KOT ODAAT!

I'm still struggling along. Today wasn't easy. I didn't look at any images on purpose b'H, but I'm fantasizing LOADS. Especially during davening. And of course, that makes me really really want to go find some actual images and m*********. How do I stop these imaginations? I haven't looked at anything for a week now...

Learn some Gemara.

It's your yetzer hora upping his game because you upped yours. Don't be discouraged. Keep on asking hashem for help and keep your mind occupied with something else. anything else.

Gevura Shebyesod wrote:

What about Toisfiss?

Dear Zvi, I am going to be blunt, please forgive me.

Obviously you have been somewhere like this before - probably many times - and obviously the response to it failed because of how you faced the facts of the situation. So if you agree with that, I will suggest options that work for me and others I know who experience what you describe. In some ways it may not seem identical to typical Jewish practice - but I doubt that 'normal Jewish practice' really addresses chronic, frequent porn users and masturbaters. So here are some extreme measures made for extreme problems, that work for many of us that I and many others still use regularly with good success because we need to, and G-d helps us:

1- I accept that accidentally thinking of porn scenes during davening is 100% perfectly OK. The only thing Hashem is interested in at all is: how I respond to the fantasies. So when it happens to me, I smile (very important, because it's really OK by Him) and I speak out to Him in words, "Tatty, You know all about the sex fantasies that popped into my head. Thank You for being with me always and I accept whatever You want for me and I love You so much. Please help me daven to You a little better, now. Thanks!" Then I get on with wherever the heck I was...

I repeat it, if necessary. Always calmly. He does not pay any attention to my 'intensity', the contorting of my face in prayer, or the forcing of tears...Hashem is no longer for the show. This is recovery, here, not 'piety'. It's calm, real, and good.

If it does not work, then I assume it is because I am lying. I am not really meaning it. Perhaps I am hanging onto my familiar old prideful guilt - as though 'such' thoughts are 'below' a person of 'my' great stature and holiness...or I just don't care to be liberated from the thoughts. Perhaps I really like them and do not want to let them go. (stranger things have happened! ) Either way, 'lying' to G-d does not work very well...at least not in recovery. So I look at that and try my best to accept it, then say it for real, and then be'H move on.

2- I pray for the very people I am resenting, afraid of, and/or lusting after, right then and there. This prayer must be sincere or it does not work. I have posted a few times elsewhere about the issues with davening for goyim, porn starts, girls or women we know, etc. "Tov Hashem lakol, v'Rachamov al kol ma'asov" - that does not mean only tzaddikim, only Jewish people (or even only humans). It's everyone and everything. I can join with Him, here.

By doing that, we leave the fantasy world that our hearts and heads are so accustomed to, and start to rejoin the human race and reality. It is an unpleasant landing, and for that reason many guys resist praying for these people! For by doing it (not by thinking about doing it or discussing it, but by actually doing it) we start to face the fact that the objects of our lust are actually real people with real problems, families, issues, real relationships with Hashem (even if they are goyim and/or very lost and are not aware of their relationship with Him at all), and we ought to be concerned about them. v'Rachamov al kol ma'asov. If we are, then we will not use them and their images quite the same way again in our minds. This is usesless to figure out and discuss - just do it early and often. It is baduk umenusah for anyone who does it sincerely.

3- I stopped responding to these pesky problems in any way that I used to respond to them with. The old ways were the problem, not the solution. They were rife with pride, screwed up applications of Torah ideas, and attitudes, and did not work. They are probably poisonous and will ruin whatever good things I do, eventually. It is important for me to remember that "it was not my 'YH' that got me into this tangled mess as badly and as I got into it. Rather, it was my very best and 'sincere' thinking (and misguided teshuvah-attempts) that got me where I am."

4- I blabbed too much already.

Hatzlocha. Don't think about it too much. How smart are we, anyhow? Just do it.

And none of this stuff works if we are not using it as part of a slowly changing diet and behavior that includes recovery rather than the same old drivel we are used to.

Too blunt?

Love you,

Dov

What was that Avrom?

Ok, I hear... Just with regards to your third point- what are misguided teshuva-attempts?
(And I think Avrom posted on this thread by mistake, but he deleted it)

Firstly, a quick update about how I'm doing:
Last night was difficult. REALLY difficult. But I came through it, with Hashem's help! I was so close to m***********- I actually started to do it but Hashem caught me just in time. So IYH I'll be going into Shabbos after a whole week clean. When that has happened in the past I haven't really had to put much effort into it, but Wednesday and Thursday of this week have been one massive struggle, but I came through it with the Help of the One above.
And secondly, a brief idea to share with the oylam before shabbos. I heard it literally this morning, and it did have a connection to this week's sedra, but I have to admit I've forgotten that bit...
There's a famous gemara, a story about Rabi Akiva. He was travelling somewhere, and he came to a village to sleep for the night. However, no one offered him a place to sleep. So, he found himself a spot just outside the village to sleep. With him he had a candle, a donkey and a chicken. First, the candle blew out and he had nothing to relight it with. Then, a cat came and ate the chicken and a lion came and ate the donkey. When each of these things occured Rabi Akiva said 'Kol ma de'ovid rachmana letav ovid'- all that Hakadosh Baruch Hu does is for the good. In the morning, he woke up, and heard the news: The village had been plundered in the night by a bunch of savage bandits! Had his candle not blown out, the bandits would have seen the light. Had his donkey and chicken not been eaten, they would have been heard. So now, Rabi Akiva exclaimed: Kol mah she'oso Hakadosh Baruch Hu le'tova oso. All that Hashem does He does for the good.
So the following question can be asked: Before Rabi Akiva found out the reason these things occured to him, he said Kol ma de'ovid rachmana letav ovid, in Aramaic. After that, however, he said Kol mah she'oso Hakadosh Baruch Hu le'tova oso, in Hebrew. So why the change? The answer, which is, I believe, from Rav Avraham Schorr (but I may be wrong about that) is that beforehand, the reason was hidden, so Rabi Akiva said it in Aramaic. After, however, the reason was clear, so he said it in Hebrew. So to, this applies in all of our lives. For us, it's our sexuality-related problems. I'm sure many of us here wonder (and I know I do) "What did I do to deserve this? I'm just an ordinary guy- I never asked for these problems! I just want to live my life like normal!" But we have to know that it's all from Hashem. He wants us to have a better understanding of Him, his Torah, and life in general. So He gives us these challenges, so that we can beat the Yetzer Hara, and have a real, genuine closeness with Hashem through that. Even if now we don't understand why we are going through this, in a few years time we will be able to look back, and say clearly "Thank you Hashem, for the Yetzer Hara that I had."
Have an amazing Shabbos.

zvi wrote:


Is that what you meant to say ?

Is he definitely an addict?

Dov wrote:

Maybe, maybe not, point taken. Either way, I don't think anyone can "beat the yetzer hora" without Hashem's help.

Dov wrote:

I don't know. I thought I was. Then I came on here and I found out maybe I wasn't. How do you define an addict? For the past 4 1/2 years (since I was 12) I've been m***********. I find it basically impossible to stop myself when the urge is on me. So am I an addict?

To answer: In what ways is your out of control behavior actually affecting your actual life so far? Or if it really isn't, then are you honestly concerned by how you see it will affect your life on this planet on the future? That is needed before things get clearer, be"H.

I don't quite get you Dov... are you saying whether you are an addict depends on how it affects your life on a daily basis?
(Oh, and by the way, I fell again, last night. )