.

Wow 3 months clean!!! Thats awesome. Hirhurim is something which take stime. We need to come up with techniques to deal with them when they come and as time goes on it will get easier and easier. Hatzlacha in everything. wishing you the best!!

Oh btw i forgot to welcome you!




WELCOME

Dear Return2Hashem,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

3 months is a great start. Keep up the good work! As far as your question as to what constitutes an addiction, as Rabbi Twerski once asked someone who asked your question, "if you're not an addict, why don't you just stop doing it?" In other words, you may not be addicted to pornography, but to masturbation may be a different story. But 3 months is a very strong start! 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...

As far as battling "hirurim", see this page for some great tips and advice (read from top to bottom).

Make sure to install a strong filter in your computer, if you have one. 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...

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.

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!

i


Don't eat yourself up about the hirhurim. This is part of our struggle,and they do not at all come to define who we are.

I saw in many seforim, that these hirhurim come to us from shamayim, and they are a means for us to do tshuva. When the thought comes, and we Push It Away, this is the tshuva, and by doing this we are repairing our neshomos.  We can get these hirhurim for many years. It depends upon the person, and their tikun. BUT, do not ever let them depress you, because this is NOT the purpose. The purpose is to turn away from, and gently push them out. By not delving into them, you are advancing. So, they are really for our good, if we "use" them properly. Or, better to say if we "lose" them properly.

R2H: Welcome, from another newbie to the site. 

In my view, the fact that you see some room for improvements where lust is concerned, means that you want to make those improvements, which means that you WILL be making improvements BE'H, and that you deserve to have some support, insights etc from folks doing equivalent work.  You've found the place.

I say equivalent and not the same, because I'm certain that not everyone on the site is facing quite the same nisyonos.  Hashem gave us each our own.  (I'll be able to add "B'H" to that once I see the perfection and beauty in each nisayon that He's given me; I'm still working on that :-> .)

Some folks here have a total, anaphylactic allergy to porn. Others face temptations in touching themselves or others, R"L. You can read my own soap opera or those of other newbies in the Introduce Yourself section if you want a clearer picture.

So what's my point?  I just want to say that while I find my own challenges to be a little outside the mainstream of the conversation here, I still find this an excellent place for a good frum Jew working on troubling areas like guarding our eyes, bris, etc.  Somewhere on the site and in the forums I expect you'll find plenty to help you in the journey. (And by the way, I've found that many oldtimers on the site are helpful with a private message, when things get too heavy, or intimiate, or whatever, for a public post.)

B'hazlacha.

Return,
I can relate , as we all can. I used to get thoughts while I was driving, what would it be like to swurve my car under a truck.? Rav Avigdor Miller, himself said,"Did you ever get the urge to kill yourself? That's the Yetzer Hara entering your mind" Same thing over here. I just felt myself slipping 10 minutes ago, had to stop, came onto GYE, started writing (which is tyring and time consuming) and B'H , it'll be good. Just move on and don't sit idle.
Penitent

R2H,

Welcome. You have definitely come to the right place for a lot of insight and chizuk.

One of the things I have learned from myself and others is that one of the YH's many tactics is to get us down about ourselves, which can be a lot heavier and more difficult to deal with than something I might have done or thought.

B'hatzlacha raba!

Sturggle

Wow!! What great responses!! I just want to add, that as long as we have room for improvement why not take advantage. And thats why im so impressed. Although youv got past the hard part of this addiction your still looking to improve in the other areas as well! Kol hakavod!!

feedback:

Givaldik; may you be zoche to continued progress in this area.

advice:

Because you specifically compalined about two different times, which I find challenging as well,
I will suggest the following:

1.) Before going to sleep review your torah learning and raise questions on what you have learned. If thats still not working, "cram" in an entire daf rapidly (~20 minutes) just before sleep and "count" how many details you can remember just before you fall asleep.  If you wake up repeat the game and count the details.

2.) Use the showers at the mikva.  If thats not possible, set a timer and try and take a shower as rapidly possible. 
It always bothered me that I am not supposed to think torah thoughts in the shower... so try and bog your mind with
financial kinds of things.

Reb Return - welcome! Great to have you hear! Your past successes are something to be truly proud of - I hope you realize how happy you've made hashem!

Join with us here, and let us watch you grow even more!

I'm sure that Briut thought long and carefully before marrying...and not always is marriage the solution, I think. But I'm no expert!

Mikva is a big tikkun, but the first step has to be stopping, getting clean - otherwise, you're jumping into the mikvah still holding your own personal little sheretz!

Absolutely - if you're going to sleep and avoiding aveiros, I would think that's a tremendous mitzva!

How are things going in general?

I only have a minute now, and will try to add more later, but I basically want to say:
1) I can't imagine how I'm any kind of hero to anyone -- I'm just a simple Yid trying to figure out the next step in life;
2) marriage is definitely definitely definitely not the answer to any problems.  Fer SURE not SSA issues.  Too many women have been burned big time by some (well-meaning???) Rosh Yeshiva thinking this would "cure" his talmid.
3) I'll try to speak more, later, to the issue of how this all falls together in my own life.  If you're interested....

R2H. Not much to add seems like your doing great and getting chizuk from some really good people. So i just wanted to stop y and say good shabbos and much hatzlacha!

Return2Hashem wrote on 04 Feb 2010 20:41:


Okay, lemme take another quick minute before Shabbos to check in again.  I'm still confused over which part of my story, struggles, etc might seem heroic to you.  Perhaps you should fill me in. I'm going to assume, though, it's the 'courage' to marry even in the face of some serious gay tendencies. 

That struggle is not the one between gay and straight, but really the struggle between an attraction to men and an attraction to HKB'H.  People quote so much Torah to say that you can't have both, but I take another view. A good Jew will HAVE to feel close to HKBH; that shouldn't ever have to be the sacrifice.  The question is how to combine, on top of that, the thoughts & orientation that He has given.

The thought that certain Jews can't enter a shul or keep Shabbos or whatever just because of other thoughts they have strikes me as antithetical to Torah.  Jews have to do what they are able to do in serving Hashem. Period. I'd see a SSA issue (whether or not those thoughts become actions!!) as a similar category to folks who hunt animals, speak L'H, or cheat on their spouses, or whatever -- these folks aren't quite at all 613 yet, but they're certainly still chayev the mitzvot they're ready to do. It's not whether a Jew is allowed to be a homosexual, it's whether a homosexual still has to work on being a good Jew. (Yes, my rabbaim still allowed me to have aliyos, even in somewhat surprising circumstances.)

(And please don't anyone jump in with, "gay feelings are due to overbearing mother and absent father blah blah blah and therefore fixable" - this stuff is just way more complex than a simple environmental cause.!)

Another point on the issue of marriage as "curing" sexual issues (homosexuality or anything else).  I wish I could make a paid career out of fighting this one.  My situation was unusual, unique, custom-tailored for me, and from G-d's hand.  (And I won't say whether it was easy or hard, because that's irrelevant.) Other people will have their own issues and own solutions. I can say, though, that as a general rule a husband and wife should know each other and understand each other and accept each other BEFORE they get married.  (Duh!!)  If there are secrets, or if one partner doesn't understand the implications, or if there's pressure to overlook things, that's never good.  And when it's in the area of intimacy, well, it's just a time bomb.

I cry my heart out for the women who've been deceived into marriage without knowing the whole story, with the guy (& perhaps even a Rosh Yeshiva) hoping marriage would "change" him. When I started dating my wife, I had been busy placing personals ads for GUYS as life partners; the turn of events was only possible through self-disclosure at every turn (as well as Yad Hashem).  We've got a wonderful life together and I'm grateful for every day, but my joy does not mean I'd recommend it for everyone or even anyone.  (And no, it has not been 100% easy -- just see my last post on "Introducing Yourself"; nothing is.)

G-d has his own formula custom-designed for us.  I'm just suggesting that G-d's custom plan for us should not be on "someone else's cheshbon" (namely a spouse).

It sounds like you're doing fine in some sincere attempts to get your animal soul under control while still young and before bringing unnecessary baggage into a marriage.  Good for you!  May every effort you invest in this process now be paid off 1000-fold in the bayis ne'eman b'yisroel that you'll be establishing b'shaah tova umitzlachas - it's a GREAT investment.  Keep going from strength to strength.  - Briut

Keep on rocking, and have a great week!