I'm starting out today.  I'm skeptical about how effective this will be and that I'll manage to stay 'on the wagon'.  I suppose I'll see how it goes.  It's great to know that I'm not alone and the best advice I've read is one day at a time.  I heard an encouraging thought: Failure is not about falling down, rather, failure is not getting up once you've fallen.

Sholom Aleichem Yossi Chaim,

The thought you wrote is very beautiful and true. You write that you are skeptical about stating on the wagon, so allow me to share with you another thought from one of the chosheva members of the forum, our beloved Bardichev. He says "Winning means STAYING IN THE GAME!!! " A lot about overcoming this struggle is having the faith and confidence that with HaShem's help you can do it. You should read the handbooks to understand the correct attitude and approach you should have. They can be downloaded here
www.guardureyes.com/GUE/PDFs/eBooks/GuardYourEyes%20Handbook.pdf
www.guardureyes.com/GUE/PDFs/eBooks/GuardYourEyes%20Attitude.pdf

I wish you Hatzlocho with all my heart and that  soon your skepticism should change to belief.

Ovadia

welcome aboard!
you did a great thing by joining up here, a chabura of people struggling together, helping each other and growing together. read as much as you can on the site and the forum and of course the handbooks, as Ovadia suggested, and you will only gain. there are two things you need to stay on the wagon: a determination to stay in the game and Hashem's help, with those you can be assured that you can turn your situation around.
chazak ve'ematz

Welcome Yossie, what a smart thing u did day, u r 1 lucky guy, cuz this place is the closest thing u can have to hashem, stop that worry!! Worries and fears are fuel for our addiction
Once u jump the wagon we just won't let loose of u, we need u here, I'm sure u can give us chizak and we will try our best to give u
I'll quote reb bards
KEEP ON TRUCKING

You are so lucky! You are at least a bit realistic! I may be even more skeptical than even you are, knowing that all the evidence proves that no way can I remain sober for long. And (I believe that) because of that skepticism I have b"H been sober today since 1997. 

Others see it differently and have a valid viewpoint. But as for me, I hope you never lose that skepticism. 13 years have not proved to me that I can do it. They have proved to me that I cannot do it. And here I am.

Welcome aboard YC

"Sheva Yipol Tsaddik - Vekam"

So he fell just seven times and got up again - and he's called a Tsaddik.

What are we called then - who've fallen a thousand times, and still keep jumping back on the wagon and trying again?!!

I'm also new here and skeptical about really keeping it up - "Am i really addicted, do i really need this, etc, etc." So I'm also taking it one day at a time. Giving some chizuk, learning something new.

I hope it works for you

Chazak V'ematz

AA

Dov kol hakovod katzar ulinyan
I think everyone can understand that post. Unless i already became so Dovish that i think that post was simple. Tzarich iyun

Thank you everyone.  It feels funny and encouraging that people have read and listened to what I've said and responded.  I can't believe that I've actually shared something that has been eating me up for years - it's now out there.  I feel much lighter because of it.  I'm excited at the prospects. 

R' Yossi Chaim,

I can very much relate to your skeptisicm.

A number of years ago I spoke to my Rebbi/Rosh Yeshiva (will remain unamed in this post, but is world famous...) and I told him that I feel like I am being controlled from the outside and I have no physicall control over my body and ability to control my actions in my area of weakness. He gave me some ideas, which while helpful, did not 100% solve my problem. Once I failed even after taking the advice of one of the gedolei hador, I was really despondent of success.

B"H, I can relate (from personal experience) that we can succeed.

Many people on this forum found success through SA/12 step programs. For me personally, it was a combination of:

1. A realization that lust related activities aren't what I want and will not make me happy
2. Realization that I can find what I want and happiniess from other areas in my life (but that this is only really practical once stopping the lusting type behavior).
3. A personal incentive program to break out of the bad habbits deveoped and reinforced over many years.
4. Reconition that I have a problem and therefore need constant vigilance and work to continue improving and not relapse.

Kosher, thanks for sharing your tips. I will share it a chizuk e-mail. Can you tell us more about your "incentive" program?

Welcome Yossi Chaim!


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.

One of our goals on GYE is to help people "hit bottom while still on top" so they will take recovery seriously. To explain better what I mean, please see this page. If you're here, it means you're already taking serious steps in recovery, so keep up the good work!

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. The lay down the cornerstone of all our work at GuardYourEyes. Before the GYE 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".

We suggest printing out the handbooks and reading it them at least once. Then, we suggest going back and reading them again slowly on the computer, and this time pressing on the many links that are found in the different articles.

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.

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!

guardureyes wrote on 10 Oct 2010 20:49:


I will email you about it

ya last year i signed up made one post (on someone elses thread) and just didnt come back.
at the beggining of the summer i came back to the forum and let me tell you, it was awesome! about 2 months later (today) i can say that where i am at now i would have never gotton to without this holy website! you are lucky to have found it.

Welcome Yossichaim.  Smart guy this skeptical yid.  Ask Him to show you that you can do this, and He'll show you. 

I remember once when I was a child I had a very close relationship with Hashem.  Then over the years I only checked in once in a while.  By my twenties I knew He was here, but I wasn't about to be another "true believer".  I needed proof.  So I told Him, "I'm not going to believe in ANYthing.  If you're for real, show me."  Looking back I can see so many ways He showed me and I missed them all. 

Then i became a lust freak.  And ended up in jail, failed marriages, alienated from my daughter who had become a stripper.  So I slowly started doing T'shuvah.  Still marathon masturbating sessions, and porn.  Then, purely by accident (read hashgacha pratis) I found this site.  I just did 120 days clean and then peeked for a few minutes at a porn site and turned it off.  I counted that as a fall.  But also see the miracle that I could walk away.  B"H.  But what's important here is that my skepticism was finally laid to rest through the clean streak.  With the help of the guys here on the site, and the very real experience of Hashem's hand holding me safe, I have the real, palpable, experience, in a most personal way, of His presence and reality.  Not all the time, of course, but proof that I can no more deny than the fact that I'm typing to you. 

I'm a show-me guy.  Skeptical.  Welcome aboard brother.  Hashem loves our skepticism.  He's an I'll-show-you kind of G-d.

haztlocho.  Coiach l'coiach.

Thanks 1daat for sharing that with us. G-d Bless you and continued hatzlocha, my friend.

1daat, you just made my DAY  :D

G-d bless you, and keep you strong, sane and sober.