Dear GYE community,
I know I posted in a different post a tiny bit about myself, but I wanted to introduce myself here on this forum with a little more length.

With the tremendous help of Hashem and this wonderful website and its members, I have made it to 90 days. I had tears in my eyes when I clicked the "I'm still clean" button and saw that I made it to 90 days.

A little about me:
I went to public schools my whole life. Everyone around me my whole life told me everything was הפקר. I was surrounded and bombarded by the worst of the worst. At some point, I was exposed to Torah, and I decided I wanted to live a life of halacha. When I found out that watching shmutz was אסור, I was [miraculously] able to stop cold turkey. I said to myself, if it's prohibited, I won't do it. However, even with time, I was unable to stop the הוצאת זרע לבטלה aspect of this sugya. This pained me greatly. My will power was unable to conquer this battle. I felt like my tshuva was incomplete. No matter how many rabbis I spoke with nor how many books on the topic I read, I was unable to win the battle.

This Rosh Hashana, I decided with total commitment that I am not going to die before doing tshuva shleima and that now is the time because I don't know how long my life will be. I signed up on GYE and told myself, "I'm going to do it; I'm going to finally do tshuva shleima". Today I made it to 90 days, and I'm going for a lifetime, one day at a time.

I want to say a few points here about how I made it through the 90 days despite many near falls. These are some of the things that I know helped me, in no particular order:
1. I stopped thinking of this issue as principally a spiritual problem, but rather principally as a medical problem, i.e., addiction. This helped me to not feel eternally doomed and sad, but rather like someone who had a medical problem that could be treated. This transition in mindset was inspired by reading Dr. Twerksy's book Addictive Thinking, which I highly recommend. In that book, he describes an alcoholic who called him at 2 am saying he desperately needed a drink. Dr. Twersky relates that at that moment, he understood that only an addict can understand an addict's thinking. This is one of the many tremendous things this site provides—understanding from others who are in the battle.

2. This one is huge: I read someone's post here on GYE's that winning this battle is two fold. You obviously have to stop looking at immorality. He went on to say though that you also have to stop fantasizing. What I didn't realize until I read his post is that the yetzer hara always made the latter seem 100% muttar to me. I am confident that this is why it took my so many years to get clean. You simply have to shecht the fantasies by diverting your mind immediately. Do not repress. Divert. Just start thinking about other things.

3. Daven. Daven. Daven. If you're not davening to be disgusted by violations of רצון ה׳, how do you ever expect to be disgusted by violations of רצון ה׳?  I began davening a minimum of three times a day to desire nothing in the world but to do רצון ה׳, and to be absolutely disgusted by even the thought of violating רצון ה׳.

4. Guard your eyes in public. I trained myself to instantly close my eyes upon seeing any shmutz in public. This is quicker than turning the head.

5. Immerse yourself in the halachos of these topics. Every night for many weeks I would chazer right before going to bed the Tur and Beis Yosef on the issur of הוצאת זרע לבטלה.
Chazon Ish זצ״ל says that you cannot succeed in keeping a certain halacha when push comes to shove and it's difficult if you haven't immersed yourself in all its fine details for many hours and with great effort. I would focus on each word of the Tur, Beis Yosef, and Shulchan Aruch, saying them slowly to myself. Ingrain the prohibitions deeply within yourself. Develop a LOVE and FEAR of the halacha.

6. Make good friends and good chavrusos.

7. >30 minutes of high intensity cardiac exercise at least 4 times a week. This helps blow off a lot of steam.

8. Daven. I'm telling you, you have to daven. This is an impossible battle without siyata dishmaya.

9. Don't ever think that because it's hard and uncomfortable that you should give up. Nothing that is worth doing is easy. Nothing. Be willing to fight to do what's right even though it hurts.

Thank you to all who post on GYE. I would not be where I am today without your inspiration.