Hi guys i am new to the forum, i would like to introduce myself: i am a 22 year old single who has struggled with pornography addiction since 11. It started off rather mild but has increased as the years have gone by. Only recently have i really tried to cure it realising it is not beneficial for a healthy marriage. This is when i came accross GYE and I swear by it now. I look at the forums regularly and receive chizuk emails everyday. This has all helped me along the way and i have tried to get rid of as much access to porn as i can. This also helps reduce the frequency of my masturbation. I have also set myself goals to slowly reduce the masturbation by starting of with a four day clean period and when i have managed that a few times to increase it to a weeks clean period and so on. This is based on the 90 day clean period i have seen on the site.

However i am struggling in a few areas and would like some help from you guys please. First of all even though i have cut down my access to porn by installing web chaver on my computer and putting a filter on my phone it is still not fool proof and during the week clean i will have a build up of desire to watch porn and masturbate,  i will keep putting it off but eventually it will get the better of me - usually when i am tired or stressed and i will find some porn on my phone - usually google images - which seem impossible to block - and break my clean period. The reason I didnt try the 90 day clean period is because i thought it was a goal too far out of my reach considering I havent had more than two days clean until now - if someone can advise me why this is wrong please!!! and also if i keep on pursuing my way of becoming clean, namely doing it in stages and then increasing this stage, i need help being able to keep clean for the length of that stage and not to break it,

Thanks a lot guys for your help

From a heart that is really yearning for purity

Dear beblessed,

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

As you noted, scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. If trying to "cut down" slowly doesn't work, you need to take that leap of faith and force yourself to do the 90 days... 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. For filter options for your phone, see this page. 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!

Hey beblessed, u are very blessed for reaching out here to us on GYE, we all have the same goal and that's being clean and get close to our creator, its inspiring to hear that u r struggling on ur own and trying to get clean streaks as much as possible, however this can be very confusing and not possible w/o the positive attitude, here we promote a slogan that's called "1 day at a time" and that had helped hundred's if not thousands of jews around the globe to get cured from this deadly disease, we are not allowed to look at the long run, just slowly but surely, and a good way to take care of the urges that show up every few days would be, either by posting here every time that the urges come up & in general its very profitable to keep posting on ur own thread here, share with us ur struggles, falls , & of course ur achievements, also see if u can find some type of kosher outlet to give out that energy when u have a build up, as long as u mean it seriously hashem will be with u along the way
Ur friend JIP

hi Beblessed, welcome to this great place, you did a great thing by joining up here. i like your name, positive and uplifting, you should beblessed as well .
you already got some great advice from Guard and JIP, keep posting and keep reading here on GYE and bez"h you will go far. i see you have a good grasp of how to pace your efforts according to your needs, that is great. easy does it.
hatzlocha
zs

Welcome beblessed.

Perhaps for now, forget about the big nine-0 and just focus on the smaller N-O-W.

Just like JIP advised - we take one moment at a time. One lunch-break, one evening, one erev-Shabbos...

90 is just too big. Too much pressure... and you know already where pressure and stress leads you to. One day you're gonna get there. There's a tricky balance here of working hard and also letting things come in their right time. "כל הדוחק את השעה, השעה דוחקתו" We can't jump. We climb the rungs one at a time. Occasionally, Hashem may send an eagle who bumps us a bit. That's up to Him though.

beblessed wrote on 31 Oct 2010 15:28:


Lets change the 'will's for 'may'. It's semantics, but speech and our beliefs are powerful. Maybe this week will be different. Maybe not.

I hope for you that it is.

Much hatzlocho,

AA

Welcome Be blessed,
I myself am relatively new and struggled in this area of increasing days. Before I knew it, I am at the 60 day mark. I used to avoid this site because it was like the yetzer hara would say," oh, you think you're so strong by checking in, updating the chart? I'll show you" and not before long, I fell. I have been checking in more, but the desire is also there. Take it one day at a time. My shittah is increasing days and doing everything in  moderation. Hope it works for you too.
Penitent