Well, here I go.  I am sure my story is similar to many others but it is great to get it off my chest and to get support from the group here.

The earliest I can remember my "addiction" starting was when I was an early teenager and we just got internet in the house.  I don't remember how often I went to inappropriate websites, but it was probably once or twice a month, though it could have been more or less frequent at times. It continued throughout high school like this.  I felt terrible about it, especially wet dreams (I had never spilled seed) but once I started it became a hobby.  I thought I had finally solved the issue when I went to Israel for a year, but found myself "falling" when I was able to access a private computer.  Then in college, when I got my own computer, it got worse.  I was going to inappropriate websites once or twice a week. I knew a few friends were also looking at things they should not have, but it was too embarrassing to talk about.  

That behavior was status quo for a few years until I met my future wife.  Everything stopped.  There were no slips or falls. That lasted over a year, through our dating and early marriage. Then after about 6 months of marriage, I was going through stressful final exams in graduate school and "fell".  I remember saying to myself "What are you doing?"  Needless to say, I was extremely distracted, got bad grades and ruined any chance at a high paying job.  After that happened, things just got worse and worse.  I intentionally spilled seed for the first time and then over and over and over throughout the next year.  I tried to stop.  I made myself a daily checklist (similar to the 90 day one at the site) which I hung by my bed and gave myself grades every day (the chart had several columns, one for this, for davening with a minyan, being good to my wife..).  Of course I didn't label the columns so my wife knew I was working on myself, but no clue on what.  Finally after about a year I felt so guilty that I just came clean to my wife.  Told her everything (except the sites I went to) and wanted her help.  She was devastated, as she should have been. She couldn't understand why.  After all, wasn't she attractive enough...  

Telling her helped.  She would ask me every night how I did and for a few months I was fine.  But after maybe 4 or 5 months I told her to stop asking.  I was so embarrassed every time she asked. And of course, I "slipped", I "fell" and on and on.  Over the last 3 years I would go into the same cycle over and over.  I would be good for a few days, then succumb to my yetzer hora and "fall". And say to myself all the lines: "this is the last time", "why", "stop!", "what are you doing", "i hate myself"...  Over the past year, the pattern pretty much became once (sometimes twice) a week I would have bad thoughts and couldn't control myself, and once a month go to mature websites.  But that once a month was so powerful.  Even after I cooled off, I would be right back there two or three times.  And I hated it.

My goal has always been one month at a time on the Hebrew calendar.  I don't know the last time I reached my goal.  It seems like every time rosh chodesh comes around, with in one or two days I am overcome with an urge either with bad thoughts or mature websites. And then I need almost 2 full months to reach my goal.  

Two months ago I restarted an effort to control myself by keeping a calendar by my bed and marking it off every night with a check X or double X. It helped for a week, but after the first X day, the next one was a week away and it didnt help.  Only once did I make it 2 clean weeks straight over the last few months.  

2 weeks ago, I decided to search for sex addiction help.  I found jewishsexuality.com.  I read for a few hours and was excited to see a pornaholics anonymous group.  It was there that I saw a link to this site.  I watched a video on jewishsexuality.com (since taken down but called "The seal of Truth" and can be found here- video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7332930594849349840&hl=en#) which scared the heck out of me.  In the video, the speaker had a near-death experience and gave vivid details about his trial in Heaven.  Wow.  It was extremely powerful.  I was crying knowing my behavior had to stop. [side note: whether the video is true or not, I don't care.  The fact is, whether all the details are correct or not, it doesn't matter. That is what happens.]  I then came to this site and read for hours.  The support here is unbelievable.

I am 15 days clean, but I haven't been tested.  I have been in similar situations to when I have been tested in the past, but no urges.  Nothing.  It's a good thing, but I know I will be tested in the future.  I hope to pass, and know I will overcome this.  I am grateful for this site for providing me a forum to air my story, for the support, and hopefully for the chance to help others.

As for when I tell my wife again, I don't know.  I want to take this one day at a time, and finally reach my 1 month goal.  The 2 months.. Then Big goal of going Rosh Hashana to Rosh Hashana.  

Wish me luck!

Nateyde, my new Holy Brother,

Welcome. Take off your coat & stay awhile. Take a plate & nab some Sushi. You're gonna LOVE IT here. i'm lucky enought to be up now & notice your first post, but believe me, the folks here are gonna come out of the woodwork when they see you've arrived. We're gonna grab you and not let go. You're gonna get so much chizuk and support it's gonna ooze outa yo' kishkas.

Uh, hope that wasn't too graphic for you....

You're not alone. We've all gone thru the white-knuckle days, some more often than others. And we are all here for you.

I can tell from your story -  and what a story it is! - that you have an amazing inner strength, just waiting to get proven to yourself. Hashem has answered your tefillos and brought you to this site, the one place on earth that is filled with friends that are going to help you acheive FREEDOM from the urge to lust. Do you have a teivah to turn on a light switch on Shabbos? No? That's because it is beneath yur "bechira point" as Rav Dessler would say. Would you beleive me if i told you that you can get to a place where the Urge to Lust and Act Out would fall back beneath your bechira point just like those other aveiros that don't even touch you? It's TRUE!! THAT"S the FREEDOM we're talking about.

So hang in there, look around more and more over the threads of the holy warriors on this forum. Check out the handbooks and other beautiful info off the main page. And call out to us in your post or on others when you need us. Since we're international, there's bound to be someone up at almost any hour!

More & more later,

Your new friend,

Steve.

Wow.
Here I am up at this late hour sitting at my computer feeling my defenses slowly falling around me. I figured, what the heck, I'll take one last peek at GUE to see if that can help. You literally just saved me - as I'm now gonna call it a night as soon as I finish this post. I'm working on my 8th clean day. Thanks!!!! you couldn't have posted at a better time. Good Luck!!!

see what i mean?

Welcome home, Nateyde, welcome home....

Truly inspiring story. What you will soon realise (if you haven't already) is that you are not alone and we, the people of this holy online community, know your struggle and are here to support you all the way.

Dear noteyde,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Another holy Jew struggling with the impossible tests of our generation!

Once you've arrived here, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

15 days is a great start. Keep up the good work! Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here...

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best - and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"... See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information...

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps - which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

Dear Nateyde,

Welcome to this forum! We are so happy you joined! I read your post, and I really feel your pain, I'm in a very similar situation, and I can relate to you vivid descriptions of your battle, as can most of us here. B"H Ever since I've been here, I've been much stronger and I'm not at day 23!!! It was all one day at a time, and I'm sure you can do it too...

So take off your shoes, throw your feet up on the table, grab a shot of Basil H, and post away! We are all here for you my brother!!

Welcome nateyde. Youve come to the right place. its almost shabbos by me so im gonna hve to go. But check around this site. theres so much to be lerned here.

Dear Nateyde,

Welcome to GYE!  From your post, it sounds like you would benefit greatly by attending Duvid Chaim's 12-step phone group (M-Th, 12:00-1:00 EST).  A new group will, IY"H, be starting in February.  More details will, no doubt, be posted in the forum and in Guard's Chizuk e-mails.

Have a wonderful Shabbos, and Hatzlacha!

HAVE A GREAT AND GLORIOUS SHABBOS!!

and if you don't see this tILL tomorrow nite, then let me be the foist to vinch you

A GUTTE VOCHE!!!

Welcome to the forum.  It's like going to a home you feel very comfortable in.  Have a great shabbos and we are all here for you.

NATE the Great!!

Thank you everyone for posting!  A HUGE smile came across my face when reading the posts.  Everyone is so warm and friendly.  It feels great to know I have support from other people.

I have a lot to do, and a lot to read on this site.  The Handbook has been extremely helpful, and the Attitude Handbook is great so far (only 1 chapter in).

Thank you everyone!

I'll keep you updated on my progress:  17 days!

17 days of Sunshine!!! Nothin like it!!

KUTGW!!!

17 That's awesome!
Your off to a great start, just make sure you keep at those handbooks.
My mistake was to read them once and think that was enough.
By the way, I can't see your name on the chart.... are you signed up on it?