Help,I feel my entire life crumbling apart.The consequences of my addiction to my life leave me feeling paralyzed.I lost all the good
G-d gave me because of my stubborn behavior and now I feel lonely and deppresed. What do I do now?         

Dear  lonelyid,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! You won't ever be lonely again.

The addiction makes us all feel our lives are falling apart... Partly because our lives ARE falling apart!  But now that you have arrived here, there is hope for you! Read through the many stories on our site and see how others in your situation succeeded to break free!

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...

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!

Where there is life there is hope

You are alive

Your mind still works

No matter how upset you are You still have the faculties to express your pain

I know that is not the happiest thing in the world

But imagine if you couldn't

In Yiddishkite there is no such thing as all is lost

Start now!!

Get on the truck!!

Baby steps is good !!

Stay here

Resolve to post and and verbalize what u are feeling

Stay here at least 90 days

Haba litaher misayin oso!!!

Gevaldiggggg!!!

Bards

Lonelyid, my new holy brother,

Guess what? YOU'VE FOUND THE GLUE!!

AND YOU THOUGHT "G" STOOD FOR "GUARD" !!!    ;D

I dont mean you should glue your eyes. That's silly.

I meant that THIS HERE COMMUNITY is the GLUE that will hold your world together.

HOW?

Thru the simple yet profound knowledge that

YOU ARE NO LONGER ALONE!!

We are all here for you! Hang in there. READ READ READ.POST POST POST.

There is so much chizuk on this site already, and thanx to you, we are all going to grow together and find TRUE FREEDOM from this lust addiction, and eventually TRUE JOY AND HAPPINESS with our lives.

More later, but meanwhile just look at my thread and anyone elses to see where we came from and where we are now. Read those handbooks, and start BELIEVING in yourself - you're gonna make it, and YOU'RE GONNA BE GEVALDIG!!

You ask, "what do I do now?"...... 

Start a new beginning. We can see in nature, so many things that we can learn from. Did you ever see what a snake does. (not referring to the y"h),
    He completely sheds his outer covering to reveal a new one. Once you find yourself in a bad place.....leave. You are not obligated to stay in "this" place. Don't try to work within this place, but rather....leave it, and go to a new one.

Now, leave all of your depression, and anxiety. This is the first step. And, after doing this you will find the strength to move veiter.

lonelyid wrote on 09 Mar 2010 07:31:


post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post... post...

get the idea?

Oh, and another thing...

post...

First of all, welcome, Reb Lonely Yid - you may have been lonely before, but please realize that we're all here for you!

Can I ask what the consequences of your addiction have been?

Baruch Hashem!

incredible!

Did you know that a seed only begins to grow once it starts to decay.
That is how the world was built - something from nothing.

imagine if you were an acorn - -

you are in the ground, and starting to decay...

you are neither a tree nor an acorn any more.

time to decide whether you want to fullfill your role - and become a big oak tree or not.

All growth starts from a sense of decay.

Decide to GROW!!!
and you will!

Dov In Israel

Welcome Reb Lonelyid!

Just the fact that you have arrived at this forum shows that your mind is on the right path. This my friend is the place of healing and growth. If you stick with the Chevra over here, you will not regret it ever. I am relatively new here and I can tell you that posting and opening myself up to the Chevre over here has helped me so much.

[quote="silentbattle" link=topic=1943.msg57377#msg57377 date=1268240864]
First of all, welcome, Reb Lonely Yid - you may have been lonely before, but please realize that we're all here for you!

Can I ask what the consequences of your addiction have been?

silentbattle wrote on 10 Mar 2010 17:07:

Thanks for your reply,you asked me what the consequences of my addiction have been.They are very delicate issues involving marriage and divorce.I don't know your maritial status and your age so I don't know if you can help me.In fact I don't know if anyone can help me.Please reply and tell me what you think.

hi -

If I can help - or just to provide a listening/understanding ear let me know.

Married.

previously divorced.

been there.
done it.
got through it.

Found Recovery.
Found Freedom.

Dv in e (DovInIsrael)

You'll be surprised how many of us are in the same boat.  Browse this site, read all the stories.

And, even if other people don't seem as bad off as you, and addict is an addict.  The common denominator is we've lost control.  Often, the roots of a "milder" addiction are the same as for a more serious one.

Stick around here, read the handbooks.  POST POST POST.

And lots of luck to you.

I feel for you. I imagine your pain is great.

Maybe get in touch with Elya. His wife is the moderator of the wives of addicts forum. They might be able to make some suggestions if the situation can still be improved. Here is a link for his page
www.guardyoureyes.org/?page_id=671

wow!

check this out -

in teh midst of your name: lonelyid (if you recall anything from math class)

is ..

The Absolute ONE ...

neat, huh?
in the midst of all the darkness - HaShem's spark stands out.

Like a coal - al you need to do is to fan that spark and turn it into something nice and warming for your neshama.