This is my first post.
I've been on GYE for 3 months and I'm BE"H 62 days clean. First time in many many years.
I've read lots of posts on the forum and watched F2F. Wanted to introduce myself and join the Chusheva Olam on GYE.
With tears in my eyes - GYE HAS SAVED MY LIFE. I have never felt this great in my life before.

First heard of GYE when I saw a fundraising ad video the day after Rosh Hashana. Thank you Hashem!
To say the least.. I was surprised there are other people struggling with looking at pornography and masturbation. I was always under the false assumption that only those less in yiddishkeit do this stuff, but  someone like myself who is a 'regular normal guy' - never! I'm the only one.  
Seeing on GYE that so many other regular people struggle in these areas, has provided me with a sense of calmness and makes the fight easier. I now feel my struggles are normal. My urges are normal. We all work hard to control ourselves. I'm not alone.

​I'm married with children B"H. I'm a respected Ben Torah in my community. I B"H have a parnasa and a 'klei kodesh' position which people look up to. I struggled with my urges, porn and masturbation for many years since I was a young child. Throughout the years, a majority of the time I had no easy access to the internet, so my falls were limited to urges from seeing provocative frum women and masturbation. However, once I went to work and had easy access to the internet, I fell many many times, watching porn and masturbating. There were different tekufos of having a filter (at times not working for a while and just let it stay that way). For a while already I have a great working filter, but when I have strong urges, I know how to (with hard work) 'find' and 'search' for porn and masturbate. I've never done anything beyond P and M. Was too scared of getting caught.

I'll try posting later what works for me.

Wow! Welcome to the family! Keep posting, you write so beautifully. GYE saved me and tons of others of NORMAL people. Can't wait to see what works for you...keep trucking, my holy friend!

Wow! I could've written that about myself....Being here a bit out of isolation helps, for starters, at least. Keep at it, trying various things until you find a good fit that works for you. Much Hatzlacha!

I fell today after my first ever 193 clean days. I'm embarrassed, feel terrible and can't believe it. I thought I was done with this problem and moved on.
Stress and loneliness lead to this. Not sure how to avoid these.
Any chizuk is appreciated.
I would also love to hear from anyone that reached so far and fell. How they moved passed this.

I saw a post from someone here that was 7 years clean, slipped up, and picked himself right back up, it is an amazing chizuk. Just pick yourself up and keep on moving, view it as a slip and go vayter. If you keep going strong, in the long run you'll be ok. Its absolutely amazing that you've done such a good job so far. A way to stay in control could be to post here regularly, that's what I've been doing, even if I don't feel such a struggle, it keeps some watchfulness in the back of my mind. Another thing to do is to read a little from a book/sefer that's mechazeik in this inyan. You could read The Battle of the Generation, that's what I've been reading.

I look forward to hearing of more success! Hatzlacha rabba, and let me know if you need anything!

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your fall, I can only imagine the pain. I have had 175 clean days and fell....i haven't reached that number again yet bit I didnt give up. I'm at 47 clean days now.
You sound like a phenomenal person. Stay strong. You wrote that stress and loneliness caused your fall, I dont have a solution for relieving stress but when you feel lonely you know where you come....? right? GYE  Write whats bothering and how its effecting your challenges, its a great reliever and you might get some chizuk too.

stay strong my friend. We are all human that have ups and downs, its okay to have a 'down' as long as we learn from it.

Hi and welcome. All of us here have experienced that awful feeling of falling after a having a period of success. I would like to share with you a thought that I posted on my thread but it relates to your question of how to move on and continue past this. 

There is a famous letter from Rav Hutner Zt"l to a struggling Bochur, a Talmid of his, where he gives him tremendous Chizuk. The entire letter is a gold mine of good advice and Hashkofas Hatorah and I have received a tremendous boost from reading it over and over throughout the years, but there is one line in that letter that I thought of recently. 

He quotes the famous Passuk "שבע יפול צדיק וקם" and he says that the foolish person thinks that what this means is that a tzaddik is someone who, despite falling numerous times, still gets up from the fall and continues onward. However, the wise person knows that what this really means is that the Tzaddik gets up BECAUSE OF his numerous falls, not in spite of them, meaning that the Tzaddik's struggles, his battles, and yes, even his falls, are all part of what has made him great. He has reached the level that he reached because of all the struggles he has gone through and at the end he has emerged victorious. (I am not doing justice to his words, I think it's really worthwhile to see it inside. Besides for the content, he also writes so beautifully). 

The reason that I thought of this now is because I see so many heilige people here who are chronicling their stories, and inevitably that includes not just their successes but also sometimes their falls and I wonder to myself, how do they do it? How does someone post that he just fell after 20, 30, 50, 100, days but they are starting over again and are committed to keep going, keep trying, (or keep trucking, as R' Eerie likes to say). I myself don't know if I would be able to do that. But the answer is that these Tzaddikim seem to understand what Rav Hutner was telling his Talmid. That the fall is just another step on the journey, another road on the path leading to their greatness. They're not getting up despite their fall, but rather because of it.   

If you want to see the full letter inside I have posted it on my thread (there's a link in my signature).
I wish you all the best and I hope to see you posting more. We're all rooting for you!

My dear friend, first of all, remember that all those 193 holy, shining, beautiful days are still yours! They did not disappear, they are not lost, they are yours forever and ever! You have changed dramatically in that you have exercised so much self-control over the last more than half a year. You have not lost any of that! All that happened is that you fell. I know, it hurts to be reminded that we have a YH, and we should all remember that he's not retiring until the day he'll be geshochtin by HKBH when Moshiach comes. I'm sorry my friend, remember that all you have acquired is still yours. As far as the loneliness, that hurts terribly. But there's no need to stay that way! Reach out to some of the good people here and make a few good friends, friends that will be there for you to make sure you don't fall, and to help you stand back up when you do. All you have to do is stretch out your arm

193 out of 194 is 99.5%. For more than half a year you have a 99.5% success rate. That is pretty amazing!! As your title indicates,  you are "on the road to recovery" sounds to me like a pretty good road to long term success. 

I am so sorry Jackb. It takes courage to come and admit that. In some ways it would be easier to just slip away from the forum and not tell anyone. Hatzlacha getting right back up!

Stress and loneliness are a major factor for me too. But I think that 'Stress and loneliness lead to this' could be rephrased to 'stress and loneliness lead to me desiring this.' Some foolish part of us believes that p&m is a solution to stress and loneliness, even though we know full well that the relief we will feel is extremely temporary, and the stress and loneliness will return even stronger afterwards, probably as soon as we're done.

I find it helpful to clarify for myself when I am not having any sort of urge that I do have these feelings of stress and loneliness. And that at some point it is likely that I will have an urge, and a voice inside will be whispering to me, "this will relieve your loneliness. this will make you feel loved." And to plan that when that does happen, I will speak to myself compassionately and say, "SimchasTorah, I am sorry you feel lonely and stressed. But doing this is really not going to help. Even though right at this moment it seems like it will. But remember all the times you tried to deal with your pain this way? How did it end up then?"

It may also be helpful to plan in advance for how to respond to stress and loneliness before it even triggers an urge. As soon as you start to feel those feelings you could remind yourself, "I am feeling lonely and it is likely that I will get an urge." And then when that slimy salesman the y'h shows up knocking at your door you'll say, "heeeey wait a second. i recognize you..." 

Jackb wrote on 08 May 2023 20:20:

Hey Jackb, check out Appendix A in The Battle of the Generation. It will pick you up! (Link below in my signature.)

My heart goes out to you, it must not be easy trying to keep your Kedusha v’tehara and then falling. I’ve never come close to that many days clean. I look at this and say to myself that one day I hope to go so many days clean. The satton benefits more from people falling into a depression from a aviera than from the act itself because he has the most control over you so he makes people sin just to make them feel bad. Smile and keep on going. Please give us constant updates for the next whole so we can learn and grow from it.

Jackb wrote on 08 May 2023 20:20:

193 clean days ... amazing! how are you celebrating that? 

Jackb wrote on 08 May 2023 20:20:

That's rough. Beyond rough. Hell is the proper term.

Commiseration for now, and brackets for when you are ready for them.

It's hard. It hurts. Alot.

It's hard to see your hard work on a streak dissappear.

[Did it? Was the streak or the clean days the goal?]

It's hard to see how you will ever overcome these sexual struggles completely.

[Is that the only goal?]

It's hard to see past this fall and tear out of the pleasure it gave you.

[Hard, yet still very doable]

If these questions and frustrations are racing through your mind, as it does by me, ignore them. Tear yourself away for 3 days. 3 more days of being clean, then give them attention and revisit those questions.

I can't resist a tiny bit of unbracketed chizzuk. 193! That's amazing!

Sorry to hear. I've been there. It means you still have a purpose in life, still have bechira. Still can win over your challenges!

Sorry about the loneliness.