yay,
day 8

the malachim are dancing

e.l. is tantzing

I will drink  nucha lchaim!!!!

day 9,
BH"

Gevaldig - that's 10% to 90 days!  

Keep in mind that each 10% should get easier overall, although there may be difficult moments.

yiddish

NAYN NAYN IN NUCH AMOOL NAYN!!!
b

Nine is a special number. It is the period of new growth. Think you are in  a sense reborn.

Hey guys, i had a fall and i am back to day 1.

  I just want to say that i write this with a smile as i read all of the encouraging words.

  I am ready to start over and there are new developments now.
 
I realize that i am not just a porn addict, i am a TV addict, a Movie addict, a Comic addict, and a fiction book addict.
  A lust addict.
    With the help of my brother who is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict i am accepting what i guess is step 1 of the 12 steps.
  If i read one comic, watch one TV show, i'll dive in and watch a thousand.
Once i indulge once, i am no longer in control.
  Even during these past days of "clean" i had been watching a lot of tv shows with sensuality and "sex" scenes.
  I figured that as long as i'm not watching explicit content, then i am still considered clean. Maybe according to some standards i still am.
It's not good enough.
  Tv shows and movies are becoming just as destructive in terms of time consumption and character transformation as porn was.
  also...
          Once i'm in the throes of escapism and addiction, it is too short a step till i am back to glimpsing the explicit stuff.
  With this new start towards a new definition of sobriety, i am excited for sobriety and energized to put in the effort.
  That emotional vigor than one feels when approaching the beginning of a marathon and the hope for victory.
  I also feel fear, fear of further falls.
  With this comes acceptance, if i fall then something was missing in my effort and i will keep adding to insight and protective measures till i find what works. What keeps me clean.
 
  The Situation: Right now, I have access to one computer in the house. This computer will email my parents all of the websites that i use. So i don't use it for explicit porn, explicit porn is not my primary focus right now.
  I need to be clean, from TV and all my other addictions as well. 
  I am ruining my life...

The Difficulty: This computer is a family computer, i can't disable internet entirely, nor can i filter out every website but the kosher ones because my family members will need access to websites that i can't access when they want to.
          It looks like i need new techniques,
                  Please share any advice, i need it

    Some specific questions:
1. Many say that the core of all the steps is the first one, the awareness that you can't start, because if you you start you won't stop. How can i strengthen this awareness to a greater degree?
2. My brother recommends specifically the support and raw honesty of the face to face meeting and urges me to look up local SLA meetings and Porn anon meetings, as that was what lead him to sobriety for his addictions. I am nervous, i this really the best place to go for a lust, and escapist addiction that expresses itself in TV, Movies, and Comics?

  May hashem help us all grow, and forgive our mistakes, and bring us close to his will. Which is bound to be beautiful.
 
 

One more observation.
  Sort of in poetry from.

  Once i indulge in my vice, i transform.
  I become cold, unresponsive,  and completely dependent on continued escapism.
  It becomes as necessary as food.
  I think of nothing but escaping.
  People, my goals, my ideals, G-d, they fade away. 
  My stimulation, my escapism,
      i make it my g-d as i submit to my lust completely.
  I become an ardent worshiper of the stimulus.
  Once i indulge in my vice.

Eden, Heilige Yid,

Shkoyach on your ten or so days of being clean.

Shkoyach on your positive attitude in you fall.

Shkoyach on your awareness of what's going on with you and gaining insights even in "down" times.

I don't really have answers to your questions, but I share a lot of those issues. Look forward to being further inspired by you. And, cool that you can talk to your brother about this and be open with him!

love,

Struggle

Eden!

Very Nice Chazak Veamatz!

keep it up, your bringing moshiach :D

Eden,

make different users on the computer with passwords and yours your families can have accsessto the web and yours can't, or no images check out the options. They also have a kiddie browser on this site under filters.

I am very impressed by your honesty and that you share your problem so openly with your family and others.  I am also very impressed with how you bounce back and focus on staying clean

day 1,
thanks for the feedback

I asked the following three questions to my accountability partner.
I then realized that i really needed to ask these questions to myself as well.
I then decided to post them up here in order that we all might ask ourselves these questions if we so choose.

  1.What are my goals?
My goal is to wipe addictive behavior from my life. When i am in the throes of addiction i lose all self control, i also become cold to other people, i become dependent on the "fix." List of things i am addicted to: porn, tv, movies, comics, and to perhaps a less dependent degree fiction novels.
  2. What do i do on the internet besides porn?(how do i justify my usage of the internet)
my current activities on the internet are gmailing, facebooking, receiving online tinwhistle lessons on youtube, GUE stuff, other life necesities ex. research fo school, if i need to buy something ect., and occaisionally i download shiurim on torah websites.
  I have actually been interested in learning practical methods of recieving expediant current events as fact based as possible, any suggestions?
                These are the activities i allow for my usage of the internet.
  3. How do i keep this going? (What's my plan)
My computer has a program that email all websites visited to my parents, this means history deletion doesn't help. I have a filter as well. In order to avoid internet TV i plan to recieve further guidance on how to approach this. Right now i'm reciveing support from my brother, a former addict now recovered. He has taught me that the key to avoiding addiction is internalizing that if you use ONCE then you lose the ability to regulate yourself. There is no controling or limiting the source of addiction.

In his words, learned from AA meetings "one is too much and a thousand is never enough"

    If you appreciate these questions and don't have immediate answers to all three of them,
                          THEN NOW IS THE TIME! 

day 2,
  when i say clean now i mean clean from from movies, tv, and online comics as well.
Yesterday i had so much free time i didn't know what to do with it all.
Just brings in to perspective how much time i wasted on these activities.
What's been my mantra yesterday and hopefully today is something to the point of.
              "I can't control this habit, that means if i do any of the aforementioned activities ONCE,
                then i will not be able to stop. I will waste the day away, and fall into an awful state of mind
                where i suffer much and risk losing everything good in my life, not the least important my goals!"
               
                I know that anyone whose been reading any of these posts is probably finding this point repetitive,
  this repetition is really a reflection of my fear of giving in and indulging.
  May hashem help us all,

 

Dear Eden,

Great questions and yeah, you're so right that the answers can really hold someone (me) together. I think when I'm searching for the answers and asking the questions, even if I'm not sure what the answers are, that still means I'm on the right track. Does that sound very cliche? Oh well, still holds true...

What are we finding repetitive, Eden? That you want be clean? That you want to live life outside of addiction? That addiction, any addiction is crippling? Such yesodos, how can you not repeat them?! I was just commenting to a friend yesterday that sefer devarim is the most repetitive sefer in chumash. Not because of mishneh torah, but because certain ideas are just said over and over again, v'ahavta, lirah, l'davka bo, v'chu... We're supposed to follow in the ways of HKB"H, so if He's repeating the important points to hammer them into our stubborn heads, then go for it! I for one, gain from every reminder here on this site. Sometimes I just think, "Heh, I know this already, what does this guy think he's being mechadesh?" I wonder whose voice that really is... Keep it coming Eden!

Chodesh Tov!!

love,
Struggle

day 3,

Thank you Struggle for the beautiful and inspiring response.