sigh.... I cannot believe im doing this...
hello,
I am in my 20's and have er... a slight issue since the age of 11... I discovered what I could do on my own.
Soon I was told it was bad and I stopped easily for 2 years....
Then 10nth grade came and unfortunatley it was what all the guys in class were talking about. I was shocked that they all were watching porn and felt slightly pressured...
at first it was once or twice a year. then it got really bad when I was in 12th grade and then in israel.

then I pushed hard and overcame it and barely did it for a whole year! Yay! ...shortlived...

Now I dorm during the week, but on weekends Im home.
At home I live in my basement...alone...with internet......
I have hinted to my parents to let me switch rooms with someone....I even told them once that I had issues with porn last year (this took a lot of guts and time)....but im still in the basement.... apparently they think i overcame it and all is fine.

In the summers when I am home more, Im actually better than during the year!?
Perhaps its because I know I will be home and I gear myself up for battle with my evil inclination. I make sure I never bring my computer downstairs or stay away till its bedtime.

I dont know if my addiction is as bad as others though. at most twice a week. at least once a month.

But it bothers me to the core and I wish I could stop, but I am nervous that I am fighting a losing battle.
Recently I found that I did it for a longer period of time and realized this has to stop!
My Yetzher Harah has gotten stronger, or I have gotten weaker...

I scanned through the 12 steps book and realized its very much like the Mesilas Yeshorim, which I should spend more time learning (it does help when I learn it... but sometimes I try to learn it too late when the hormones have already kicked in)

Both say that one must be vigilant and that without Hashem's help we are powerless.
But if I dont try to help myself God wont help me at all.
It also says to log your character development which I try to do but find it hard to notice all my movements.
I know this and yet as hard as I try I fail....

And then I can get depressed.... usually the depression helps me stay away for a while but recently the depression isnt wokring....

Hi Friend,

Welcome to this site. It seems like you are handling your situation a little bit earlier than some of us here and I think you will put an end to this long before it gets much worse. I am happy that you are here and I am excited for your success.

Just some advice, when you have the urge to fall, consider sharing it with us on the site. Tell us why you want to fall, what you want to do and how you think you will feel about it afterwards. This alone should take all the fun out of it and make you realize how terrible it is and how much it destroys you and your avodas hashem. In short, we are always here for you... whether twice a week or once a month .

You will succeed, even if it takes some time. Everyone here is in this together and we are all sharing in each other's struggles.
Hatzlacha my friend.

I watched that movie on this website, or a link or whatever..the seal of truth...
it was very scary for me and I was crying afterwards like a baby...

However I have heard other stories like it, but they seem to take place in all different ways. This man had the angel of death yelling at him. In another story I read there was a big court room with a court case...
I guess the judgement is done differently for each person...but there is a judgement.

What I dont understand is how evil and scary it seemed. I was always told Gihenom is the embarrassment you go through when seeing your while life flash before your eyes, which is what he went through. But then he was sentenced to , what he says was Gehenom or something lowly.

JUdgement in heaven is true and pure, yet it looks like they made a mistake in his judgement and in the end change it.
Surely God doesnt make mistakes and knew he would be acquitted in the end. Perhaps it was done to cause him to repent and to show him what would be if he doesnt?
He also shows him a book where everything is recorded and set... did it not say that he would be acquitted?
if everything is set, how do we have choice?
Is it already known that I will sin today?

Dear s4nh,

Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

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!

It is possible that G-d knows you will sin today... but it is also possible that G-d knows that you will not sin today!

You only know what G-d knows after it has been done... after the fact.

Let's talk about something we all know. We know that if you really want to be free from this addiction, if you really want to be clean and tahor, then you will NOT sin today. I know this. You know this. G-d knows this.

Now it is your job to prove us all right!

S4nh welcome. Forums may not be your type of thing but neither is looking at porn. We may have to get used to one to get rid of the other. A key to recovery is getting out of isolation. While you may not be able to get out of the basement in your home there are steps you can take to protect yourself. First install a filter.  Second if you're going to go on the internet make GYE your home. You'll find a welcome and understanding community eager to help you manage with this struggle. Hatzlacha and hope to see you around here.

Hi s4nh, shulem alichem, make urself comfortable here, this place is made for guys like me & u alike, there is rule here of what level of addict we must be, of course u are not considered a hi profile addict if u can go a month w/o acting out but still need to recover from it, cuz it won't go away alone and further in life with more stress kicking in , family, finances, etc. It can get out of hand , its like a brain tumor that can get triggered by lots of stress,
U sound to be very clear what ur struggle is and what ur way out is, I actually said that same thing a few weeks ago, that the 12 steps is just like practicing all the musar we learn, and the pros in my 12 step group agreed
Some tips that may help, a un filtered computer is lose weapon in the hand of a child, no joke!! So. Installing a filter is a must, password must be given away, sign up for 90 day chart so u work towards a goal, get a sponsor, keep ur thread alive, share ur struggles, ur victory's and everything in between, whenever u feel weak, plz reach out asap and stay away 200 miles from depression its a killer I can attest to it from. My personal experience, it never did good to anyone, hope my words helped, feel free to ask and reply as much needed & I'm always here for u my dear soldier in hashem's army

How much to these filters cost?

I dont know if i can get one because as a web designer (going to be one) I need the internet...

I afraid to make a vow, but I told myself never to bring my computer downstairs anymore

The problem is I feel weirded out to discuss this stuff.
I had a roomate once who wanted to have a competition to see would last the longest without masturbating.
I was afraid he was making a joke out of it and talking about it like it was a regular conversation. I felt it should be a private matter and was afraid by making this race with him, I would be belittling my private problems.

Plus in my head I said, if he's doing it, then I guess its not that bad.... I can do it too...I t was no good and in the end I said no....later I switch roomates and things were better for me.

thats the one scary thing for me here.... talking on this forum and thinking about this forum also keeps me thinking about it!
If I dont do it for a few days in a row I can stop thinking about it and get it out of the way...for a few days....

For many of us here, we are on the forum because the act is on our minds ... not the other way around.

Maybe in your case, you shouldn't push yourself to be on the forum so much? Maybe you should just feel free coming back to us when you already have an urge and you are trying to deal with it?

This is just a suggestion and I would love to hear what the experts have to say.

Either way, you should not feel like this makes it a non-private matter. We are all anonymous here and I think that maintains the privacy.

s4nh wrote on 05 Nov 2010 12:28:


A filter is free.  Click here for all the info you need:  www.guardyoureyes.org/?p=24 
You can adjust the settings to make sure that you can access websites you need for work.
If that won't work (and even if it will) you can also get webchaver which costs $3.95 per month.
See here for more info www.guardureyes.com/GUE/Filters/Accountability.asp
While telling yourself that you won't bring the computer downstairs is great.  The question is how many times have you told yourself you will stop looking at porn.  And has it worked for the long term.

Hey my dear friend, don't worry filters work for everyone, lots of people I know who work all day on online business, have strong filters installed,some of them even have Jnet which is by far the strongest thing out there, but as frum jews we must know that its essential for our sanity and being a click away from the filth is too dangerous for us struggles, make a commitment to have ur filter watched by others or some accountability software should be a solution too & hashem will do the rest

Regarding "Seal of Truth", you may be interested in this thread :

www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=2192.0

Welcome!

As far as how often you fall...well, it's a good thing that you're clean most of the time. But are you adddicted? That's a  very loaded word, so put aside that issue for now. Instead, ask yourself the following questions: Do you want to stop? If so, why are you still doing it? That would imply, at least on some level, a lack of control. On some level, there's a lack of ability to manage your life.

Depression is not a very good motivator, for a lot of reasons. Work on doing what you need to survive. I also find that it helps to focus on how good I feel when I'm clean!

For me, staying in touch with others was essential, that way I could talk over how i was feeling, and be forced to examine my emotions, reactions, urges, and what was behind them. And also, where it all led. Posting on the forum regularly was a big part of my recovery. Posting on other people's threads helped, too, but posting on my own (not for other people's reactions, but for my own accountability, my own self-awareness) was essential.

Welcome. Sorry I am so late. Many of us did not feel comfortable sharing, however we have learned that sharing helps us heal. For me it helped me become more aware of my struggle and accept (some) of it. It feel funny at first but when you see how much it helps it gets easier.

I don't know if you are an addict or not. But do you want to stop?

Can you stop by yourself?

If you answered yes and no, we can help.

Take the risk jump in and share a little more than you feel comfortable sharing. It will be worth it.

Good luck my new friend.

HY