I am new to this forum and feel so fortunate to have stumbled upon that ad on voisizneias that led me here.

As a teenager with everything, good family, yeshiva, and decent money, I found myself listening to the radio at night and a certain program introduced me to m****.  I tried it and it was downhill from there.  That was 16 years ago or so.  In Yeshiva they do not really teach you enough to realize at a young age the pitfall.  Later when I learnt some Halacha about these matters (and since I did not know the terminology back then it was hard to discern what was what) I got depressed about this and started trying to stop.  Well it was not easy and nothing seemed to work.
As time went on the Internet became available and I got addicted to p*** as well.  Before the internet was high speed and easily accessible I sometimes would buy magazines or videos, so I was addicted before the internet but it was a little harder to feed the addiction back then.  Well for about 11 years I struggled and then one day I came across the book the "Light of Ephraim."  I never completed the book but it gave me the backbone to stop m***.  For a while I was able to stay away from P*** as well.  A short while later I got married.  B"H from day one of marriage I have loved and adored my wife and I am very attracted to her.  Unfortunately I never really dealt with my p*** addiction and have spent much time the last few years pursuing this trash (unfortunately for my wife I have told her many times I am working late and instead I was wasting time, time that could have been spent with her, time which I can never give her back).  Regarding my previous addiction to m*** in the last 5 years I once had a fall so I think I am managing that well.
Well for the few years I have been married (I also have a couple of kids), I have managed to keep this p*** addiction a secret from her.  Interestingly enough I had told her early in our marriage about my prior m*** problem.  Maybe, I was ready to give up m*** and accepted that my past was a part of me that has made me stronger so I was willing to share that with her, but p*** well that I kind of held onto (not really p*** I really mean Lust), so I was not ready to tell her.  I mean c'mon admitting to it would be a weakness (tongue in cheek).
Well 2 days ago after a night spent feeding my sickness I stumbled across an ad for this site and suddenly my eyes began to open.  There was hope and a way to deal with this.  I told myself that Hashem sent me here for a reason, and that reason it to get better.  I realized that for me I would have to come clean with my wife.  I could not go on living a lie.  I told myself, I have a good relationship with my wife, telling her this may hurt or destroy that relationship, but I cannot live with this being a secret from her.  I need her love, help and support to get through this.  I thought to myself that I am putting this in your hands Hashem.  I will tell her the truth and you help my wife reach the right decision as to how to respond to this and I accept your judgement.  That morning I finally confessed to my wife that I have this addiction.  To say the least she was shocked!  She was upset as well.  We spoke for a while and she began to express her love, support, and belief in me.  To say the least it was as if a huge load was taken off my shoulders.  I realize that I may still fall again, but I am committed to accepting that I have a problem and I need to do what I can to fix it.
Every person that is here is a tremendous chizuk to the next person.  Without seeing the forums I do not know if I would have found the strength to take these first steps.  Today will be my second day clean.  It is a baby step and I have a lot to learn, but with all your help I know we will make it.

strugglingyid

1. welcome
2. yasher koach on your strength, and honesty
3. there is lot of great info and wonderful people here who have been there, and done it and got over it.

post.
read.
post.
join a support group


lots to do - lots to learn.

looking forward

dov in israel

Sholom Aleichem & Welcome aboard!

As you may have noticed already, we are a dedicated group of friends, although we may be physically located at other ends of the world, we are spiritually & emotionally very close together. We grow together and encourage ourselves together. We are there for each other during the difficult times and cheer each other when the sailing goes smooth. All this is accomplished though posting in this forum.

We appreciate any new input we can get. Especially from someone with a background/history such as yours. So please do us all a favor (including yourself) and post, post, post!




[Take a good look at yourself today, see the level that you are on, in a few months, or even weeks, you will be so far ahead that you won't recognize the old Struggling Yid you once were!]

Thank you for the warm response.  I feel as if my soul has finally found a home (or a good resting place).  With hundreds of shining soul mates who are earnestly working to make their lives better in a good, healthy, and kosher way.

Welcome! Yes, there are a lot of amazing people here, i would not have been able to do what I've done without them, either!

I agree that posting is a good idea - discuss your struggles, your feelings, what's going on in general...opening up about this struggle is very important. Read other people's threads, so you can know that you're not alone (if you want to read mine, click on the link underneath this post).

I do disagree with you on one point, though - what you've taken is not a baby step, it's a huge leap forward and upward! There are very few people who've taken the step you have, and you clearly want to grow and improve yourself. That is amazing, and inspirational for me!

Silentbattle, I did read your post and wow it is incredible what you are trying to do.  I am glad that my few minutes here has been inspiring to you and definitely your story and struggle will inspire me.

Welcome i second what dovinisrael said the best thing you could do is post!

Wow! you must be a very strong person to own up to your wife like that. May Hashem be with you and help you succeed with this addiction.

Dear Struggling Yid,

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

Kol Hakavod on opening up to your wife like that. Her support - and accountability - will be very important in your journey to recovery.

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.

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...

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...

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!

Thank you for running this place.  It is amazing to say the least!  The chizuk that goes around here is incredible.

I just came across your thread....

WOW!!!
I am blown away:
You seemed to have been searching for a way out for quiet a while...

You really put your trust in G-d re. talking to your wife... Seems like G-d's will prevailed.... He has an in for you to extrapolate yourself form this mess... take the message and appreciate the hug...

Not in my place -but you have a truly beautiful wife... Your a lucky man... Not everyone gets such support... Always worth treasuring the diamonds you have...

Hope to hear more form you...

Peace and Love Holy Brother

P.s. the name of your thread made me think of what the first man on the moon said:
A small step for me, but a huge leap for mankind (or something like that...)

I think that every small step we take as tiny winy as it may seem may actually be a bit bigger than we realize....

I was thinking the same exact thing!

Dear struggles,

Yasher Koach on an amazing post (and some wonderful chizuk you have gien me privately).  My we be zoche to get to Kedusha in our lives together!!!!

Kol Tuv

SHmendrick

Amen!