hello everybody. first time poster.ten days is the longest stretch that i  have been clean from hzl in years.came here hopeing to get chizuk to continue

Dear Hillel

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!

Hello Hillel,

Welcome to the forum.  It's a brave first step, and also a smart move.

Please introduce yourself.  What's your story?

Hatzlacha,

Elyah

WELCOME Hillel!  Great to have you aboard.  We're all in the same boat.  Plase share more with us.

Welcome, brother!
Can't wait to get to know you better. Tell us a bit about yourself.
Are you on the 90 day chart or are you keeping your own count? Either way, 10 days clean at first attempt! Wow!
Keep at it, use this website to your benefit.
Oh, and you can call me
Mottel 

Welcome Hillel,

You've come to the right place. Please take the time to read through the welcome package above and the linked pdf's. It is like what your namesake said while the fellow stood on one foot. The rest of the forum is rashi and tosfos on the handbook. well, sort of.

please stick around, to get and to give chizuk to everyone here
wishing you the best
zs

15 days. but its getting much harder.taking one day at a time

it gets harder and harder, that's why we need to learn not to look at it as a fight, or struggle, but as something larger than us attacking us and only hashem can save us from it

hillel wrote on 20 Feb 2012 06:15:


What's going on?

--Elyah

forget 90 days.have to get through today.stopping smoking wasnt nearly as hard.

You got it.  I quit smoking too, and it definitely was easier.  There's this totally tangible thing called a cigarette.  This is way more subtle.  Of course we also have that terribly tangible computer.  So we put a filter on.  And when that urge to splurge insinuates it's thought, it's very first thought if you can catch it, and you know trouble's coming, get to GYE fast.  Let us know you're in trouble.  The cavalry will come.

Also you got it that this is about getting through today.  That's plenty.  If, when we do nightime Shmah, we can then lay our head on the pillow and thank Hashem that He helped us get through today, and ask for the same help for tomorrow,  just for tomorrow, we make it through just one day at a time.  Nice going!

If you tell your story you'll feel better.  There's a saying, "you're only as clean as your secrets".  Try it, you'll like it.

Finally, I know that you're in the really hard hard hard part of quitting.  But somewhere in the back burner, let's remember that what this trip is really about is coming back close to Hashem, so we can daven to him personally, thanking him, swaying side to side in recognizing His magnificence, asking him, sometimes begging Him (sometimes, like I did a month or so ago, I was in such pain that I got really mad at Him and told Him off.), but at the end of the day, what getting clean is really about is being close to our most intimate love, so personal and precious.

this is actually doable.  Just keep dealing with the urges one at a time.  Go fast to GYE, get filters, read the handbooks.  They will blow your mind.  Like they were written just for you.  Like reading Tehillim.

I wish for you what you know you want more than anything.  More even than you could imagine.

I'm not online very much these days.  But I'm still clean, BZ"H.  so if you respond to this, I may not see it for a while.  My not responding is absolutely not personal.

Welcome chaver.  Enourmous success.

Hello Hillel,

It's helpful if you tell us a bit about yourself.

Good luck, and stay sober,

--Elyah