Great, as Reb Dov says




Please tell us when you get to day 2 and open up a little. The more you open up you will help build your confidence to stay clean.
You will soon find yourself be reaching day 7, 10 ......... there's no limit.

Hatzlocha

Today is day two.

Woo Hoo! Keep on Monster Trucking

very good keep going

Today is day three. This is usually where I fall.

Suggested correction: "This is where I used to fall."

See Berachos 4b: נפלה לא תוסיף

Pretend it's day 1 and give it all you got, and ditto for tomorrow etc.

בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים

Hatzlacha

MT

We are all dovening for you. Just stay clean today!

Why would you fall?

I fell yesterday and today.

Why would you fall?

Can you just answer the question simply and honestly? We have all fallen. But why would you fall at all is what I am asking. Let's start a discussion that might get you somewhere and help us all. Just keep is simple, no whining and self-beating. You are not a hunk of garbage. You are a person. Now:

Why do you do these things? Do you have any real idea?

I do them as a distraction from my depression. When I was younger I was really depressed. When I turned 12 and started masturbating, things became bearable. When I learned masturbation is a sin, I tried to stop. When I tried to stop, I became depressed. When I get depressed, I do what used to work. Now that I know that masturbating is a sin, I get more depressed. That is a brief history of my struggle and current problem. This lead me to believe that I first started to, and currently do, fall in order to releive stress and as a break from my depression.

It is pretty clear to me that if you really want to stop - which I would never assume for them that anyone really does for that's up to you, not Hashem, His Torah, or whoever...only ourselves - you need to drop this entire right or wrong business off your shoulders. It's not about the yetzer hora - that's clear. So now you can't blame it on G-d (for He gave you the yetzer hora as a test for Torah ideals, right? So blaming it on my YH is just blaming it directly on G-d). Phew, one down.

The entire issue of sin here - issur or heter - sperm being little imaginary babies, neshomos, homunculi...or tum'ah spreading throughout all your eivarim (Yesod is kolel all the eivarim) as a result of wasting the sperm...this makes your problem worse. Irrelevant if it's true it is just poison for you. It does makes you need to do it more. So it is plain that if there is an issur for you, it is approaching this problem as an aveirah. So phew, two down.

Now what's left is for you to see if this is hurting you in any practical way.

Is it?

Iyov was a great man. He held his faith in G-d at a level we could never have stood on, R"l! But his greatness was marred when he finally cracked. He lost his farm, house, business, and children in a brutal manner - but held the line on acceptance of G-d as truly just and good. What made him lose it? The soton asked to affect Iyov's own body, for a change, and Hashem let him....then Iyov cracked.

AA calls it "enlightened self-interest" - the thing that finally gets the stinking drunk to say in himself what people have been begging him to do for years: "Oh...this is bad for me. I'd better give this up completely right now." The fact that what we do is 'bad' for G-d, for Klal Yisroel, for our Olam haboh, stops the Moshiach, or creates troubles for us in the future...all that is imaginary to us. Our problem needs to start to affect us in ourselves. Enlightened self-interest is what gets us to finally make the grade.

So, how is your habit affecting you today?

some_guy,

I just want to say what an inspiration you are. I B"H have been more successful this time in stopping that I have at any other time in the past 20 years. May it be His will that I continue. In the past, after 1,2 or 3 failures I would just completely give up and not think about stopping again for months, even years.

The way you pick yourself up every time you fall, get back on this forum and again say "today is day one" is a testament to your strength and determination. I hope that if I chas v'shalom have a fall again I am able to pick myself up like you do.

One other thing.
dov wrote on 04 Nov 2012 04:16:


I learned a few years ago that whenever I used to go on a diet if I was just playing lip service to the diet, I wouldn't last a week. If I really got it in my head that I was ready to commit, I would last a few months and drop 30 pounds. Nothing anyone said or did could make me commit in my head, only I could do it. I think I finally applied this lesson to my lust addiction, I pray you can do the same.

MBJ

Today is day 2. MBJ, you have no idea what it means to me to hear that someone was inspirted by what I am doing. Thank you

some_guy wrote on 08 Nov 2012 19:50:


Just don't give up
have a good Shabbos