.... isn't the real simcha the fact that you bh have graduated.....? You have decided that this garbage is just not available anymore. It is similar to every once in a while we dream about what we could do with a few million dollars, yet we don't entertain the thought of robbing a bank....We all get urges - strong ones at times but we don't watch that poison anymore....

My question is: Are you only focusing on the fact that it's a sin and you know it's wrong to indulge, or are you simultaneously working on gaining respect for the positive attributes of being clean?

Learning to love and appreciate the good and pure, and not just to despise the bad will help you achieve your goals.

When fighting an urge, let your thoughts be about how much you want to stay clean, about how beautiful every breath is when in control, in addition to the understanding of why its wrong.
....
Do what's right because it's right and not only because it's not wrong.

                                   Grant

140 days!!!

.... If I pursue it GYE won't stop me, only I can.

I used to think that when I struggled there was only one way for it to end the question was just how long I would be able to hold out.

Now, although the fight is not easy, I realize that there is a another way for it to end. 
....  I am learning that when they come I have to be calm (no freak out, "here we go again...") and tell myself firmly, there are two ways for this to end, one is easy and painless (not going to say feels good because even then I know how awful it is after) and the other is difficult and painful. I will choose the difficult one because my life depends on it. There is no other choice, the other one is really death for me, it will cause me to have 3 days that I can't look at myself or my wife. Three days where I feel like there is nothing I can do to fix myself, like I am a hopeless hunk of flesh obsessed with satisfying my own desires without any regard to others. 

It has to be as strong as steel, I love my life right now and I know that I will hate my life after a fall and I have to say, it's much more pleasant to love your life then to hate it. I spent a large chunk of my adult life hating it, and I'm finished. 
.... I want to be able to choose. Doing whatever I desire is not called being able to choose. That's called being controlled by my desires. If every struggle ends with choosing the easier option, is that really called doing what I want? It's not called making a choice if the other option is not even a choice.

I daven every day that Hashem should help me in my struggles
.... May Hashem grant us all the ability to become better people by making the changes we need to make that will allow Hashem to pour over his siyata dishmaya.

.... I think about the actual pleasure I will have instead of the blown out of proportion fantasy promoted by the yetzer hara.

Think about it, the desire for the pleasure of the indulgence is greater than the actual pleasure. We all experienced that. We act out and say to ourselves "So that was what I drove myself crazy about? That's what I gave up so much for"?

​The word teshuvah means to return to the path that leads Shleimus (100% good) we don't need to be perfect, but we need to return to the path that leads there. 

wilnevergiveup wrote on 17 Sep 2020 06:02:

Would love to have a mekor for this pshat in the word teshuva but definitely fits right in with what we know of where we should be heading and I absolutely love this line

Whew! Tons of taiva right now, heart pounding and all...
But nope! I’m winnin this one.
Aaaaaahhhh!!! Sooo hard.
But no thanks!
A life of Dveikus is waaaayyy more Geshmak.

Well, obviously the yetzer hara is always truthful and correct.

Day 33

My wife had a go at me today about our financial situation 

Came awfully close to masturbating my brains out
Multiple times

One thought that went through my mind then may be beneficial:
It will take multiple falls to relieve this
I will still be stuck financially then
My wife will not change her attitude 
I will feel even worse
And, I will not enjoy the fall at all
It will just give me the feeling that I'm free, that I can do as I wish 
But at the same time I will still feel the stress and burden of having to pay the bills
And I will be depressed as I do it and afterwards 

I am now realising that this thought process signals the progress of recent months
Both, that it comes up in my mind in times of nisayon and that it was a real detterent (and least at 33 days, I doubt I would have held back on day 10)

And while I hope and pray that my finances will be simpler and that I should not have these nisyonos, I thank hashem for revealing to me in such a clear example how great I can and will Iy"h go on to be

YeshivaGuy wrote on 12 Oct 2020 08:22:

Yetzer Tov doesn't win, I @YeshivaGuy (or whatever your name is) wins.

It's funny, the ba'alei mussar point out, imagine a conversation in your brain between the Y"H and Y"T. one of them is always talking as you and the other talking as an outsider. Can you guess who is who?
It's always "I" need to do x, y, or z and the Y"T nebach has to stand on the outside telling you, "you know, really "you" shouldn't etc. ain't that backwards? 

This is how the Y"H tricks us, he makes us think that he is us (this is what it means when Adam Harishon sinned the Y"H went inside of us. He is not just in our subconscious minds, he actually has us defining ourselves by his terms). 

We can't forget that the truth is the opposite, we are our neshama, our intellect. It's not a battle between the Y"H and Y"T, the Y"T doesn't win, You do.

90dys wrote on 16 Oct 2020 15:34:

Food for thought: Even though it was an easy day without any heavy urges or extreme desire, if you were a classic goy, would you have acted out anyway? Probably. Dessert is delicious even if it isn't a necessity.

So there you have it, CLEAN DAY!

In the beginning we try to do everything in order to stop, we smash our phones, get filters, put restrictions, often we do these things just for us to feel like we are doing something when in reality what we need to do is work on self control.
Now don't get me wrong, those things are important, but essentially they are the easy part.
.... 
I once had a friend who was nice and overweight. every few weeks or so he would proclaim "that's it! I had enough! I am going on a diet!". He would then storm out and return a half hour later with bags and bags of food. He would go out and buy tons of "healthy food" bags of fruit and veggies, salmon, whole wheat bread and crackers etc. He would then spend most of the next two days preparing all his food, that was healthy of course.

It never occurred to him that you don't lose weight by eating more food just because it's healthy. It was too difficult for him to actually refrain from eating, all he was able to do was do and when he felt that his lack of control was too much for himself to bear he was compelled to do something about it, when in reality what he needed was to learn how to refrain.                                                   

....
I have had a more sheltered upbringing then you, No pretty girls around all the time. No interaction with the opposite sex. And I've often thought, 'if I could just be able to be normal around girls, I would be so much better off. Like if I could chill with them, it would make this fight easier, less pent up frustration and feelings of awkwardness. Not everything they would do would drive me up the wall. I woouldn't sexualize every little thing.' Sound familiar? No? Thought not. Cos its the total opposite of what you feel. 

My point is the yetzer convinces us the grass is always greener. You have more interaction with girls, and feel that exasperates the taiva. I have less, and feel the same way.  Whatever our matzav is, that is where Hashem wants us to be. You are in a horrid, taiva filled matzav. So do what you can in that situation, and move on.

Title
FREE AT LAST (without bein' overconfident)

My wife goin' away
brings back memories
of all that i'd plan
on how I would please

.... 
in my olden days I'd get graphic
every detail I would share
but now that's no longer my focus
so we'll leave the past right there