Shalom,

I have been working on recovery for over 4 years.  My addiction began as a early teenager with the discovery of my father's stash of "men's magazines". Over the next 35 years my addiction continued.  Sometimes it waned and other times it waxed.  Most of my life I was a binge user.  But later I became deeper ensnared.  I experienced all the things we know come from the addiction: the struggles, guilt, remorse, prayers to end it, hopes that spring forth-only to be dashed again. Finally I had "enough".  I decided to start therapy because I finally admitted that I was an addict and needed help.  That's when my poor wife discovered my "problem" because of the cash withdrawals during my last binge.  You see, I had hid my addiction well.  I confessed to her my shame.  Although it tore her apart, she forgave me, even though I certainly didn't deserve it.  There have been struggles since then.  But I have worked hard on recovery.  I did go to therapy (with a psychiatrist).  It helped me tremendously.  I have also worked hard in recovery, mostly at another recovery site.  (I'm not sure of the rules here so I won't post a link to that site unless I know that is permitted)

Although I am Jewish by birth I was raised in a Christian home. Most of my life I was a practicing Christian.  I did not even know that I was Jewish until I was an adult.  About twelve years ago I decided that the question was too important to ignore, so I studied what Judaism really was.  After my studies, and many struggles, I came to the conclusion that Christianity was something I could no longer accept.  I turned to Judaism and became ba'al teshuvah.  My wife is an agnostic, formerly Lutheran.  But she fully supports my practice of Judaism.  I'm not very frum, but I try as best I can.

I have gone as long as about a year and half without acting out with P or Mb.  I had a recent slip 22 days ago.  But I am back at a good place and fully expect to surpass my previous personal record.  I have over 1000 days total without acting out ignoring the few slips I've had.

I am very happy to have found this site.  I have longed for a Jewish site like this one to deal with this addiction.  I found it via a link on a news web site.

My new affirmation is, "אני תמיד צנוע, ואני אף פעם לא להשתמש פורנוגרפיה או לאונן עכשיו"

Welcome, 1dayatatime !

I'm also pretty new here. I'm sure you'll get the official welcome soon with all the tips for a new user.

I'm impressed with your story and the amount of time you've stayed "sober" !

Wow. You are truly incredible.

Not sure what to say, other than the fact that I'm truly moved - you sound like an amazing person, and I'm honored to be here, sharing this forum with you!

Sounds like you've got a great start - stick with us, and let us learn from you! We all grow together, here!

Hello, i would suggest posting as much as possible when you can about anything that bothers you or even tips for others im my short time here that has helped me by far the most!

Wow!!!

Gevaldiggggggg

I'm amazed on ur battle n even more of ur recovery, u must be a very strong man and I'm sure we will be here as a big help for u, just browse around and see what others have gone through and failed and started again, this is what makes us stronger than we can even imagine,
Btw at which site did u find us, just curios
Tnx

jewinpain wrote on 24 Mar 2010 14:20:

I found a banner ad at this site, www.israelnationalnews.com/

Woe! Guard must be busy with advertising us all over the world, just noticed there is a banner on VIN too
Keep it up guard

Dear 1dayatatime,

I am the admin of this forum. I love your name. Welcome to our community!

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.

On GYE you will learn how to "hit bottom while still on top". Don't wait for the addiction to destroy your life. See this page.

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. Glad your on board. LOL. Make sure to have a lichaim!

Hope you have a great yom tov!

For me, one of the things that helped me grow a lot was writing about my battles, the things I realized about myself, my thoughts, my difficulties, etc. Being able to open up helped tremendously. Maybe it'll help you, too!