I simply can't see how a lust addict can watch actresses on TV and in movies and remain sober. They are the very drug. Perhaps a lower dose, but the drug nonetheless. He who feeds it is hungry.

If you're depressed, take positive actions, not negative ones. Take a long walk. Exercise. Straighten up your room or house. Do a project around the house or yard. Get together with a friend. Daven a personal tefillah in English.

I would also recommend a book called Feeling Good by David Burns. It teaches you how to think positively and talk positively to yourself. You simply can't be depressed when your mind is brimming with positive thoughts.

its very good that you came to the realization that the addiction fills a certain void. that's the essence of recovery: no need to apologize for anything!

just don't beat yourself up--we all get depressed sometimes. today is a new day, this minute is a new minute, and its counterproductive to beat ourselves up.

Sometimes if we quit Tv cold turkey, its too hard, and then we binge. Cut it down slowly--epiaodes don't build on one another. Say "I'll watch every other episode", try it for a while, and slowly build up other areas of your life.

48 Up. While that is great I really need to work still. (Also, I need to post because I'm almost off the first page. )

AlexEliezer wrote:

Yes, of course you are right. However, in the moment it isn't really the lust part of my brain which is pushing me to watch it (usually, and at first. Ok so maybe I'm lieing to myself. I'm to tired to think about it now, but I'll have to really think about it later.). Yes, it is likely a just as insidious part but not this part.

I'll have to continue another time because it's really late.

Hatzlacha to us all!

ayzehu chacham, haroeh es hanolad

Amazing streaming video shiur by Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein about the root of the problem with the internet and other electronic media, and why filters are not the answer.

www.torahanytime.com/scripts/media.php?file=media/Rabbi/Zecharia_Wallerstein/2012-06-20/Korach:_The_Truth_about_Happiness/Rabbi__Zecharia_Wallerstein__Korach:_The_Truth_about_Happiness__2012-06-20.wmv

I'm not sure if this will help but it's worth a try:

I admit that I suffer from not really living. It was what drove me to masturbating, porn, erotica, movies, TV, internet, sleeping through shacharis and seder, depression, laziness, and just about every other think which I have done wrong in the last number of years.

OK, now that I got that off my chest, what am I supposed to do about it? I was reading the forum recently and realized I should really consider going through the whole GYE handbook. Is that what it is really about, living?

I was reading some of Dov's posts about honestly and especially his story about Captain Kirk in the Dov thread. (Thanks Gibbor120!!) He pushes hard for people to us their real names and I decided that he's really right. However, I'm not ready to admit to the world (i.e. the guests who visit he looking for who knows what but don't really care about it enough to join) who I am and my life story. However, I just found this awesome feature in the formatting section when posting which allows for content to be hidden from guests. So,
Something is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it.


Hatzlacha to us all!

I see a yellow box; I will log off and see if I still see it.

It says

"Something is hidden for guests. Please log in or register to see it."

When I am a guest.

It works!!! Baruch Hashem!!!!

I don't know why there are so many guests--why don't they just sign up for heaven's sake???

Lots of people find the site and read for a while before they sign up. When I found the site I lurked for like 2 months before I had the guts to sign up and post my story. But during that time I was already working on being clean and getting tons of chizuk from reading the posts.

Gevura Shebyesod wrote:

Same here, I spent months before joining. However, when (if) I get up the courage to even just sign my name (it's a combination which is not overly common) I don't really want it so public that anyone who stumbles onto the page or Googles my name can find it.

I'm still not even sure what it will accomplish and if that is something I need. I have been thinking about what I can do to live life more fully instead of escaping into whatever my escape hatch is.

Thinking back on my past hobbies and things I used to do, I realized just how much they were ways to escape my reality. From playing with Legos and using my imagination to escape into the little world of the minifigures well into my teenage years, to playing handheld video games instead of going to seder in high school, to locking myself in my dorm room or bathroom to watch movies on a borrowed iPod in Bais Medrash, to watching hours and hours of action and superhero movies and TV shows, to finally the last step of watching porn and reading erotica to escape from my world. Now even on my way back up, I can't am having trouble giving up TV and movies and maybe even turning to them more as something to fill the void left by my lusting.

What is it that I'm trying to escape? That is the thing which has really been bothering me. I have a really great life in many ways. Sure nothing is perfect but all in all, it's certainly not the type of life that I would want to end (at least not for the last few years ). And yet there is something which is clearly distasteful enough that I'm trying to escape it.

Just mussing, not sure that anyone but me can really answer most of these questions but it really does help to get them written down.

Hatzlacha to us all!

needtoquit wrote:

Did you suffer any trauma as a child? Divorce, harsh criticism, perhaps something more subtle that left you feeling bad about yourself???

Great insight, needtoquit! That was very helpful for me too!

It took me a while to figure out stuff. I found reading page 15 on "Gibbor120's home" to have very helpful insights about self-esteem.

Personally, I've always had a need to rationalize why I'm a tzaddik to myself, why other people should see me as a tzaddik, and I've always tried to hide insecurities or faults. What Gibbor120 wrote really resonated with me.

I've also had some issues relating social isolation.

But really, I have a great life. That's kind of the chiddush: there's no need to escape life! We can just go out there and live it to the fullest, enjoying the sweetness of Torah.

Congrats on your realization! (Still, playing with Legos can be fun sometimes )

hm, like reading my life story a bit. But do you get your work done?

I mean sure it isn't the best way to live watching telly, but then again look at Tarantino. Watching movies is all he really did and then started making his own movies. BTW sorry about bringing Tarantino up, he is very graphic and Inglorious Bastards was just way off....
Anyhow I am just saying it might not be so wrong to watch TV, play video games and watching a little bit of nudity. I mean really!!!!

But I am must also say this: I AM AN ADDICT, AND I CAN'T AFFORD TO WATCH A LITTLE BIT OF NUDITY. I go crazy after that and I found I must go through the 12 steps right there. When a thought arises in my head I need to get up and pray to Hashem and ask Him like you would ask your buddy to pass the salt.

So there, forgive me to say this, but not all men are addicts because they spend some time watching porn. I believe that. It is the same thing with alcohol. I drink after dinner a glass of wine and I am not alcoholic. Really, I am not. But I do like to drink a glass here and there.

But porn and masturbation. I can't take a sip. I can't. And for me it starts when I procrastinate and feeling low. So when does feelings arise, I HAVE TO ACT IMMEDIATELY AND ASK HASHEM FOR HELP!


hope this writing helps.... All the best to you!

yehoshua wrote:


I was thinking this morning about how the moment I see a woman jogging from afar, even if I saw nothing that gets my desires going, I have some sort of Pavlovian response that sets me in ta'avah mode. I dunno, is it simply a psycophysiological (did I just make that up?) response because my brain knows that there are goodies coming up?

Either way, IT DOESN'T MATTER.

If macaroni got my ta'avos started I would need to do what I can to avoid macaroni.

(At the restaurant:

Waiter: Today's special is the baked ziti

Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!)

Sorry, about the delay. I started writing this post a week ago and it just kept getting longer, like 12 paragraphs and counting, until I decided that I needed to really reduce it. So here is the abridged version (which is still much longer than most "long" posts):

Chachaman wrote:

Yes it can be, but only if I'm not using it to escape my life and just to channel some creativity.

gibbor120 wrote:

My first response was B"H nothing like that. But, then I starting thinking. When I was much younger, like beginning of elementary school, I had a very poor reading skills, especially in Hebrew. It became a viscous cycle of falling behind my classmates because I was a slow reader and not reading and improving those skills because I didn't like it.

I slowly began to enjoy reading English and that skill gradually improved. However, my Hebrew reading just wasn't improving because I didn't enjoy it, in part because I didn't understand what I was reading. I still remember my father sometimes getting frustrated with me because I was misreading words. I had a habit of only looking at the beginning of the word and then just finishing it off my guess.

I almost didn't get accepted into the local Yeshiva, which has a policy to accept every boy, because of my learning skills or lack thereof. However, they accepted me with a word of caution that it may not be the right place for me. I went anyways, probably because I didn't really have a better option. I made my way through the first few years of High School without getting thrown out even though I ditched plenty of sedarim spending time dreaming, reading books, playing handheld video games, and of course masturbating. In short I was miserable. I hated learning.

Finally, in 11 grade, I got up the guts to leave and try to find a better place for me. I went to a new Yeshiva and stayed there for 12 grade and even a year of Bais Medrash. The decision to stay for Bais Medrash was based on a number of things: giving learning one last try, my fear of change, the productive things which I started doing to distract myself from my learning challenges, and of course fear of ruining my chance for a good shidduch. I then went to a Yeshiva/College program and continued to avoid learning and distract myself with reading, masturbating, and college work.

Finally a few years ago while still in that Yeshiva/College program I started learning Daf HaYomi and something remarkable happened. I started changing. My learning skills increased dramatically, I can pick up a Gemara and just start learning on my own. Last summer I started also doing chazzarah after going to the shiur. I can get through the blatt with my chavrusah in about 25 minutes usually. I even give the shiur occasionally. All in all I am a very different person.

However, until the last few weeks' posts I don't think I realized how this can completely change how I work on this struggle (and a few of my others ex. TV, Movies, laziness). Since first coming to GYE I denied being an addict, and still do (at least when I wrote this before editing it). I was just never really motivated to try and quit. So with no decision to quit, it isn't really a surprise that I didn't. However, I was never really able to understand why I didn't have the motivation to quit. I have know fairly clearly how wrong what I was doing was, but it just never moved me.

I didn't realize that I couldn't let myself be motivated because I was using it as a way to escape. But that was just the first step. For some reason, when you (gibbor120 for those who lost track of the conversation during the last few paragraphs) asked me the question, the answer just flowed out. So here I am many paragraphs later, realizing and internalizing that I have build up habits/addictions to "escape" the life which I grew out of months or years ago. I am no longer the person who needs to distract himself from the guilt or boredom of not learning, because I can and do learn. My life is fabulous. G-d granted me talents and skills which am utilizing properly to serve him. I don't need to watch movies, TV, or porn because I have nothing better and/or more enjoyable to do. I do have something better and more enjoyable!

I was talking to my Rav recently about my learning and how far I've come and mentioned that I love giving the shiur. I then I realized, "No, not just giving the shiur. I love learning Daf HaYomi." I don't know if I've ever said that before but certainly I never internalized it like I did then. And then when writing this, I realized that it's not just Daf HaYomi either, it's learning in general.

I hope that this perspective which you have helped me gain will help me really escape my problems by not escaping my wonderful life and just living it.

Now that I've finished my (abridged) megillah,
Hatzlacha to us all!!