Hey! Welcome!

I just saw this thread for the first time. Welcome to the club. You mentioned dealing with intrusive thoughts the whole day. I have a question for you, in the beginning when many people join they have a tremendous drive to succeed from the initial inspiration and wow factor of this website. That is great and can be used as a catapult to completely overcoming this issue eventually.

I just want to ask one thing, how are you dealing with these desires, are you trying to squeeze them out of your brain and fight them head-on? To create a long-term solution you must completely revamp and rebuild the way you have been dealing with the urges. Fighting them head-on, also called white-knuckling, can last a while but eventually it gets tiring and it can overpower us. Learning how to successfully deal with desires and urges is the key component to staying clean.

I feel the key is to start understanding that there is nothing wrong with these desires at all. You did not ask for them and weren't given a choice. Yet at the same time we must understand that we do have the ability to say no. No matter how overwhelming or powerful the urge is - it's just a feeling. It may feel like a necessity and something that must be done, but that is not the case. Accepting that it's okay to feel the urge yet at the same time understanding that we do not have to be controlled by the urge is one of the most important steps I learned. To me this is one of the most basic and fundamental elements to beginning to work on these areas.

Hatzlacha! 

Grant400 wrote on 07 Jun 2021 21:06:



Ya... it seems that white knuckling has a bad reputation here but there is one thing that confuses me about 'Riding the wave'...
When it comes to looking at things, I cant look and have to turn away and not take a second glance. But when it comes to an image in the brain I can toy with it and see how it makes me feel etc.
​Is there a difference between a plain urge to act out that doesn't come with specific images which sometimes takes real effort to actualize(that's what usually gets me cuz it usually happens when I'm home alone...) to when there are clear vivid things swirling around?

Riding the wave refers to the urge to lust, not lusting itself. I think. 

Someone else can probably explain it better because I never actually figured the whole riding the wave thing but I think the point is that if we fight an urge it can just get stronger but if we let it pass, it will weaken.

anyone?

So today for example I was in middle of learning and was spacing out for a minute and ended up imagining stuff...
So... what am I supposed to do??? I would usually have just pushed it aside and try  to concentrate on learning again and it would work.
​Am I supposed to let the images just float around until they fade and not push them away?
I feel that it's the same thing with looking at real people... That eventually I break and indulge cuz its just too hard to turn away every time which I guess is the problem with dealing with it that way...

So I guess ​my question is what is the difference between looking and imagining?

I think that @wngu's point is correct, there is usually an urge to think and fantasize, when you start thinking about other stuff, we usually feel a pull to go back, the point is to let the urge there and not push it away, not to let the fantasy there. It's okay to have an urge, but we just dont havto to follow it.
Makes sense?

From what I understand, it seems to be that there are two methods that are being mixed up here. Both are used in SMART recovery. Below I quoted the exact words from the SMART program literature.

Ride the wave — Observe the urge and visualize that you are surfing a wave that grows, crests, weakens, and disappears.

Accept the urge — Recognize that it is uncomfortable and hold it at a distance. Experience it as you would any passing thought. Observe it as an outside object. See it but don’t evaluate it. Acknowledge it as something that used to be a problem, then return your attention to whatever you were doing. Don’t turn the urge into a bigger issue by pretending it doesn’t exist.

The way I understand it is as follows:

Ride the wave,or urge surfing, is a method that helps us understand and keep in mind that the urge will pass just like a wave, therefore we do not have to give in.

Accepting the urge is a method to disengage from the thought not by squeezing it out of our heads, and forcefully replacing it with a different thought, which never works. It will just return with a vengeance. Rather we accept the urge as a thought and nothing more and calmly continue with life...all while letting the urge/thought be there. (See the link "How to function despite lust" in my signature)

gettingthere9 wrote on 08 Jun 2021 20:41:

I think the difference is this. When you look, it's there and won't go away on it's own. The only way is to look away, or to close your eyes. This can be hard however the tools used for urges can be used here too. 

Once you look away or close your eyes, the "need" to look back is really nothing more than an urge, the same one that's in your head sometimes. So, while your turning away, instead of saying, I am a hero, I looked away for three seconds now I can look back because it's too hard, you can try something a little different. You can take a few deep breaths and say Gam zeh ya'avor. It's just an urge, no one ever died from an urge. Take another deep breath and say "Hashem, please help me keep my eyes pure while I do my business and help me get to wherever I need to go safely." 

Sometimes, it's better to close your eyes and sometimes the trick is to find something else to look at. The sky, the ceiling, the trees, anything. 

The trick here is to instinctively look away, but then to realize that you did it, now it's just an urge. 

Hatzlacha!

P.S. This whole method is pointless (in my opinion) when we go out seeking stuff to look at. It really only helps for times when we don't want to see and are stuck. When I go out with the intention of testing my bechirah I always lose. This is why we daven everyday v'lo lidaiy nisayon.

Grant400 wrote on 08 Jun 2021 22:52:

Thanks for explaining. Something I was made aware of is that the wave when accompanied by physical sensations, usualy when brought upon by anxiety, has a physiological expiry on it. The body is limited as to how much of these hormones it can produce to heighten to physical discomfort, be it elevated heart rate sweating etc. Sometimes this discomfort propels us to act out, however knowing that it can't go on forever helps ride the wave.

13 days BH. Almost 2 weeks!!

I don't like talking about my feelings so much... but I do get so much chizuk from reading through the different forums and posts that I associate with and can relate to. ( IMG GRANT MGGSBMS HHM WNGU SAPY DAVID T CORDNOY SNOWFLAKE to name a few. I'm even learning the lingo around here )



Today I had a really hard day emotionally and was really feeling like 'garbage' for a lot of the day and i skipped second seder cuz of it. I had a good excuse but that was the real reason... Just venting...

​Didn't really have any urges to do anything like act out (or pig out either) just to grumble and stare into space. Gam zeh Ya'avor

Thanx everyone for answering me and clarifying the details.

From what I picked up..

1 Its not ok to play around with lusting only the thought to lust

2 When I look away I can say 'I am looking away for my own good cuz I always end up in a bad place when I look' etc.

3 being able to live with the idea that it may always be there but it can be (and has to be) a small thing in the corner and not a focal point

Btw today is really 14 days which is 2 weeks clean. the update thing changes the day at a really weird time (i guess the time i originally started or something) I think that's awesome! (sorry for talking to myself) 
Feeling much better now. (spoke over my situation with some ppl. always good to speak with ppl...)

Congrats on 14 days! Great progress.

I absolutely love the way you came in with an understanding that things need to change in order to succeed in a real way. Continue taking the time to learn new ideas and modify your former understanding of the fight. 

Keep shteiging! 

Hi guys. 
Today I had what I would call the first really hard day since I started posting.
I had a lot of fantisizing and some real urges. BH managed to keep them at bay... (at one point i was listening to a shiur at home alone during lunch and started to space out and my mind began to wander... so I tried focusing but wasnt working so I shut off the shiur and got busy doing stuff around the house as a distraction and it really worked. Sometimes shiurim are bad for you I guess lol...)
I know that there will be hard days, but BH so far it was pretty smooth and was hoping and davening thatit would continue like that... but alas I am still human and a rough day does not mitigate in any way how far i have come up until this point.
I'm posting kind of to remind myself that I will have some rough patches and thats NORMAL. 
Also I feel that before I started here I really may have caved in thinking that its been a while since the last time and its not the end of the world...
Today i told myself
1. I DON'T DO THIS
2. I DONT NEED THIS 
And also, GROWING HIGHER means not being satisfied with where i'm holding but always striving to be better (thats why i'm here) so just because the YH tells me that I already came so far and it's not so bad... 
I told him back sorry not today, today I'm climbing higher.

Beautiful and inspiring post!!

gettingthere9 wrote on 22 Jun 2021 03:35:

I think if people would read this every day (or a few times a day) they would have a much easier time staying clean and growing strong.
THANK YOU!

Ya me too lol...