Unbelievable!

I despaired thinking that this problem was unique to me.  40 year old, happily married with kids, ironically, one of the rising stars in my frum community.  Last night a rabbi was talking about an unrelated topic when he suddenly mentioned that he doesn't understand how people [men] can resist the temptation when having "a hot girl right next door."  Never thought about it this way.  But true.  If this filth was not so accessible I would still be craving it and probably acting on it, but much less frequently.  But now it has become an obsession.  Everytime I say Shma I think about all this.  And mind you, I have an excellent filter.  But I have an even smarter brain.

I have mixed feelings about this website and the system.

1. First, I don't want to stir settled emotions.  At least a few hours of my days are clean.  If now I start this new process may be I'll get even those hours muddied with thoughts 


2. Second, I'm pretty desparte.  I've tried many things, and failed misrably.  The higher I flew the more painful the fall was, because I exhausted my newly found hope.  Studying Torah, by the way, was only a partial success.  I still act out, less, because I have less time, but I feel that I'm still addicted.
   


3. Third, my acting out has b'h limited to acts within my limited imagination in my after hours office.  If I expose myself to other posts' and find out what else is available - is it possible I can get worse?    :'( 


4. Lastly, I discovered the pattern of my fall.  I go to Google.  do an image search.  invariably something comes up.  The road to acting out is very short thereafter.  What filter will filter that out?  i can't imagine the cure. 

I don't want to depress others.  My doubts are certainly my own, and if anybody has words of encouragement I'm all ears.  I have nothing to lose.  I can only go UP from here.

Jacob

hey spanon (speack spanish?) and welcome

wow.... i wanna see what ppl here are gonna tell you, there is ppl here with lots of expirience.
anyway as u can see my nick is לעג וקלס , because of the same problem u have, i find that there is ALMOST nothing we can do against our תאוה...... and i look in my own eyes like a big idiot , fool, seigetz etc.

im not telling u what to do i dont know u, and i dont know what can i say to u to help u (there is ppl here who can)
but I i would in the first ocasion that i am close to hashem start to cry a lot and say tehilim and tell him : i cant do it my self אלמלא הקב"ה עןזרו אינו יכול לו ,

i would do an other few things also, but thats really not relevant, however to daven is basics.
soon are gonna answer u the addicts experts etc, just dont forget that without hashems help we are lost

Firstly, I had/have the same issue with google images. What I did is I installed a K9 filter and set it to block google images. I'm not going to sit here and say that that's all there is to it. Every filter has a way of getting around it, but in my opinion that's a good start.
Also, you spoke about fear of this website. I completely understand that. There are times that I feel the same way. I don't know if people would agree with me on this so I hope I am not offending anyone when I say this, but if coming to this site all the time turns out to be more detrimental for you, then come on the site only once a day lets say, or once every other day. Make sure you sign up for the emails, because getting chizzuk every day is important. In my opinion, you should at least have the familiarity with the site, that when you are feeling weak, you know you can come here.
But I also want to point out that you should try to pinpoint that fear. Is it fear of opening up about your issues with other people (my problem, that's why I mentioned it) or do you honestly think that being on this site is bad for you. You know youself better than me. Good luck and keep us posted. 

Stick around you would never believe how many people were in exactly the same position as you and got saved from this site.

If your emotions were very settled I doubt you would be on this website.  Most people don't get here on a serene peaceful afternoon at the beach.




I identify with this.  I've tried many things on my own and they never really worked long-term. It wan't until I started working a program of recovery out of a realization that I will NEVER be able to do this on my own that I am getting some real traction - sober about 20 months now, YAY!!!!




Hmmm....I'm scratching my head on this one.  I'm assuming your looking at porn on the internet soooo...........if you keep looking at porn you won't be exposed to anything too bad but if you read posts from a bunch of guys trying not to act out sexually then....................goodness oh where may that lead ???

Yeah I have to admit that hearing other peoples escapades can sometimes get my lust going but that is only sometimes and only a safek (doubt).  Without recovery I will be watching videos of people having sex on the internet be'vadai (definitely) and that is probably a bigger problem for me.  (And that of course leads to needing to see more, do more etc. ect. ad infinitum.




Been there and done that only a few hundred  (thousand?) times.  I have a boundary of not doing Google image searches AT ALL.  At home I use K9 its pretty decent but as they say "Locks are for honest people".  If I remain in addiction without recovery no filter will work.  (Ever hear of a drug addict stay clean because his dealer didn't live nearby?)  At work I have no filter and with my recovery program no problem.  Without my recovery program I'm in trouble, filter or no filter.


To sum up my 2cents, if you have a problem with lust, get help.  The sooner the better.  Every excuse is just that, taking the actions is a solution and yes there are ways to absolutely recover and stop doing this, one day at a time.

Hatzlacha

Wow!  These replies are really inspiring.  20 months clean?  never thought of counting time since the last time.  You think I should do it?  I'll probably count weeks, not months.

I currently use safeeyes.com.  I got 2 recommendations on K9.  Any thoughts about switching?

how do I find a body to confide my passwords to?

spanon wrote on 28 Dec 2010 20:13:

www.guardyoureyes.org/?p=24

I used to use safeyes and it was very good.  Wouldn't bother switching if its working out. 

Happy to help with password storage if you need it.

How did I do 20 months?  I stopped fighting lust and gave it over to God to do it for me instead.  On my own there is no way I'm strong enough to take lust head on and win.

Dear Spanon,

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

You claim that now a few hours of your day are clean. If you break free of the shmutz, you'll quickly see that within a short time your mind will be clean for many MORE hours a day... you'll go for DAYS without bad thoughts... We often think that we need to do it to keep ourselves clean the rest of the time. This is the addiction's biggest lie. The more we do it, the more we need it. The less we do it, the cleaner and clearer our thinking becomes...

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... But no filter is fool-proof. Use the TaPHSiC method to find the best fences for you. This method works wonders for many frum addicts.

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!

Every post on this forum has a link "Report to Moderator", if you someone reads a posts & thinks it may be triggering to himself or others, he should click on that link & briefly state his issue with the post. A moderator of the forum will review it within minuets & if it is deemed necessary, will edit the post to omit the problematic words.