Hi. I am starting a new username, as I am concerned that my wife is reading my posts under my previous name, and can't be completely open.
Over the last few months, I have been going about 3-7 days between each one day binge.
Problems include wife's phone which has no hardcore access, but I can get aroused by a picture of a tree if I need to, work laptop, which has a joke of a filter, and just plain old fantasizing and masturbating. My apologies for spelling that correctly, seems to not be the minhag here.
I need to get to the next step, but my life is really quite manageable.
Things I've done:
Posted extensively here.
Spoken to many GYE users including Dov, cordnoy, et al.
Met several of them.
Gone to SA meetings for a time.
I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking to accomplish here, just happy to be back to my fully anonymous, honest self.

I relate to many parts of this post. In particular this part:
bm263 wrote on 03 Mar 2021 05:15:

Hatzlacha on whatever it is you decide to do here.

bm263 wrote on 03 Mar 2021 05:15:

Great post. many of us don't know why we're here. And of course, we're actually all here for different reasons. If you've been to SA and spoken to Dov etc. it seems you've made massive efforts. So maybe you're here because it's comfortable? Like a blanket you can hold? 

bm263 wrote on 03 Mar 2021 05:15:

Welcome back, whoever you are (were).

How do you know she won't read your new posts? Suggestion: put the sensitive/potentially identifying stuff in the BB forum, she won't have access there.

Hatzlacha!

Welcome heiligeh yid!

Gonna take a moment to appreciate that even with your setbacks, you're still getting back on the wagon. Just remember not to limit yourself from taking the next step- complacency is the enemy of progress.

Hatzlocha, Hatzlocha, Hatzlocha!

Gevura Shebyesod wrote on 03 Mar 2021 15:10:

You took the words out of my

Hakolhevel wrote on 03 Mar 2021 20:29:

Looks like someone took the “a” out of your keyboard...

Gevura Shebyesod wrote on 03 Mar 2021 15:10:

I'll be more careful, so she won't know my new username.
I'd rather not limit myself to the BB forum. Too many bochurim here these days that I can learn from.

Masturbated today. (@serenity - note the choice of words)
No porn, but would have if I had easy access.
Not making any nedarim, shevuos, issurim, konamos or charamim.
It bothers me that I'm still doing it, but aside from guilt, it doesn't have a major impact on my life, so why bother making myself crazy? (This is a rhetorical question, but feel free to answer if you wish.)

bm263 wrote on 04 Mar 2021 04:38:

It's great that you're being so open about your struggles and your feelings.

I would like to point out that when it comes to M & P,  one feeds on the other, and if you don't stop both together, you are still feeding the monster and the addiction won't go away... Ultimately, I believe the porn will come back as well.

Masturbation is basically sex-with-self, which is addictive, destructive, and provides only temporary relief. And as our sages also say, the more we feed it, the more we need it. So although stopping may be hard at first, it gets easier over time. We need to truly believe that and just take the jump. Sex really is "optional". We can live without it.

DavidT wrote on 04 Mar 2021 14:59:

As always, I'm just here to say that I'm not so convinced of this. Food is also optional, it's just that you die without it. We don't really know what optional means as we don't (by definition) know what a person would be like in a different situation. So let's say a person doesn't masturbate but instead, bottles it up. Maybe he's worse. Just maybe. Always maybe. 

BM263 - I hope it was fun. At least that makes it worthwhile. The guilt afterwards is only worse if you feel it wasn't even fun. And guilt is, maybe, more dangerous than anything. 

bego wrote on 04 Mar 2021 15:05:


I get where you're coming from, but this is just plain incorrect. No human being has ever survived for more than a short period of time without food (or supernatural miraculous circumstances like Moshe Rabbeinu).

People get along without sex.

​Anecdotally, when Rav Moshe Feinstein was rav in Lyuban, the Soviets demolished the mikvah. They were building a mixed bathhouse instead, and Rav Moshe convinced them to hold some separate mens and womens hours (for sanitary reasons as the Jews wouldn't use it otherwise) and somehow convinced (perhaps bribed) the architect of the project to design the plumbing and structure of the mikvah in such a way that it would be a kosher mikvah, at least b'dieved. It was a clever and daring move to provide the tzibbur with the minimum level of taharas hamishpacha. This much is fact, however the story goes that because the mikvah relied on many leniencies and was only kosher b'dieved, Rav Moshe and his Rebbetzin did not want to rely on it personally, so they refrained from being together the entirety of the time that bathhouse was the only mikvah in Lyuban. She used to say, "Why do you think there are so many years between my Dovid and my Reuven?" (Rav Dovid Feinstein was born in 1929 and Rav Reuven was born in 1937.) 

bego wrote on 04 Mar 2021 15:05:

We dont need to get Into the real definition of optional, that's for a college course. We are here for recovery.

The point in context though makes sense. For me when I act out I feel like it's not optional. In other words, juat as food, I feel I will die without it, similarly when I act out, I do it because I feel it's the only way, and I don't know how to exist without it.

I'm recovery I learn that food is something I truly need to exist, and porn and masturbation is not. Granted I'm currently married, so you can make the argument that I do have a form of release occasionally. I dont have a response to that. Bit I do know, even during my marriage when I act out, it feels the same as when I was a bachelor. I need to do this or else...

Granted this may not be everyones experience, but it is mine and seems to be many others.

concernedjew21 wrote on 04 Mar 2021 15:45:

Wow. I think that's the first time I've ever been compared to Rav Moshe Feinstein. No words.

bego wrote on 04 Mar 2021 15:05:

Don't worry, no guilt.
I would have done it again last night, but I fell asleep.