My name is Yechiel and I just can't believe it has come to this. I pashut can not believe that I have not been able to break this addiction. I quit smoking, I quit poor eating habits, I am extremely successful in everything that I have done or put my mind to doing in both ruchnius and gashmius...why can't I break free of this addiction? Why can I quit smoking, but not this? Am I supposed to stop everything that I'm involved in professionally and personally to lock myself in a room and learn day/night to prevent me from acting out? Is that what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants? But I have been battling this addiction even in Yeshiva...I mean, there were times that I would be in a makam tuma with tumaa all around me until 2 or 3 in the morning and then be the first one to davening and learning Bava Kama with one of the Roshei Yeshiva by 9am...how off is that??? What's wrong with me???

But why now...why is it that now is when I am actually searching for help? Why do I feel at this point, I just can't trust myself any longer and I need your help? Because now, I have a family. I have children. I have young boys who look up to their Tatty. I have a daughter who one day will enter shidduchim, b'ezras Hashem. What if I get caught? Forget about me. I have and will always survive whatever hot water I get myself into...but them? I need to do this for them. I need to do this for the generations and generations of rabbonim/askonim and Rebbes who have davened for me; their anikel to be a kiddush shem shomayim borabim and not chalila cause the opposite.

Help? Please?

Y

First of all, welcome, Reb Yechiel. And give yourself credit - no matter what your motivations are, you're here now. In fact, I'd go a step further: I think that you're using the feelings of guilt and worry about your children to help you do something you've wanted to do for a long time.

But instead of guilt, let's look on the positive side - you've gotten caught in something that's very difficult to get out of, but the time has come. I know that when I first came here, I never believed that I would have grown as much as I have! You can check out my thread (click the link underneath this post) if you like. There are lots of truly amazing people here, and with their help, and hashem's, you can get free!

It may seem like an impossible dream, but it's something you can do. I recommend posting about your own struggles, your progress, your feelings about this journey...reading other people's posts, responding to them...all these are part of what helped me.

Dear Yechiel,

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

You have come to the right place. Reading your post is like reading the thoughts and feelings of EVERYONE on this forum! This addiction is a disease. It is not something we can just "overcome". Instead, we need to learn how to surrender to the truth about ourselves - our "allergy" to lust, and learn how to let Hashem take it away from us...

Listen to this 4 minute audio clip from Rabbi Twerski, where he discusses how easy it is to get addicted to this stuff, and the nature of people falling into it today.

Beating this addiction has nothing to do with religion. An addiction is a disease, which manifests itself in many levels, physical, emotional and spiritual.

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!

Welcome aboard, and kol ha'kavod for the it took for you to get here.

You should keep reading, keep posting (if that's your thing), and keep thinking (which should be any Jew's "thing"). Looking forward to hearing from you.

You asked one question where I'd like to propose a very flippant response that might not apply at all.  I hope you'll forgive.  But you asked why quitting se*ual aveiros is harder than quitting smoking. And I'd say, well, DUH. Hashem did not give us tobacco in order to make it easier to love, to mate, to ensure Jewish continuity. He did not give a special flavor of tobacco (on their eighth day) to the Jewish people to elevate Jews (or cigarettes!) to a higher form of bechira. And he did not give the Yetzer Hara QUITE as much sovereignty over tobacco's addictive features.

Hence, the physical pain of tobacco withdrawal, which I understand is much stronger than most realize, is not going to compare to the tzaar that a Jew feels in the body and the neshama. And it won't compare to the fight with the Y'Hara that must be fought and won regarding an area where Hashem seems to have given him so much control.

You realize that I'm focusing on this argument, rather than the "pritzus all around us in this dor" or the "brink of 50th level of tumah as Moshiach arises" or anything else. They may be present as well, but I just want to keep it poshut.

And only the guys on this site realize how deep the battlelines run, how much the battle's worth fighting, and how terrific it is to be part of an online army bringing victories to the entire Jewish people. Grab a uniform, buddy, it's gonna be a bumpy night.

Welcome.

PS: Having spouted this off spontaneously, I realized it's a message I should remember for myself. So if you don't mind, I'll copy it onto my own thread soon. Thanks.

hi - and welcome!

ok - lets start with some basics (at least as much as I understand them)

men need to ACT in order to feel appreciated, needed, etc. You know like the good hunter who provides for his family... no tiger, no eatie, sweetie.

women need to TALK in order to feel appreciated, needed, etc.

so what do men do when fo rwhatever reason they cannot ACT - they ACT OUT (i think you get the general idea of what I am talking about. ) Ok, so you have a good head on your shoulders and can bring home a nice juicy paycheck; ok - so you can learn the daf, be a masmid, learn 18 hours, etc.

are you able to listen to your wife? and give her some of your attention - and help her to feel appreciated, and validated?


or who knows... the book GARDEN OF PEACE - by Rabbi ARUSH is a good stating point.


who knows why you act out??? only you do, my friend. We can try to help you - guidfe you and direct you ... but bottom line...whatever is making you feel Restless, Irritable or Discontent (known in these circles as RID)  which is leading  you to act out will have to be up to you to work on. there are some great peopel on the forum, there are 12-step program, there are SA groups, the tools are here for you - but you have to want them.

how badly - you might ask?

imgine someone holding your head under water.. time passes slowly you fight for air, you need to breathe... your life is on the line...when you want your freedom back that badly then teh program, the forum, etc will work for you..and the freedom will be even better than you ever imagined.

Along the way you'll met some great friends here, too


dov in israel
(not just a name , but a state of mind, too )

Thank you all for your warm comments.

I need to figure this out...thanks for the chizuk!

Y

Sorry to intrude, but figured I should say that YOU'LL PROBABLY FIGURE IT ALL OUT BETTER AND FASTER IF YOU STICK AROUND compared to retreating to somewhere else to do the thinking.

Most of the guys here don't bite, and only a few still drool on themselves before feeding time....

I'm sure you'll make a good decision.

Hey! I always do my best to wipe off the drool...

GRRRRROWL.... SNARL....  GRRRRRR

(Bruit why do have to tell everyone our secrets... drool, sniffle, drrrol )

Briut wrote on 11 May 2010 02:26:

Thanks for pointing that out Yosef, I was wondering if anyone else noticed that...and I'm supposed to feel safe here?!?!?!

Relax, Reb Yid - people here are the incredibly caring. I truly owe a ton of hakaras hatov to the wonderful people on this forum.

Welcome allaloneontop ! I'm pretty new here too, joined about 2 months ago.

You sound very motivated and that will help you enormously. The more you read the forum the more you'll get the answers to your questions. And you're no longer alone in this struggle, which will make all the difference in the world.

Just from reading the forum a little already you probably figured out by now that we share so many serious and intense topics that we have to joke around here too. See this great post here about joking around in the forum: www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=1136.msg24324#msg24324
DovInIsrael's sense of humor is one of the best, so don't let his growling scare you off, he's just putting on a show.

Down boy !! Sit !! Down !! Ouch !!

Gotta go now, I need to find a few band-aids. 

commando wrote on 12 May 2010 01:59:


right on the money! one of the nicest guys i met aslo one of the funniest! but he will give it to you great constructive criticism too!

Scary...it almost feels as if I'm back in Yeshiva  8)