Hey everyone.
I'm new to this site, so if I break any protocols here, I apologize.

I have a lot to say by way of introduction, but I don't have the time.  For now, I'll just post my specific feelings right now, and hopefully come back later to write a proper introduction
I started the 90 day thing a few weeks ago. I havent been able to crack 4 days.  Sort of having some feelings of yeush here (nothing new for me in terms of dealing with this problem)
Lately, I've been doing terribly, actually.  I sort of feel like I'm in a tail spin here.  This morning I realized that I've missed tefila betzibur 3-4 times in the past 2 weeks because of my problem.
I have k9 filter set up, but I also have the password. I am too ashamed of asking any of my friends to take care of it.  I would love to get in touch with that filter gabai, but I don't know how.

Any words of support and chizuk would be appreicated (as well as how to get in touch with that gabbai)
Thanks
-IGW

Hello IGW, welcome to the forum. 

Check out this link with ideas for getting started in this struggle:

www.guardyoureyes.com/breakingfree/first-time-here

Especially, download the GYE handbook and start working through it.

Being honest and open is the first step (and a major ingredient) for recovery.

Looking forward to hearing your story.  (You can check out mine on the link at the bottom of my message "Eye.nonymous official count."  Just check out a bit at the beginning and then a bit at the end, you'll get an idea what's been going on with me here on GYE.)

Keep on posting,

Elyah

Welcome aboard!

Recognizing the problem is the first step. You are working on it, even if you keep falling you get up and try again. The effort is what counts, you don't need to "win" to be a winner! Keep chipping away at it, it will get easier.

For all you need to know about filters, follow this link:
http://www.guardyoureyes.com/filters

Hatzlacha and Keep On Trucking!

Gevura!

Welcome!
I relate well to your struggle.
Simply signing up for "the 90-day thing" probably won't be enough.
Beating this addiction takes a little more work than that.  A new approach.  I admire your commitment.  Direct your efforts in the best possible way by reading the basic materials referenced above.  Simply fighting the urges doesn't work.  Otherwise none of us would be here.

Here's a way to jumpstart your recovery:

1) Bulletproof shmiras eynayim.  No women. No part of them. Not live and not in print.  Not tznius and not otherwise.

2) Guard your mind against sexual thoughts and images.  When these come, start davening.  You can borrow this tefila, based on steps 1-3 and 11 of the 12 steps:

"Ribbono Shel Olam, I am powerless over lust and my life has become unmanageable.
Only you can restore me to sanity.
I turn my life and my lust over to your care and ask you to please heal me from this illness of lust.  I don't want to lust, I only want You and a relationship  with You and Your Torah, (and appropriate attraction to my wife).  Take my lust.  Please, take my lust"

Your goal is to stop lusting.

In addition, the Pesach seder is a unique, once-a-year opportunity to get out of enslavement to any Y"H.  Take a look at this post for specifics on how to do it:

www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=3750.0

And finally, because I know you're just so curious, here are the famous 12 Steps that have helped so many millions of addicts of every sort break free and start living real again (I resisted working them for a long time.  Now I'm a fan.) :

Step 1 - We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable
Step 2 - Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
Step 3 - Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God
Step 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
Step 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs
Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character
Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all
Step 9 - Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others
Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it
Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out
Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs

Now you're cookin'!

its amazing how in a matter of 3 hours so much chizzuk comes pouring in when someone says they need help...!

It was beautiful chizuk.
Fortunately, it helped last night.
Unfortunately, it didn't help tonight.

Elyah- Thank you for your warm welcome.  I downloaded the handbook and read the first few pages.  I plan to make reading it a kavuah part of my schedule.
Gevura- thanks for the link and for the chizuk in "Ki Nafalti, Kamti".  It's important to keep in mind.  Also, thanks for the gabbi link.  I emailed him earlier today.  Hopefully he'll get back to me soon.
Alex Eliezer- Thank you for that gezunte post.  I used that tefila a few times today.  It was, at the very least, helpful for me to gain perspective of what was going on around me and to slow myself down.  Thank you also for the pesach link.  I look forward to listening to it either tonight or tomorrow morning.  About those 12 steps-- what do I do with them/how do I work through them/what does it mean to work through them?
Mendel- You're aboslutely right.  It is amazing.

I guess since I have some time right now, I'll start with a little bit of background.  I have been struggling with my addiction for around a decade).  Back when I was in high school (6-7 years ago), I realized that this was becoming something that I had no control over, and I found a website for teens struggling with the problem.  I signed up (using the same name I have here) at that site and grew to be a pretty active member.  It was strange, because the members were primarily religious christians.  I felt that my need for support outweighed whatever uncomfortablity it meant to be the sole Jew there.  Either way, I stopped visiting that site after high school and it seems that it is now defunct.
About 2 years ago I heard a lecture by a psychologist who spoke about this addiction.  I spoke with him after the lecture and asked him to help me.  He gave me the number of a psychologist, and I've been meeting with him since then.  At times I feel like we are making progress, and at times I feel that we are not.  I have definitely seen myself grow in areas that fed into this addiction (primarily issues of self-esteem and self-confidence).  But, alas, I feel as though I am far from being totally in the clear.
In the beginning of the GYE handbook, Rav Twerski wrote about getting this under control before marriage.  This, I guess, is my number one goal.

If I don't get a chance to post before tomorrow night, then chag kasher vesameach to everyone.
-IGW

Nice to "meet" you!
Chag kosher vsameach!

Nice to meet you, obermottel.

First days of yom tov were decent, I guess. Sedarim with my family are never wonderful, but I think we pulled through, with minimal arguing and crying at the table.

The entire yom tov, especially today, I was having difficulty getting the internet off of my mind.  Earlier tonight, during maariv, I davened so hard (but apparently not hard enough) to be helped to clear tonight.  To be able to make it through 3 days clean.  But, it was less than an hour after havdalah that I was back on the computer.
The nature of my struggle tonight is long, but needless to say, I gave in to my desires.

I still haven't heard back from the filter gabbai.  Is there any chance, at least in the interim, that someone can volunteer to be the password email person for K9?  I NEED to not know the password and not have access to the password.  Please.

Because of my whole ordeal tonight I didn't do any of the learning I planned to do, I didn't do any of reading I planned to do, I didn't eat any major meal.  And, to top it off, it's now 2:15 AM and Shacharis is at 6:45.  That means I am barely getting sleep tonight.  I'm not even sure if it's worth going to sleep.  Maybe I should just learn?

It has been so long since I broke the 3 day barrier.  I need to turn myself around.  There are 4 days of chol hamoed.  My strategy needs to be better.

how do I link something

obormottel wrote:

Failed

Should be: Test

This is Blind Beggar posting on the new forum. Still sober thanks to GYE and SA. 466 days.

Glad tohearManyMany Many⁶¹³more

cute!

shteeble wrote:


SHTEEBS!!!!!
they cut you down to 1 post ?!?!

geshertzarmeod wrote:


The same way you did...