with others here on GYE. Taking my mind off of the goal and talking about it definitely made it more difficult for me to control my urges. 

Second I never pulled the trigger on therapy which meant I was still trying to deal with everything on my own. I got a little too haughty because of the success I was seeing. 5 days was my first attempt and then I made it to 25. That was a 5X increase from last time. While that is great I can't attribute my success to myself and let my guard down. 

I am an addict. I need help to get through this. I believe it is possible for me to break this addiction and live a porn-free life. I've had a small taste of what that life could be and it is amazing. No guilt. No lies. No shame. Better relationships. Better communication. Better life. 

Finally one more thing that I believe helped lead me to this fall was the lack of filtering. I still don't have a filter on my phone. Not just that but I still have access to all the same social media apps as I once did. 

This isn't the end of my journey. Yeridah Tachlis HaAliyah. The descent is for the purpose of the ascent as Rebbe Nachman of Breslov would say. This fall was meant to check my pride, show me that I need help and push me forward so I can make real change. I'm not invincible and I will wear my battle scars proudly because I am not going to let the yetzer harah take everything I'm working for over one lost battle. 

I'm mekabel on myself the following:

• In order to remove some temptations I will be deleting Instagram from my phone until I have been clean for at least 90 days and I can safely say I will be able to control myself.
• I am going to set up an initial appointment with a therapist. 

I'm a porn and masturbation addict. Today is my first day sober. 

Hatzlocha. As you wrote, get that filter asap. It is a real gamechanger. Keep us updated....

I think you have to get a filter before you can proclaim that you are an addict...

Hatzlachah!

Thanks for the bracha. One of my concerns with the filters is that I use social media a lot in my parnasa. I have to figure out a way to make it work. Maybe just getting one of those filters where it just takes screenshots and sends to someone. Which filter did you start with?

Thanks for the bracha. Why do you say that about the filter?

It sounds like you may want a Webchaver?

Hey everyone, 

Today is 1 day sober. On the 90 day challenge I'm now "Level 1". It is a new day. Another day, another struggle. I deleted Instagram yesterday and left a voicemail at the therapists office to schedule an initial appointment. I'm very nervous about that but I'm hopeful for the future. 

​The past two nights I've been getting very irritable and feeling very anxious. Maybe I'm not focusing on my physical health enough. I should probably start doing some exercise and/or working on what I eat. That's probably not a bad thing to work on now with COVID-19 anyways...

I'm not so happy as I was before. I'm not sad about my fall exactly but I'm just low energy. I feel like I'm going through a rut and I'm not sure why. I can't seem to pin point what the particular issue is. Just overall feeling of being overwhelmed, tired, and frustrated. 

iyh today will be different! 

The feelings you are describing are very normal. Many of us felt euphoric when we found GYE. We found out that loads of nice successful ehrliche people struggle with this. We found out that we were not alone. And we read about guys getting better. And then we slipped.... The reality of the necessary hard work and stamina, the need to remain focused, and realizing that it's not as simple as we perceived it to be, get many of us into a low energy/down in the dumps mood. Thoughts like "come on, when am I going to feel safe from all this?" keep popping into one's head. Similarly, even when passing certain milestones, the next day we wake up thinking "Now what?! When will I be free from this?"

Dovid Hamelech shechted his yetzer hara. The rest of us have to face the reality that it is a life long struggle. HOWEVER I can personally testify that it gets so much easier. It becomes a normal nisayon; not that overpowering monster it used to be.

Hashem Help Me wrote on 18 May 2020 23:24:

Not sure if shecting a yetzer hara is as easy as you make it sound...

Perhaps beforehand some sort of battle ensued...

Hey everyone, 

It's been a minute. I appreciate everyone's input and support. 

I fell... again. This time it wasn't so easy to pick myself back up. In the past I've fallen but managed to get back up the next morning and just brush it off. This time though my fall came from a deeper place. In the past I had fallen but it was usually triggered by some photo or video I'd watched on social media resulting in just general arousal. 

This past week I found myself suffering from a lot of anxiety. Besides all of the external crises going on in the world including the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent rioting which itself is overwhelming, on a communal and personal level I also received a lot of news that makes the future very uncertain. It's been easier in the past to deal with stresses when it was confined to one aspect of life. These days it seems everything is up for grabs. The world is crashing all around me not only on a global level but on a personal level. So many questions in the air. What will be with our health, safety, security, finances, marriage, children, communal institutions, work, etc? The list seems to continue ad infinitum. 

We're living in a time where we have no control over anything in our lives. The thought of just running away from it all for some time by escaping in porn is extremely attractive. Ultimately though it is extremely destructive and it doesn't give me any more control over my life. It only puts one more thing out of my control. I become a slave to these desires. 

I'm recommitting myself to make this happen. 

AnonyJew wrote on 05 Jun 2020 13:46:


Good for you! A fall is a negative thing only if we stay down, but if we dust off and continue on, it's just another positive stepping stone in the battle that Hashem gave us for our benefit.
Keep us posted on your great progress!

Hi AnonyJew,
Just read through your thread and I'm blown away by you. You would do awesome in therapy as your so in tuned with yourself and extremely capable at expressing what's going on inside. Your attitude is inspiring and strong. Your wife seems very supportive and smart. Dealing with anxiety is also a "journey" but with your resolve and obvious abilities I'm predicting that you will be our next GYE pride success story. Keep it up!  I'm rooting for you!

Hey everyone, 

It has been quite some time since I last posted. I have since entered therapy and have been working slowly on everything. I've picked up better coping skills to deal with my anxiety. I've been transferring my "work responsibilities" that entail use of social media to others so that I don't have that excuse anymore. I'm looking at getting a filter on my phone soon to set up a boundary. 

My therapist has been recommending that I speak to my wife. Has anyone here been through this struggle already and told their wife about it during the process? 

I have still been having falls but I can say that they have generally been fewer. Meaning to see the stretches of "clean time" have been much longer than I previously went. Not sure what to do next.