Hello Everyone,

This is hard for me.  I occasionally give in to my yetzer (masterbation) and have a hard time stopping.  Its usually fine for long periods of time and then I just lose it.  The hard part is that I beat myself up so bad about it and obsess over the point that there is no teshuva for what Ive done.  This is especially hard on the yamim noraim.  How can I get off this for good? Is there teshuvah for this and what does it entail?  Thanks for hearing me out and I look forward to your help.

Hi...
There is a new sefer out, with letters from R' Wolbe. Not sure of the title, but I'm sure you will find it, as it is new and the only of its kind.
Anyway, he has a letter to you there.
I know, it never made it to your address, but it was written to you.

Anyway, until you find it, I'll give you a preview... he quotes the Chazon Ish... that one does not need to worry about doing teshuva on these past aveiros. Just look onward, and leave the 'teshuva' to Hashem.

Duck.... swerve... HEY! why are you throwing stones at me? ;D
Really, it does say it there, in the name of the Chazon Ish.

Regarding how to avoid it happening again in the future... ah... that is a good question. There are a several different 'mehalchim' here at gye, and a lot depends on how much into the addiction you are, if at all.

Try the handbooks, pick different ideas, and see what works!

k

Kutan

Rabbainu Yona says the same in Yesod Hateshuva printed in many Rosh Hashana Machzorim.

Welcome.  I would start by listening to this shuir from Rabbi Reisman: www.guardureyes.com/GUE/Music/mus/ShiurYesodos.mp3.

Dear joewww,

Welcome to GYE.

We're all in the same boat.  You are not alone.

This site is very comprehensive as far as tools for conquering the nisayon.

There is something (or many somethings) for everyone.

As Kutan mentioned, start by reading through the handbook.

You will then be able to choose where to start from.

Good luck!

joooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooew

hi.

there's teshuva for everything, and if you're interested in that you've come to the right place-pull up a chair

The only one who wants you to believe that there is no teshuva for a particular sin, is the Yetzer Hara himself.  That is his way of keeping you down.

Getting you to believe that you can't have teshuva for mast* is the only way he can get you, a Tzadik in the making, to do it again.

Hashem, our Tatte in Himmel, is waiting for our true teshuva with open arms.  I would say this even if you were nichshal on Yom Kippur itself.

I had a wet dream the night of Yom Kippur over 20 years ago, and I couldn't get over it for so many years.  If I would have a resource like GYE back then, I wouldn't have suffered so much guilt.

You say that you are able to go long periods of time clean.  Boruch Hashem, you are ahead of many on this forum. 

Shmu wrote on 21 Sep 2010 06:59:


one caveat... the clean periods sometimes can lead to false sense of "OK"-ness (is there a better word, anyone?

And  nothing more than that stunts personal growth.

The Chovos Halvovos says that 'falling' that precipitates personal growth is better than 'clean' that leaves one complacent....

Chatasi negdi samid.... never forget those tekufos where you were out of control....  out of control is out of control... no real difference (in absolute terms) if it is once a month or once a day...

k

kutan shel hachabura wrote on 21 Sep 2010 14:12:


a false sense of security.

You are absolutely right.

Excellent point.

Life is a down escalator.  If you're not running up, you're on the way down. (R' Yissochar Frand)

When you feel a FALSE sense of security (and it's always false) you're on the way down.

Remember, the bullets are always whizzing.

kol tuv.

There's a also a kuntris on shovavim from the slonimer rebbe (nesivos shalom), where he says that teshuva is certainly possible.

However,  Rabeinu Yonah says that the first step of teshuva (for an aveirah that's become a habit), is - STOP DOING IT!

So let's work on that. 

Welcome! Joining here is certainly a great step forward towards that - When i first arrived here, I would never have believed that I could grow as much as I have. Feel free to check out my thread, just click on the link underneath my post.

I found that it helped me to write about my ongoing struggles, what i was doing to grow, the challenges I faced and would/might face, and how I felt about the whole thing. Opening up is a big part of the healing process, especially since this is a secret that lives in the dark. Drag it into the light!

Aaaand...here's your welcome package!


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!

Can someone please send me the correct link to that Rav Reisman Shiur?  Also, which rav wolbe sefer was the second response referring to?

www.guardureyes.com/GUE/Music/mus/ShiurYesodos.mp3

The link was fine... it was the period at the end of the sentance that messed it up! ;D

That's computers for you! >

The sefer from R Volbe is a collection of his lettes that was just published. Don't remember the name...
k

Hi Joewww! It's so nice to read another person getting the big secret out and starting to take responsibility for himself. Yeah, you have tried before, and that looks like 'taking responsibility' - but there was a missing ingredient: You were going it alone.

Look at the friends you have - free of charge! The links, the concern, the love, the understanding. You are a lucky man indeed.

Hatzlocha!

Hey Joeww

I'm new here myself, but i have the same problem of my problem pretending to not really be a problem - it rears its ugly head from time to time, and then maybe only somewhat - so I think I'm okay.

Hashem has sent me a clear wake up call this RH. This thing is still there, and strong. I haven't done any where near enough to beat it. If I really want to grow, to be close to Him, to feel kedushah and get to where I know I can inside, I have to face this fearlessly and do the work. Otherwise history will keep on repeating itself and I'll remain in this not-very-fulfilling or successful place.

It's also important to remember that in our journey upwards we have to revisit all our old problems and overcome them again - this time from a different place. It's not necessarity a sign that we've gone down.

RE: teshuva - I've heard from reliable sources that even when the Zohar says that teshuva for this isn't possible, it's referring to normal teshuva - but great teshuva works. If we do this work here - we're doing the big teshuva. We have to remember that all such comments were never intended to put us down or throw us into despair.

If we believe that we messed things up, we have to believe that we can fix it all up again

Gut moed

Chazak v'ematz!!!

Aa