Hello Tzaddikim! I just found this site last week. I think it is going to make my Rosh Hashono and Yom Kippur. I think the newness of the 90 day chart will get me 40 clean days to Shemini Atzeres but I am afraid of what will happen next. Does anyone have any suggestions?
  I have read enough of the forum to see that you are all tzaddikim and all serving Hashem every day clean and again after every fall.
    The holy Baal Shem Tov taught that the yetzer horo is more interested in the post-sin depression than in the sin itself.

    Blind Beggar who wants to have eyes only for Hashem.

Welcome aboard Blind Beggar!


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!

Blind Beggar wrote on 28 Aug 2010 21:19:


Welcome BB.  As you read the Guidebook and other guys' threads you will see that everyone keeps repeating one phrase over and over:  "One Day at a Time".  I try to keep my horizon to one day.  Abba, Ribono Shel Oilam, please, just for today help me daven and be with you: Just for today let me be clean; Just for today let me daven early, remember to bensch, and do something kind for another person.  Just for today.

Look around, post your heart out.  This is the place.  Hashem makes a beautiful life for you.  You won't believe what freedom is like.  One day at a time.

Much hotzlocho

Welcome! Coming here is a HUGE first step - but as you already pointed out, it's not enough. The point of growing isn't just to be clean, though - it's to reach a point where you realize that you don't need this stuff, and you're able to live without it, to be happy without it - indeed, happier than ever before! So yes, being clean is important - but even more important is the fact that the distance from "acting out" will give you some space to truly grow.

BB! 1st of all u owe urself a big tnx for showing up here , many many lost souls don't make it here, so that's already 1 right move, now if I heard u right, u r worried now of what's gana be after 40 days, u must be kidding, I'm still worried of what's going to be 2nite, 2moro, etc, we r NOT allowed to think thay far away, and we can even look thay far even we wanted or were allowed too, so 1st relax, this is very usual for us addicts to worry and worry which leads to depression which ends , with acting out, so get lose a bit and chill brother, iy"h we will help u get better and hashem will see ur will and he will put u on the right tracks soon,
Ur vort from baal shem is true, I didn't know its a baal shem vort, but it fits well , I saw something last week just like that, the pusik says "tachas asher lo ovadatu ... Bsimcha... So I saw brought down, that hashem will demand from us the "tachas" he wants to know what was the underlying depression that caused u not to do mitzvhas bsimcha
So both r true, stay happy and hashem will return the hapiness
We love u all holy brother

Dear BB,

Consider a name change before your posts rack up and changing names begins to get confusing.

Welcome aboard!

p.s. a lot and i mean a lot of chizuk is available at this site as you know.

pps  if you wand ice cream call bardichev,  but i hear he's not giving out crunch until after shemini atzeres...

kol tuv!

And only heimishe hechsheirim!!

The name "Blind Beggar" comes from the stories of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov zt"l. In the story called "The Seven Beggars" the beggar of the first day is really a tremendous tzaddik who has nothing to look at in this world of sheker and gashmius.
  I hope to be able to be guard my eyes so I thought it was a better name than No-Hope נואף or Lost Lusting Loser.
  We should all be zoche to guard our eyes.

I love the name Blind Beggar.  Being a breslover in training, I recognized the name right away.

World - please explain what you meant.

Thanks, and have a C'siva V'chasima tova!!

Thought the referance was more along thel lines of the blind man in the mesilas yeshorim groping in the darkness.

In actuality, the only important thing is that a person is happy with the name he chooses.

If you can't see too well, I'll tell you that the picture is the entrance to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai's tomb in Meron.

Nice!

How are you doing today?

world wrote on 07 Sep 2010 23:47:

It's funny that you mention the "Soomah Al Sfas HaNahar" from mesilas yesharim, because I have used that imagery to try to inspire myself during this struggle.  Not that I was a clueless Blind person walking along the river unaware that I was in tremendous peril, but often I made myself a blind person and purposfully ignored that I was puting myself in tremendous peril.

Very true - I think that's most of us, isn't it? I mean, until we really start getting into it, we usually don't realize just how crazy we're being, or how much danger we put ourselves in. We rationalize, and think, "well, what's the worst thing that could happen?" without realizing just how bad it could get.

But deep down, on some level, we're aware that we're destroying our lives. Not walking along the river, but already drowning, and floating farther and farther out to sea. And we watch it happen, glued to our screens, our keyboards, or...whatever it is for each of us.

I was just learning Chofetz Chaim about how Reuven hates Shimon so he waits until he can catch Shimon doing something wrong and then he can tell the whole world what a rosho Shimon is.
Here on the Forum it is the exact opposite, everyone loves everyone else and we only want everyone to be clean and stay clean. If someone falls, everyone posts and PMs chizuk and commiseration.
What a great place.