Well, here goes, yet another new member in this august society of those who are attempting to bring some kedusha back into their lives.

I hate to say it, but I too am a Rabbi, perhaps not so well-known but with my share of talmidim over the years, who has been struggling in this area for a long time.

I am not quite sure what to say in my initial post.  On the one hand, it seems like others have gone through much more pain and anguish than me, and perhaps are dealing with a more difficult Yetzer Hara than I do.  So perhaps I should just be quiet and thank my lucky stars, and gain some chizuk from seeing what some of the heroes here have done. ???

On the other hand, the issues that I seem to have little or no control over have been dogging me for many years.  Baruch Hashem although I had fallen deeply into the chat room trap years ago, I have been able to completely stay away from that for a long time now.

And for the most part, I am able to stay away from hard core porn sites, except on rare occasions.

But certain types of soft core porn, I seem to not be able to break away from checking out, time after time after time - anytime I am slightly bored or need a break, or even if I am busy...I just cannot seemn to break away from the urge to check out ......

I know that the answer that I should just be stronger has not worked.  I have said several times in my Rosh Hashana sermons that the biggest emotion that i have often is embarrassment - the same stuff I was klopping al cheit for last year is still here, and I have not even changed a bit despite whatever other things I have done in other areas of my life and growth...it is so embarresing and frustrating that I cannot pull myself away and waste so much time, kochos, and feelings on it - especially if truth be told, I enjoy it when I look, and feel only partially guilty about it.

I am not sure what the tachlis of posting this is, but that's about it for now.

Kol Tuv,

Your newest colleague

Hey Rav oisvorf,

We dont compare who has it better or worse here. Were all in this together becausde 'Kol Yisroel Areivem Zeh Lazeh'. And as long as I you are struggling, then so am I. It is very brave of you, a Rav, to come out like this (even though its anonymous). Stay with us and keep posting.

Welcome aboard!

-Yiddle

PS if you want to email or gchat with me my email is Yiddle2@gmail.com

oisvorf wrote on 18 Apr 2010 22:10:
Welcome

I am pretty new to this place myself, If you stick around, keep posting, and internalize some of the things others are saying (that make sense to you)....
You will succeed....

I am fairly new here myself... I can't say that I've followed everything I was told, but I am slowly finding the ability to move upwards...

At first I got a filter...
A while later I gave the password over to GYE so that I can't brake through on a weak moment...
A while later I blocked out some news sights that were triggering...
Now I am joining one of the phone groups...

Each of these took time... and in of itself are not major changes... but over time it adds up...

You stated that you actually enjoy it while you are at it... I think this is quiet normal...

Minimal Guilt... not subnormal if you've already gotten used to it... But your pseudonym does indicate some guilt...
So while a part of you has gotten used to it... another part hasn't and is dying to change...

Finally I have some questions for you... (So that people can offer support...)

How did it all start?
How does it affect your marriage/other relationships?
Your job?
What have you tried thus far?
What is getting in the way of overcoming the issue?

There are quiet a few other members with very prominent possitions in their community....

Addictions don't discriminate...

Please keep on posting... You will most likely gain a lot form it.
Waiting to hear more...

First of all, welcome Reb...well, I'll be honest, I disagree with your choice of usernames. You've chosen to make a stand, to join the few people who are fighting in this tremendous battle. That seems to me to be quite the opposite of your username!

But anyway, welcome!

I find that posting helps a lot. It allowed me to sift through my experiences, my feelings, it allowed others to share their experiences, and what they'd learned along the way. it also forced me to put my thought processes out in the open, where flaws become more visible. Things that we say in our own heads, when we say them out loud, suddenly seem ridiculous.

Also, by discussing our issues, our worries, our battles, they become more real, and we can finally face them and move forward.

One final point - you worry about not feeling enough guilt, I'd say that's normal. So is enjoying it. It's very pleasurable on a physical level, at least while it's going on. Especially after being involved in this for years, we push the guilt away, we hide it deep. But it's still there, and it doesn't make us happy. When you do get free (and yes, it IS possible, no matter how difficult it may seem), you'll look back and sigh with relief at the huge load that's disappeared from your shoulders.

Now that you're with us, I look forward to growing along with you!

I don't have much to add to the previous posts,
but I would also like to say WELCOME!!

and, tachlis, as I think was partly mentioned,
opening up and sharing what you're feeling and thinking,
is a big step in this work.
a part of you that hasn't had much of a chance to express itself,
now has a forum, literally, to do so.
looking forward to learning from you and with you.
and growing, of course.

welcome!

posting is helpful because of all the great thinkers here who have been there, got over it (or are workign on it) ... takes one out of isolation mode, too

journaling on the baord is alsso helpful ... heps to get one in touch with their feelings...and helps one to see any patterns or triggers.

dov in israel

Dear Reb oisvorf,

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

Whether it's soft or hardcore doesn't really matter. These images cause a chemical rush to the brain that is typical of addictive substances. This is an addiction/disease, and it only gets worse if not dealt with, never better. I don't have to convince you of the shame and chillul Hashem if you get caught, so - as we always say on GYE - we try and help people "hit bottom while still on top". This is often easier for religious Jews, since they feel the hypocrisy of living a double life. That is perhaps why over 25% of the guys at SA meetings are religious. See this page for more on this idea.

Rabbi or not, beating this addiction has nothing to do with religion. We have a few non-religious people on this forum too. This disease manifests itself in many levels, physical, emotional and spiritual. People realize it is slowly destroying their lives, and they come here and start to recover... If we want to have a healthy and meaningful life, we can't be ruled by our basest instincts. This addiction will prevent of us from ever being a good husband and father, holding down a steady job or being a healthy and happy human being... (But you will feel very comfortable here, as many of the guys on this forum are Talmidei Chachamim and Rabbanim in their own right.)

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.

Before the handbook people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, someone with a low level addiction wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences", putting in "filters" etc... For the first time ever, this handbook details all the techniques and tools dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now, anyone can read it through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook to the next tools, as the suggestions become progressively more "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!

Tried-123 wrote on 18 Apr 2010 23:29:


Those are actually good ideas, and I am [frightened here] looking forward particularly to trying the filter with the password given to a filter gabbai idea.  I had K9 on for a few months a while back, but besides getting tired of the playing with the password, I got really tired of the computer barking at me every time I went somewhere even remotely questionable, which I really wanted to be able to access.  I guess I could try getting it set up the way I would like, and then giving someone the password

The phone groups...maybe I will try sometime....for now that sounds way too weird to discuss this on the phone with strangers.  I don't want to hear mussar shmuzen...I am not quite sure what we would talk about...I guess that I could call in and lurk for a bit to see what goes on.




I guess the name is/was a black humor attempt on my part...I actually used it sometimes when logging into porn sites, so why not bring it here as well.  Don't worry, I am not suffering from depression and guilt, etc..  Actually, I have so gotten used to watching what I watch that I hardly feel guilt about it anymore.

The main thing that I do feel is the inconsistency, the hypocrisy, the knowledge that it is ludicrous that at the one moment I am preparing shiurim and reading Torah from my Bar Ilan CD and thinking pretty sublime thoughts, and appreciating the beauty of the Torah,  and the next I am appreciating the beauty of a different aspect of creation that I really think is esthetically beautiful and wonderful, but yet forbidden for me to view.....and the knowledge that if anyone walked into my office while this was on my computer my life would be cooked....and yet the irresistible urge to look anyway....

It is mainly the difficulty of my control over it that gets under my skin and eats at me.




It developed over the years....I remember looking at my first Playboy magazine when I was maybe 10 years old while with my Mom in a store, saying to her "look at these naked ladies"  and she getting all embarrassed and flustered....but it was the beginning of a curiosity that developed...when I was 15 or 16 it began to be more of a problem...I would go from yeshiva to a place that they sold back issues of said magazine and bought a few, and kept them in a secret place, and then masturabte at least once a day, and sometimes more.  I allowed myself the "hetter" that if I did it often enough, than my body would not have been able to impregnate anyone anyway and therefore it was not spilling usable seed...so I had to keep it going so that I would not be in trouble.....and kept that up (excuse the pun) for a very long time.

As time went by I would go to strip shows occasionally, and rented my occasional video or magazine, but of course, as said here frequently, the internet is a whole new and dangerous world.

There is of course much more to say, but I will leave it at that for now




BH it has not affected my marriage too much.  I have been blessed with a wonderful wife who is very physically attractive to me, and  who gives me plenty of space.  She knows that I look a bit here and there on the internet (I think she does too just as a curiosity from time to time) and I guess she thinks it is relatively harmless as long as I stay away from hard core and it is not too frequent (she does not know how frequent)

I think the main way it has affected our intimate life is that I got so used to ejaculating quickly in my yeshiva days, as described above, that I cannot last for more than a very short time when I am with her, and I feel bad that I can not seem to pleasure her, certainly not in any way like the people I have seen in porn.  I have a sense that if I had done things differently I might have been able to be a better lover to her, and this is one of the results of my straying.  But I may be completely wrong on this.

There is much more I could share, but that is it for now [gotta go to davening].    Question - do people talk here about particular aspects of what they are attracted to?  Seems to me that would be breaching tzniyus and might be arousing...or maybe it is helpful

whaddya think?

Thanks for caring

"Oisvorf"

Wow...after all that, you're finally getting freedom! Fantastic!

It sounds like you're finally coming to terms with the idea of ending this, of facing the rationalizations, of dealing with this issue. You have my utmost respect.

guardureyes wrote on 19 Apr 2010 10:47:


Thank you so much for everything...May Hashem bless you for your efforts and tremendous koach and continue to help you bless us all with the tools to combat our enemy

oisvorf wrote on 19 Apr 2010 11:27:


These are 12-Step phone groups. There is no mussar shmuezzen there, instead there is a moderator who is experienced with the 12-Steps, and they read from the 12-Step literature. The 12-Steps are the ABC's of being a mentch, the derech eretz kadma laTorah. Read tool #14 of the handbook to understand the magic behind the 12-Steps somewhat.




You have come to the RIGHT PLACE  :D




As we quickly learn here, halacha issues need to be put aside for now because this is a disease. Worrying too much about the issur can bring depression, which is bad. And looking for "heterim" will keep the disease going, which is also bad. We need to start looking at it like a drug or alcohol addiction, where there are no issurim, per-say, other than perhaps "me'abed atzmo la'da'as"... As Dov (sober in SA for 13 years) says: "I don't care which lav suicide is. I'm not interested in it for other reasons"  




These kind of issues can be discussed on the "Married" forum. I have added you to the "married" group. But my advice here would be to finish, take a break (a drink, whatever), and then get to work again, starting slowly etc... enough said.




We have people with all kind of "fetishes" on this site. But it is not discussed because it really makes no difference what your "poison" is. The bottom line is, that it is a lust addiction. And to deal with it, everyone uses the same tools.

It's great to have you on-board. I'm sure you'll become a powerful force on this forum. It is vital to understand that Hashem gave you this issue as a spring board for growth. If you use it the way it was intended, you will take your spirituality and your connection to Hashem to a whole new level.

May Hashem be with you on your journey. Welcome home  

Ois hi, l'olmei ad, beno ubeini...

welcome again!!

just wanted to see if i could find you. I'll catch up on reading later...

Steve wrote on 19 Apr 2010 16:33:


Not sure what that means, or how that relates to A&W, but I look forward to finding out ...thanks!

WELCOME RABBAINU REB OISVORF!!

WHAT A NAME!!

HASHLECH AL HASHEM YEHUVCHA!!

NOW THAT WOULD BE A REAL OISVORF!!

GEVALDIGGGGGGGGGGGG!!

bardichev wrote on 19 Apr 2010 17:01:


Wow ...I should have gotten that a few minutes ago....

Two people told me that they found the name "oisvorf" hurtful.  I used it because it was actually the name that I had used on a few porn sites.... and I figured I should try to be metaher it, in the spirit of Pasrshas Hashavua

But as I do not want to hurt anyone...I decided to change my nom deplum to ....(drumroll)

SHMENDRICK !!!!

I know  :

So thanks Berdich....but I hope this one works for you as well.

I hope this name will be נכנס לתורה ולמעשים טובים

Thanks everyone, it has been a great first day

Shmendrick (aka oisvorf)