Well, here I am again, BH.

It is quite amazing to see all of the stories, feel all of the pain and despair, and read all of the support and hope that you all offer. 

My short story: I've been struggling for a long, long time.  I"ve lost so much that I cannot even begin to speak.  But, BH, I have not lost hope, and I am very thankful for that.

As the Rambam says, a bal teshuva becomes a new person, not the same person that committed the aveiros.  And that is the new person I would like to introduce you to, and introduce myself to.

I do feel that this addiction is not the cause of my problem, rather, a symptom of never really getting to know myself in a real way.  Always trying to escape that profound encounter.  I don't know if I am scared about what I think I will find, or just too lazy.    And if you don't know yourself, how can you know a spouse, your children, community?  Everything becomes so superficial --- passing time till the next escapade - escape-aid. 

So, I hope to get to know you venerable members, and I hope and pray that I can get to meet myself, and cease the great escape.

wishing you all tremendous hatzlocho,

BD

Dear Bendurdayah,

Pleased to meet you! Hearing the pain between the lines, I wish I could tell you in person that I hope you'll take it slow, and take it easy. If you do, in a year from now you may have grown so much that you'd never believe it'd be possible. Stick around, feel free to open up as much as you like - and be matzliach!

Dov

Ah gevaldigggg
Ayn hadavar talloi alleh beee!!

Keep on trucking hope aboard!!

Bardichev

BD,

Welcome to our holy brotherhood!  All it takes to join is a desire to get better.  There are some really awesome people here, including yourself, who are with you every step of the way. 

Being here is great as you will learn how to overcome your addiction to Lust.  Ahh, you are not so sure that is your problem if I read your post correctly.  Well let me try to explain.  You think single people got issues in their life just wait till you find out what marriage is like.  I do not mean this in a negative way, I just mean that the challenges in life do not get easier.  If the stresses, the problems, are what the problem solely is then we would never be able to overcome this because there will always be new stresses and challenges in life.  The problem we all have is we turn to lust as an escape from our problems.  The lust becomes a powerful addiction that keeps on calling us back.  Only when we learn to start overcoming lust addiction can we see what the problems in life are that need to be worked on.  You might be right that the factors that caused you to turn to lust were the issues in your life but you need to accept that lust addiction is the problem that you need to overcome in order to then be able to fix the other problems first.  I think this is partly what the 12 steps are about.  You first got to recognize fully this lust addiction and then as you start overcoming it you need to fill your life with good and productive things so that you have a positive and meaningful life, to help you not feel the emptiness that makes falling so easy.

Welcome aboard and post your story and your progress it is helpful and a powerful chizuk for others (incidentally another one of the 12 steps).

strugglingyid

Dear bendurdayah,

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

You write "here I am again"... were you here once before? Under which username/gilgul? 

Sounds like your close to "hitting bottom" when you write about all that you've lost... On GYE we try to teach people how to "hit bottom while still on top", and not to wait for the addiction to destroy their lives. See this page for more on this...

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!

Thank you Dov, Bardichev, SY and GUE for your meaningful welcome.

Dov & Bardichev - Thank you for the encouragement.

Struggling Yid - you misunderstand me.  I certainly do need to eradicate the lust.  That is why I am here.  It is devastating b'gashmius (psychologically, emotionally, time, relationships etc.)and b'ruchnius.  I have no illusions about that.  I am simply saying that there is a bigger problem of escapism, escaping from our G-d given task in this world.  This is a larger, more pervasive issue that I have.  So, my involvement in lust is not just a problem because of the shmutz I bring into my life - but perhaps even greater, what is it replacing?  What real connections with others and Hashem is this addiction strangling?  And regarding this point, the problem (for me) is not merely the lust, it can express itself in many many devorim beteilim.

My recovery will include overcoming all of these detours. 

GUE:  I spent a couple years on a different board - no-more-porn... I was successful in stopping all acting out for up to six months, including many months of my wife's preg. etc..  This was my greatest all-time acheivement.  But, of course, I felt that I had graduated from the board.  More importantly, I did not get to the core issues my escapism tendencies.  Funny enough, this board will feed my escapism tendencies (on a much higher level, of course).  I must make certain that my  life becomes about the fulfillment of being an Eved Hashem, not merely to become porn-free. 

I don't think that I am quite in a Matzav of hitting bottom.  It is complex.  But on the other hand, I really do feel that the time is NOW.  I have downloaded the pamphlets and have started reading.  I will continue. 

My feelings of gratitude to you all is beyond expression. 

May Hashem illuminate your battle, with brachos in your personal lives,

BD

bendurdayah wrote on 22 Apr 2010 01:28:


Gotta love that name ! ! !  ;D

Wonder what Daddy (Reb Elazar) would have done if he had GYE and the 12 step program available????  It is great that while talui be, as the heilege Barditchever pointed out, unlike the mountains etc, we are here to help.

Welcome aboard fellow traveler!

Sholom & welcome!

Bendurdayah = Bend-Ur-Dayah.

Change the way you think. Think positive. Think Hashem. Doesn't the Yetzer LOVE when we do things without thinking?


shmendrick wrote on 22 Apr 2010 22:38:


The mountains helped. They helped him reach rock-bottom. They helped him reach the realization that ein hadavr talui ella bi!

R` Bendurdayah, you don't need that. You are here already.

Now that you are here, don't park on the shoulder of the road. Keep moving, keep growing. Keep trucking, keep posting.

Thank you for the welcomes! 

I chose this name as a reminder of hope. 

Perhaps with a support group he could have stayed alive!  Anyway, far be it from me to speculate upon such balei madreiga.

Yosef: thanks for the new interpretation! I Like.

"Talui Be" is not just upon me, but in me.  And it is this self awareness that I'm working on, as I mention above.

Thanks for all the support.

BD

It is in you - because you have godliness inside oyu, and you can connect with that, and call on hashem to help you.

Welcome, Reb Bendurdayah!

There are tons of amazing people here, and I know that i've been helped tremendously. Being here helps oyu not only get free of the chains that have held us for so long, it also encourages you to look deeper, examine how you're feeling, and try to figure out what's behind it all.

Posting about my struggles and feelings helped me tremendously, I hope it does for you, too. So post, read other people's threads (mine is the link under this post), respond, and grow with us!

Welcome, BD, to your new home.

Hang around here, READ READ READ and then POST POST POST. We're all here to help, and be helped, by eachother. Sounds like you and your perspective are going to rock this place. You obviously have a lot to give, and I for one can't wait to get to know you better.

So feel good that Hashem has lead you to the right place, and enjoy the joirney of self discovery, and the more important OTHER discovery. That's were the REAL JOY will come from, from helping and being of service to others, giving your own special chizuk. You'll find yourself more that way than you'd ever believe possible.

A Good Shabbos!!

you new bro, Steve

bendurdayah wrote on 22 Apr 2010 21:20:


BD,

You bring up some interesting points that I wonder about myself.  If we use Lust as a bandage then we can also use other things, so how does getting over lust help if we just fall into other behaviors.  Myself I think (still struggling with this) that Lust has a terrible hold on our lives.  We can fantasize so much and there are so many triggers for this in life, that it is so difficult to break away from (not to mention that lust keeps on driving us to go further than before).  Other things that we escape to usually require something to be in front of us (like news, sports, books, movies & etc).  I do not think it is so likely that someone should be so tied down to these things the way they get tied to lust.  I think it is best that other activities that we escape to are best cut down on so we can focus on fixing up our lives.  On the other hand cutting down on other activities probably should be a worthy goal but not necessarily a serious commitment, because you may find it helpful sometimes to engage in other activities to stay sane.  As things improve in life maybe a more serious commitment can be made.

Part of the 12 steps is trying to fill our lives with spirituality (worthy healthy things), this will help fill the voids in our lives, and no longer have the issues that cause us to fall in the first place.  I hope to one day fulfill all these worthy goals as it will help our lives overall.

Wishing you the best in this struggle.

Wishing you the best on this journey, being here can help, as can reading the downloadable books available on the main site.  The madreiga for Bnei Israel is not simply to be a decent people, but to be a holy nation, holiness is the goal, not simply avoiding sin - but that ultimate destination is part of a journey, in the meantime, set a lower goal: for today no p* or m*.

Welcome, from a new member himself.

SY: Your point is true.  And lust is far worse both in terms of its prevalence and its magnitude.  My point, however, is that a great part of my recovery is to determine who it is that I want to be when I grow up.  I must focus on the "Asei Tov", in self development.  If I think that I can merely do the steps to remove the lust/pornography, I am mistaken.  In fact, it would be impossible to do the 12 steps without really recreating yourself!

Each of us must figure out who this person is for ourself - how we are to serve Hashem.  I know for myself that a major road block is the escaping - period. 

Have a great Shabbos - 25 hours with no computer access  ;D

BD

Well said!

I would adjust one thing - recreating ourselves sounds like a lot of work. I think that once we realize what we need to do, it's much easier - we're getting back in touch with who we really are, who we already are, deep down. We don't need to create anything new!

Hope you have a great week - how are you doing?