day 27- zach clean,pure. how is everyone doing?
  i just want to post a thought i had yesterday while learning. one can be with with their wife till their hearts content- but we will never be full. If the tayva is just to have sex, that's natural- but if after that tayva is filled we want more, this is the problem. i actually felt yesterday, after all my tayva had been filled (in the kosher way), that i wanted to go look at porn- i asked myself why am i getting down, i should be so happy now. It was then that I realized that the tayva to look at porn wasn't from the same place in my brain as my first tayva to be with my wife. it was the strangest yet most sobering feeling.

I realize that by working to fight ourselves we get extra s"d to understand ourselves, but more important then understanding is feeling! We need to break free , as long as this controls us we will never be able to live a real life- chanuka is about the light through the darkness of galus..... nischazek, v' nisaleah

battlelog day 29- . yetzer harah is on the prowl. looking to score. - just a peek..... your wife isn't what you see on the street-those girls look so much cooler. they walk the walk and dress the dress and hold themselves the way that turns you on. you want it so bad, help!! i'm being honest and it hurts so much-it makes me cry. these are my thoughts with tears in my eyes, and belief that the above will bring me to completion and what i really deserve...the thought that i could look any good looking girl in the face and say i love her. it hurts when this is what my heart pulls me to and i can't look my wife in the face because it hurts me to much. if i am shomer my einayim, will hashem send me s"d to help me? will these thought go away? i'm so messed up- day 40 will b"h be zos chanuka- may hashemsend us all rachamim and answers.

battle log- day thirty. just woke up and while in bed i realized for some odd reason (s"d) i have been noticing that i also need to watch what comes out of my mouth more- what is the link between the two i was thinking peh and milah are gimatria  85 -elokim, i once remember seeing something like this.

Congrats on day 30 .... keep up the great work!

Be Holy, Congrats on reaching a month - LEVEL 4! You and Ano both reached level 4 together! (And he's a bachur, remember).

GUE is proud to crown you with the "Eved Hashem" crown. Kol hakavod.

About what you write, I feel your pain so much. We all have been there.

I had to change some of the wording in your post (the one that started "Battle log day 29") and the one in green as well. Your honesty is refreshing, but I just don't want anyone to feel your pain and desires TOO much. It can be a trigger. Your struggle and mesiras nefesh are truly inspirational and I used some of your posts for our Chizuk e-mail just this Friday. But again there you may have noticed that I removed some wordings that might have been a little too much...

Shmiras ainayim is one of the hardest things. Especially for people with these issues. The addiction is still there and the Yetzer Hara blows these things WAY out of proportion in our minds. It's all hot air. I promise if you had all these pretty women that you see, you would just want more and more and hotter and better. It never ends. The "love" you feel for them is false and empty. Ahavah hatluya bedavar ain sofo lehiskayem. And it's not even love, it's LUST. Lust is a poison that we got in our blood from the NACHASH Hakadmoni. Work on developing true love with your wife, not based on looks but based on "giving" and the sharing of children and sharing of goals.

Yes, if you work on Shmiras Ainayim, Hashem will help you realize that it's all hot air. He'll help you internalize it. But until you work "HARD", the Yetzer Hara will keep blowing it out of proportion. Also, working on Shmiras Ainayim will SAVE you from this unbearable pain. What you don't look at, doesn't hurt. The trick is to turn away as soon as something enters your field of vision. It's hard yes, but it's even HARDER to look.

Try and read some of the "Mind Tips" on our site over here, when you feel these feelings. The Shechinah is in pain with you. May Hashem give you strength to overcome.

battlelog- day 32- lev. erev chanuka. today is actually the day the the chashmunayim won the war. we are the chashminayim and can win the war- it is a hard war because we are fighting ourselves(strange isn't it- we we are fighting ourselves!!)  chanuka we rise above the nature and become super-men. at the Friday shiur of reb zvi meir i talked to him after the shiur. i was almost in tears . he asked me how things are going- i told him not so good, "it hurts so much"- he said to hold on and the mesiras nefesh and the zchus of working on something maila min hateva will bring to amazing things over chanuka.
  to all my fellow warriors- we must scream to hashem this chanuke- forget about the past. ask hashem for the future, make the goals, and hashem will make our dreams come true if we daven. ano- it may hurt but great things are coming, the power of the lights can cleanse and enlighten our darkest insides. i apologies for being so explicit on the previous posts, it's just the honest baser instincts. thank you everyone for all you support and chizuk!!

Holy be holy, I promise you that if you continue working on shmiras einayim and on improving your relatioship with Hashem, then very soon you won't believe that these narishkaiten ever took up so much of your mind!!!

CHAZAK VEEMATZ and A LECHTIGER CHANUKA--LEMAALA MIN HATEVA!!!

day 32- i feel worn out. y"h is on the loose... help. i feel like crying. where is my love? will i ever love the people close to me? will i ever appreciate them for what they are or will it always be more about what they look like and the image that they exude? it gets me down....and scared. will i ever be able to look my wife in the eyes and say i love you-?everything in life is  is about women why such a power in the world?.
  the malach of asav was called samal - controller of the eyes, he wants to destroy us completely but was never granted permission by h"y. he has the power to make us sin and there for are not able to see hashem because of the tumah covering our eyes.
  how can i be sure things will get better?

We cannot really be SURE what will happen in the future, and the YH uses this to convince us that me may as well give in now, because we probably won't be able to resist in the future. Just think this logic through. Does it make any sense? Of course it doesn't. But the desire blinds us. I'm trying to internalize this as I struggle with similar feelings. Have a great Chanukah!!!

Dear Be Holy,
I want to tell you a few things.

1) It is all fake. It's a game Hashem plays with us. Rash lakish was once a robber and sinner who did every davar assur. And he said in the gemrara that the desire to "look" at women is more powerful and more pleasurable even than the Ma'aseh itself. He KNEW what he was talking about. Why? Because when you look, the Yetzer hara uses "Dimyon" - imagination, to blow it up. But the desires you feel are FAKE. The minute you would HAVE what you THINK you want, you would not believe that for this you sold you soul.

2) And this is the biggest chesed that hashem does for us. He asks from us what we FEEL is messiras nefesh, but it really is all hot-air. And he gives us so much schar for saying "no" to absolutely NOTHING, and in return for turning away he offers us the greatest closeness to him. It feels like a mountain, but if you would fall you would feel that you were "felled" by a "string".

3) People like you, who feel such intense love and attraction to other women, these are the people who have the greatest potential for incredible love and closeness to hashem. As the ba'al shem tov said many times, the love and lust we feel is "fallen love" from the upper worlds. It is your soul's yearning for the SOURCE of all beauty and desire and pleasure; namely HASHEM. If you feel this so intensely, it means you have great potential in you, if you can only learn to direct this love to it's source! So everytime you feel these feelings that you write about, try and direct them to the source. Scream out to Hashem  that you want to love him, you want to see the truth. Why do our minds of flesh and blood need to "mess" up the the signals?

4) He wants the kesher with you. And that is why it is so hard. The minute you give it over to HIM to fight, and trust fully in him - that is what he was waiting for and it will get much easier!

thank you... last night was so tough. my wife was out very late. i was so close. b"h it is day 33- gal. your post made me cry- i have so many questions about life and marraige. i was speeking to family and friends last night, there was a  trigger but b"h made it through. it is soooooooooo hard. but your feedback gives me strength. i asked rav moshe shternbach this week if it is worthwhile to make a list of things we believe are "maela minn hateve" to daven for over chanuka- he said it is a great idea. let us all daven and keep being mchazek each-other.

I am thinking of you all the time... Your struggle and your pain won't let me rest, I feel it together with you and I am davening for you each day. You are going through withdrawal and it's very hard. If you can just hold out till 90 days, the studies show it will get much easier. And even 40 days according to the Mishna Brurah, is what it takes to make something into second nature (he writes about getting up in the cold winter before sunrise). Believe me, the Yetzer hara will never get enough. Don't imagine that if "only" you had this one or that one it would be better. He is NEVER satisfied until he has your soul. See the Zohar Parshas Vayetze on "Vayetze yaakov vayelech charana" how the Yetzer hara appears as the most beautiful woman and gets the man to sin, and then after sinning, while he sleeps, the YH rises to the upper worlds, takes off all the Tachshitim (that he used to get the person to sin) and returns as a horrible monster covered in eyes, with a sword of death to take the person's soul...

If you give in to him even once, you are his slave again. A thousand times is never enough for him, one time is too much. This is your test in life, this is what you are here for. Chanukah is about Messiras Nefesh - and you are LIVING Chanukah now. The Koach of Chanukah is Mislabesh in the few people like you now on this planet who are being Mosser Nefesh for Hashem against all odds. Rabbim Biyad Me'atim. Even though he is STRONGER than you, if you jump in with messiras nefesh and trust Hashem to fight for you than Masarta Giborim Biyad Chalashim!!

Be Holy, I had you in mind today in the Chizuk e-mail.

thank you guardian. i keep crying. tonight i went into my sons room and cried to hashem with all my heart. davening is great today. we need to do teshuva. it is so hard and it hurts soooo much. all the bad thoughts and the en grained thought process and triggers in the brain are so apparent now.

Your Avodah is higher than the Kohanim in the Beis Hamikdash!! I have seen from experience in this feild, that anyone who truly shed tears to Hashem in his desire to break free will ultimately succeed!!

Listen though. In a practical sense, besides "Chizuk" and "Emunah" which you have a lot of, there are often other things necessary to help a person break free from this. Someone who is ill can't just get healed by having a good attitude. If you feel you are climbing up a smooth wall with your bare hands (which is incidentally what one of the Chassidic masters once said that it would be like to stay strong in the days before Moshiach), it could be you should seek some other eitzas as well, such as therapy and possibly even medication for a few months, just to help take the edge off of the obsession. I can refer you to some good frum therapists in Jerusalem if you want. Scroll down to the bottom of this page. Also, get a fool proof filter like Rimon or preferably even a white-list filter like I have - eNativ.com. And, get on the free phone conference line every Sunday. You need MORE than just chizuk. This is a powerful fight, an addiction, a disease. Do everything you can and Hashem will do the rest.