Hi everyone...I am a 21 year old YU guy. I have been struggling with masterbation for around 5 years.
I have read all about the terrible avaira that is hz'l. I also know the gemara's about how torah learning can help against this sin. I know the pirkei avos misnayos also. It just does not help. The most I have gone without it in recent history has been 2 weeks. I see a counselor know at YU; I am not sure if it has helped, really. I struggle with abstaining from romantic literature and occasionally movies, etc. as well. Besides for this, I try to be a very good Jew; I do kiruv, I learn, etc.
  I put a blocker on my laptop, which has helped in that department.
  I wonder about the vihi ratzon after birchos hashachar. All the phrases about stopping the yetzer hara. Has it helped even when I say it with kavana? No.
  I have felt that I just need to get married to rid myself of this. I think it will help; maybe not even.
  If someone can send me back that they are also struggling with this, I think it might help.
  Thank you.

Welcome! We are all with you on this.  It is not just one or two folks struggling with this it is hundreds.  I myself used to M for many years until about 5 years ago when I overcame that.  I am working on overcoming my addiction to looking at P.  You found the right place.  Keep on posting and use all the tools and chizuk here.  It really seems to help.

You are right that the traditional approach is not the solution.  This is an addiction to Lust that has control over you.  The regular Mussar and Teshuva methods seem more geared towards an occasional Aveira.  Where you have an addiction you need to take steps that are different.  Trying to be good is not enough to overcome this. Marriage, despite what you may think, does not help.  Coming here and doing the things that are recommended does help.

Welcome, Reb Struggling Guy!

As always, I feel the need to modify (sorry, strugglingyid, Guard, Dov, etc.). Teshuva DOES work here - but the first step in teshuva is stopping the aveirah. And to do that, you've gotta find what works. The people here have a lot of great ideas for helping with this battle - when I first came here, I never dreamed that I would be able to accomplish what I have.

And pretty much everyone agrees - marriage doesn't help. Lust (with a capital L) isn't just standard sexual desire, it's a neediness. Anything you have later on in life will be FAR better if you deal with this issue now.

Your modification is spot on!

YAY!! ;D ;D

i alwasy feel like i need to add that - but the important thing is to realize, like you said, that most of the time, learning lots of mussar, etc. is going to be of limited use here. Step 1 has got to be stopping, getting clean.

And let me tell you - it may not always be easy, and there are times when it's tempting. But, no matter what, being clean is like a breath of fresh air. Every day.

Struggling guy - I think you mamesh just made the first step by opening up here. This is a safe place where you can just say what's on your mind (that you might not even be able to admit to a YU councelor or even a good friend). I also just joined here and one thing I have gained thus far is the honesty and openness that exists here. And I believe that is an essential step to take - to be honest with yourself, to accept your shortcomings - which you have already done. But now believe that you can change with the help of everyone and everything that is here. Keep posting and let us know what's going on. Looking forward to hearing from ya. 

SG,

Welcome and kol hakavod to you!
I wonder how many 21 year old guys at YU
or many other places have similar issues as you do
and 1) may not even see it as an issue,
2) go to speak to someone about it,
even a confidential counselor.

Sounds like you've been taking some steps in the right direction,
and that mostly means that you're doing something.
For each one of us, different things might work more and others less.
We got to do the work, and figure out how we can pull out of this.

Much hatzlacha and again, welcome!!

Sturggle

hi and welcome!

you are certainly not alone.
its a big step to be so open and honest.

a few thoughts:

1. seems to me that is major mistake is you THINK you can overcome the YH, sorry but you cannot. That is the way of the world. It is like being on a colliision course with another train...what to do?

- go head to head with the other train, thinking, well why not I AM BIGGER
(not to smart of a move)
- pull the track lever and move one of the trians to another track (redirecting lust thoughts) might work for a while, takes lots of energy, though
- jump from the train (like yelling FIRE everytime the YH grabs you - might be a problem if you are in teh study hall, beis medrash, etc)

- change the analogy (in other words - stop be so afraid, calm down and take another look at the situation for what it is...for example : maybe you are dealign with a yard full of dandilions! )

2. Dandilions - annoying, yes.

- either uproot the problem (join a 12-step program. Duvid Chaim runs one - checkc the postings for his nexxxt group)

- or flood the area ( water or light, both work... Lightt ...LOTS of ToRAH, including Hasidic literature


re:MARRIAGE

lust, p** , and M*** are not good reasons to get married.
Being other oriented, and tbeing able to put others needs before your own IS a good reason to get married

just my humble opinions,
dov in israel

Dear StrugglingGuy,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! You have come home. Everyone here is going through exactly what you are going through. And we all thought that more Torah learning and trying "harder" would work, but it doesn't. This is a disease called "addiction", which manifests itself in many levels, physical, emotional and spiritual. And for an addiction, you need the specific tools that work in such a case, such as getting out of isolation, accountability, and the many tools you will learn about by reading the GYE handbooks linked below.

See this article where Rabbi Twerski (a world renowned expert on addictions) explains how one can get addicted to this from a single use! And listen to this 4 minute audio clip from him too. See also this page.

On GYE you will learn how to "hit bottom while still on top". Don't wait for the addiction to destroy your life. To explain better what I mean, see this page.

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!

StrugglingGuy wrote on 20 Apr 2010 22:53:


Your words, StrugglingGuy, remind me of what I finally told the guys at the first meeting I went to. The way you describe the cycle and hopelessness is right on. I am hopelessly unable to stay free of lust, too - but sober and free today thanks to Hashem - and my enlighthened self-interest. You seem to be showing some of that here, too. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

There are enough useful goodies from the guys above already; no need to add anything more than my empathy and also admiration that you are getting up and doing something for yourself! This is the opposite of the same old story, for sure. It's a good step forward and you may need to keep moving in order to get any traction. Don't be afraid. I hope I am never too afraid to be honest - it's always a complete waste of time to hide my secrets from safe people. We are really only as sick as our secrets.

w/much love and respect,

Dov

Keep davening!!! A lot of our problems come from feelings failure. That is the Y.H. making us despair.