Dear Dovek,

What happened is not the end of the world, as long as you make sure to learn from it.  And, starting again from day #1 is your chance to have a genuine fresh start.

For starters, your last post is more powerful than any mussar sefer.  Why not carry a copy with you and review it every day (or several times per day)?

Dear Dovek,
as Kedusha said, the most important thing right now is to try and learn from what happened, see where you can put in safeguards to prevent yourself from reaching the point where all logic ceases to work. and even if you did not reach 90 days this time around, you still got a nice chunk. change doesn't happen overnight or over a month. ingrained habits take a lot of effort and time to change. you need to find the right formula that will work for you. but if you give up now you can sure that things won't get better. stay in the fight, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but as long as you have life in you keep on fighting. and bezras Hashem you will get to where you want to be.
hatzlocha
zs

Thank you everyone.

We will see how the next 90 days go. I really hope to be healthy soon. Thank you for the chizuk.

Dovek your honesty is so beautifull.

Have you seen www.jewishsexuality.com?  It has some very powerful articles, especially by Rav Kook.  Not all material is about sexuality but it is very inspiring an useful in combating the yetzer. 

Jewishsexuality.com is a good resource, but some material posted there can be counterproductive and discouraging for the addict, who needs to work on keeping the Halacha according to Shas and Shulchan Aruch, and not concern himself (at least for the time being) with chumros al pi Kabbalah.

First - there is more, and you can reach it. You can grow, and achieve things you never thought possible. Have you read my thread? Read some of my first posts (and check my profile for my very first posts), and you'll see that I didn't even think that becoming clean would be possible for me - originally, that wasn't even my goal! And I was much lower than you - but with hashem's help, as well as that of the amazing people here, my life has changed in many, many wonderful ways.

Hi Dovek.  You sound like you may be in the whipsaw we all get into here.  And we struggle so hard to "figure" our way out, to try to understand what's happening.  My experience has been that my understanding "availed me nothing" (as the AA saying goes).

It sounds like maybe you are understanding that this 20-some day cycle is a problem that's bigger than you, than you can't fight, no matter how hard you try.  You sound like maybe your life has become unmanageable, that maybe it feels a little crazy and out of control. 

If you have come to that conclusion, that you are powerless over this cycle,  and that this whole getting clean business is just too much, then you are, I think, starting to bottom out.  You are blessed.  Because you are bottoming out "from on top".  You're feeling the craziness this addiction puts us through--up, down, clean, falls--and you are getting so upset that you are ready to make a decision to let Hahsem restore you to some kind of sanity.  We pray for peace constantly.

If you want to stop, then you will probably need a lot of fences--filters, accountability partners, SA group, virtual, real, people you can call when you've forgotten and are lost in the hypnotic trance of lust and porn and the conviction, the KNOWING (as you so honestly put it) that the answer is shtus.  And nobody can tell you different in those moments.  so thinking, and resolve doesn't really help.  It has to be as impossible as possible to get to the stuff that's triggering.  We need to have our phones with people to call on speed dial.  Picking up the phone is way easier than struggling for half an our in front of the screen.

This is such a lot of work.  At first.  And we have Hashem helping us every step of the way.  Yes, even though you are caught in this cycle.  You are growing, and He is right there next to you.  But, like I said, to a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish.  To a Yid in front of shmutz, the whole world is shmutz, and there's not much room for Hashem. So we need to turn to the phone, to the group, to our chevra at GYE. 

I understand the terrible struggle.  We all do.  And you will ultimately find your way to the closeness you seek with Hashem.  Just keep on struggling.  It gets easier.  Any sense of clarity I may have, came AFTER I got a little sobriety, Bz"H.  I don't think most of us get clarity, and then stop.  Maybe I'm wrong about that.  And even so, the clarity is kind of the booby prize.  We want to be DovekBaShem, the real prize.

Just keep on trucking.  Just keep struggling.  He's right there, right here.

Hatzlocho holy Yid

wow, 1daat, that was beautiful and really well-said!

Dovek, you just got some really good and valuable input!

I'm back everybody. I usually only have the strength to come back after a few days clean. Not this time. I just fell again - it's been a rough night. I am seriously reflecting on my life. I don't see a future to my life if I keep this up. I have no idea what will become of me - whether I will ever be able to uphold a family - to be a proper husband and father. I wonder whether I will ever succeed in being the oved hashem, the dovek bashem, that I truly truly desire to be (at least when I'm thinking clearly).

I am coming back now, at the very beginning of my first day clean, because I really want it to work this time... and I really need the help of everyone here. I have a few more weeks before I go to visit my family - back to the home where all these problems started... and I have never been able to stay clean in that environment. My goal is to stay clean from now until I get there - and then to stay clean while visiting the family. If I don't start now, I don't think I stand a chance of ever getting myself out of this mess... sometimes I wonder whether I've already missed the opportunity.

I just need support and I need strength. While I always appreciate all the comments, I am not looking for superficial cheering on this time. I need serious, deep chizuk to keep me going strong. I need to know that people believe in me and that I am letting people down if I fail. Apparently, letting G-d down isn't enough for me anymore.

Hatzlocha friends. Thank you

*teddybear hug*

I wish you lots of hatzlacha in your struggles.

there is a Chasidishe story about a fellow who was traveling and in an inn along the way a tremendous nisayon presented itself, similar to the nisayon of yosef hatzadik. he started weighing his options, being seriously tempted to just give in and do the deed.

Saying to himself "how will i be able to face the RBSO after doing something like this?" he thought, forget it, i will give up on Yiddshkeit r'l.

Then he thought "what will i say to the Rebbe when i come to him after doing something like this?", so he said to himself, "forget the Rebbe, i won't go to him...".

"What about my wife and kids? how will i face them?", so he said to himself, "i will run away from them as well."

Then he though to himself "How will i face my good friends and buddies?....."

He jumped out of the window and ran.

When he got to the Rebbe later, the Rebbe told him "Friends can do what a Rebbe and a family cannot do...."

Hello brother, I want u back here, we need u to help us battle this war, never to late to get back on the front, come here, help me truck its only guys like u who can help all of us to beat this
Having u in. Mind and prating for u

Thank you JIP.

I'm working on myself slowly and am seeing more progress... even though its slow.

We will all pull out of this for the sake of living lives of purpose, of closeness to G-d and true avodas hashem.

Hatzlocha to all.