my name is yearning and I am yearning to be free from an issue which I have had for 38 years on and off. sometimes I only yearned to yearn and sometimes (most) I yearned. on Feb 8 2010, I joined the chizuk list and I am clean for 30 days! I am amazed at where I am thanks to GuardUrEyes. I have wanted to join the forum , but I do not have internet at home(B"H), and I just have  a small window of time at work( I am a rebbi). thank you for all of your chizuk and it is a very big help knowing that there are others grappling with the same issue and being successful. I wish you all hatzlocho,Yearning

Welcome to the forum, Yearning.

Congratulations on your 30 days clean.

Have you printed up the Guard Your Eyes Handbooks and read through them?

(Someone may be providing a link soon).

Keep up the good work, and I hope to hear more from you.

  --Eye.

Wow! Thank you for joining, and inspiring us - 30 days is an incredible start - keep it up!

Welcome to GYE, and i totally agree with you - we can accomplish things here that we never dreamed we could do! There is a definite power of a tzibur, and this is the holiest group of warriors, all together, fighting this issue!

Keep it up, and stay with us - even if it's only a bit whenever you have a chance, we want to know how you're doing, and what's going on!

Dear Yearning,

May you always keep yearning for Hashem... 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!

30 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...

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 to the club!

We are in it together! We will win it together!

Leta'avah mevakesh nifrod!! Be'achdus na'aseh venatzliach!!

Keep posting. Post the good days! Post the other days! We will support you when the going is easy, and we will prop you up when it gets rough, Ch"V.

There may be slippery spots and you may trip. (You may even fall down, Chas v'sholom) But don't ever think of staying down, get right back up and march along to victory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yearning welcome!!

Wow are you to be commended for your honesty

Don't fret the YH (that's the bad guy thre Yetzer Hara)is an equal opportunity employer

Resolve to stay here
No matter what!!

Gevaldiggggggggg!
Bards

THANKS for all the replies!!I have joined the chizuk emails. There are very helpful.
I read the hebrew sefer that you recommended also.
I have printed out the handbook and attitude guide. I read through the attitude guide so far, and again it is a very big help.
I do not have my own computer, can I install a filter?
also, I feel that while I have gained control over this area, I have lost some control over my eating habits( I am on a low fat cholesterol restricted diet). I am working on regaining control there and also on wasting time late at night, i.e., regaining control of my life.
Thanks for all the chizuk, Yearning

Sounds like you're really going strong - fantastic!

Very often, when we give up one method of acting out, one addiction, we try to fin other things to compensate (instead of just becoming healthy). It's natural - but you can do it! Build yourself up!

From another perspective...being mz"l is like a drug - pleasure, relaxation, etc. Stopping that means that there might be more tension and anxiety that you need to deal with. But that means that you're actually facing and dealing with the issues in your life!

Keep on Trucking!

Lust is usually just a symptom.  Our real problem is something underlying that.  (The catch phrase in Duvid Chaim's 12-step phone group is RID--Restlessness, Irritability, and Discontent).  So, if we try to STOP LUSTING, we'll try to find some other "drug" to cover up our pain.

The key is to look into yourself.  Figure out where your RID is coming from.  In other words, WHAT IS MAKING YOU LUST, OR OVEREAT, OR WHATEVER.  Eliminate THAT and then your need for pain relief will automatically vanish.

I might say that one source of RID, probably the main source, is that we want things to go OUR WAY, but they don't.  We have to come to terms with this--reality DOESN'T GO OUR WAY.  It goes the way Hashem wants it.  So, even when our plans don't work out, really the best thing happened for us that could possibly happen.

I hope this has been helpful.

Shavua Tov,

  --Eye.

Glad to hear about your progress...

yearning wrote on 11 Mar 2010 19:22:


Yes, you can. Have the computer's owner listen to this shiur.

thanks for your support. I try to stay away from the computer unless someone else is with me in my office,but I dont feel comfortable to log into the forum then. catch 22!! any suggestions?

went on trip. I find that going through places  like that( bus depots, airports, rest stops, etc) challenging. I didn't fall, but I still don't have control over making sure not to notice in the first place. I avert my eyes after I notice that there is something to see. BUT why am I looking to start with?? I guess I should applaud myself for looking away and need to work on not reaally wanting to look to start with. YELL at me.THANKS

To a certain extent, wanting to look is natural - the fact that you're even working on this is fantastic!

Shall we yell at you for being human? For having eyes?

Looking away is quite a big accomplishment. Now you gotta work on minimizing the time lapse between noticing it and looking away.

Leave the not looking at all for later.