Hi I've been getting GYE emails for a while now and I'm on the 90 chart, but I feel that I need to start talking about my issue and get whatever response and support I can.
Basically I started masturbating since around Purim time 2007. Until today I have been unable to stop myself. I recently got married and I'll admit that it is easier when my wife is available to me, but it's not a for sure thing and sometimes if I'm feeling down or depressed I just can't stop myself.
Another thing is that I currently have a lot of free time on my hands by myself at home, and my job involves me doing  research online and quite often I will come to a site with an untzniusdiz picture on it. Usually when I'm on my own time surfing this is not an issue for me as I've done a good job training myself to quickly close the page when unwanted images appear, but when I'm working I have to stay on the site and that extra few seconds can be enough to push me overboard.
Since I started masturbating there have been 2 times that I made it to a month without doing it. One was last year when I was dating my wife, I had the willpower to stop myself, and the other was recently when I was using the 90 day chart. But since then I've had falls and the worst part is that when I do fall, I will most likely fall again in the same day, I don't know what to do to stop myself. I really want to stop but I feel like I can't! When the urge comes it has a hold on me until the deed is finished.
I don't want this to control my life, I know it will eventually start to have a negative impact on my marriage, my job, and eventually my kids. I fell today and 2 hours later I fell again. I have the URL's of these websites ingrained in my head and I don't want them there anymore! I want them out and I want that desire out! Thank G-d it hasn't effected my relationship with my wife (yet) but I know it's only a matter of time before she either catches me at it, finds my soiled underwear or whatever.
I need to gain control of myself anyone want to comment and give me some chizuk and suggestions?

Hey Cleanisrael.

Welcome to the forum and shkoyach for posting.
One great way to start working on this area is to get support.
You have this forum and maybe you can gather some emails and/or phone numbers of guys for support when you're in a time of need. My email address is doreshumevakesh@gmail.com.
This is not an easy area to work on and you get a lot of credit for caring and making an effort.
Have you seen and read the handbooks?
I've found them quite helpful.
Also, one of the most important things in this war against the yetzer hara is to not get down after falls. That is what he wants, because then we find it hard to do anything and we fall again and again.
Chin up and keep on trucking!

Again, welcome!
Looking forward to hearing more from you and about you, as we can all learn from each other.

Dear Cleanisrael,

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!

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.

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!

Welcome CleanYisrael to our community!

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...

Read the handbooks linked above, this is an addiction and you need to learn the tools that work!

cleanisrael wrote on 08 Feb 2010 13:14:


Posting here is an excellent start...

You think you have "free time..." 

Maybe you should make yourself a todo list and a very rigorous schedule. 

A simple start to avoid the clutter of free time, is to dedicate some time reading to reading the manuals and posting here... and then you will have less "free time" and then you will have no time for other things.

mekubal

Welcome to another holy brother!!!

Only your true will to better yourself could of gotten you to post here!

And that says alot.

So keep on posting. There are so many holy people on here just like you ready and willing to lend you a hand when you most need it.

And if you wanna keep in touch you can pm or email me at imtrying25@gmail.com.

Yes im in israel as well. Having people to talk to and bet there for you has helped so many like you!!

Hatzlacha and wishing you all the best!

You've found an outlet that gives you a lot of pleasure. Yet, it doesn't leave you feeling good. It's not something you want to do.

So you're here to free yourself - not limit yourself, but escape to freedom. And you can do it, make no mistake. I've been amazed at what the people here have helped me do!

I'm glad that you've finally decided to open up!

It might help if you figured out when the urges hit, what leads up to it, and how you can avoid it, if possible. Do you only do it when you're on the computer?

Welcome, holy warrior!

Welcome cleanisrael,

Regarding the issue of free time...

I've come to realize that we need to look at free time as a problem to be solved, not an inevitable reality or an entitlement. On a basic level, we are all on Earth to fulfill our mission and every moment can be used to do that. Most people are not on a level where they can be productive all the time, so we need to schedule "down" time. But the whole point of this time is not because we deserve to relax, or that we "earned" it, or that there's nothing to do, but that we just need to do it for the sake of maintaining maximal effectiveness. We need contrasts, and rest.

But if a person has lots of free time on their hands (and this is a problem I have struggled with a lot), that is a sign that that person needs to do a cheshbon and clarify what he is trying to do and how to do it in his life. Once he has done that, he will be able to figure out what he can do in his present circumstance to move closer to where he wants to be. This must be done in an organized fashion, not impulsively. But once a person's goals are clear enough, and he involves himself in things that are useful for those goals, he won't have "free time" anymore and this is a healthy state for a human to be in.

For instance, the chain of thought might be : "I want to be a less selfish person. I need to practice doing things for other people. I remember so and so was looking for someone to do such and such a while ago. Let me find out if they still need someone to do that." You'd be surprised how one thing leads to another and the more you poke around at the world, the more opportunities will come out of the woodwork.

An excellent point, AT, on SO many levels. Thank you for teaching me...

So simple, yet so true....

welcome to the next level. :-)  Posting here will help you achieve your goals at a much faster rate :-)

i'll race u to the finish line
(check out the charts)

How have u been?