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One day at a time

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Scientific studies show that it takes 90 days to break an addictive pattern in the mind. Start your own Log of your journey to 90 days! Post here to update us on your status and to give each other chizuk to stay strong!

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TOPIC: One day at a time 10322 Views

Re: One day at a time 03 Oct 2013 01:11 #220174

skeptical OFFLINE Moderator Posts: 1118 Karma: 78	You mean you're on Day 16+2 of your journey.
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Re: One day at a time 03 Oct 2013 08:25 #220202

LEARNING
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Day 3 ((+16))

Thx for that idea skeptical. It shows that I still have those days. They will always be with me.
Anyways, so far I've been having a pretty good day thanks to Hashem. I've been exercising recently and it really helps. Thank you GYE handbook. I feel like I'm getting stronger everyday and I really don't want to fall. However, I know that it won't be this easy forever. The Yetzer Hara never leaves you alone. I need to keep my head and eyes clear!

THX Dudes

Re: One day at a time 04 Oct 2013 07:12 #220288

LEARNING OFFLINE Expert Boarder Posts: 80 Karma: 1	Day 4 (+16) So today was not the easiest day. at the same time I feel like I am not going to fall. Luckily, I won't have my cellphone for a couple of days, so falling will be much harder. I need to work on not getting to relaxed about what I look at.

Re: One day at a time 05 Oct 2013 05:00 #220320

LEARNING
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Day 5 (+16)

I was just very close to falling. I was in the shower, when all of the sudden some arousing thoughts came up. Luckily I was able to force myself out out of the shower quickly, but the yetzer hara didn't leave me alone. Thank God, I told myself that I'll come back in ten minutes. (It still hasn't been ten minutes, yet I basically know that I won't fall.) I learnt this method from GYE, so thank you.

On another note, I heard a very powerful speech today on addiction that relates to the parasha. It basically shows that Noach brought out the nature of addiction. The reason for this is that the first thing he did when he got off the ark was plant a vine (like an alcoholic). Hashem tells him that you should have planted wheat (Torah) first. So too, we must learn to get pleasure from the proper places, not from the schmutz that seems like its good, but is actually the worst thing for us.

Hope everyone has a great Shabbat!

Re: One day at a time 07 Oct 2013 08:54 #220399

LEARNING OFFLINE Expert Boarder Posts: 80 Karma: 1	Day 7 (+16) So I forgot to post on motzei shabbat. My bad. ANyways I was lucky to survive through shabbat (I had some close calls). But Hashem helped me push it off. many times. Today is going pretty well, at least for a sunday. I feel like I am being way to lax. I didn't go to shul for mincha/arvit, I've gotta step it up.

Re: One day at a time 08 Oct 2013 10:33 #220477

LEARNING OFFLINE Expert Boarder Posts: 80 Karma: 1	Day 8 (+16) I was about to go to sllep and then I realized that I didm't post today! So here I am posting half asleep. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. Well I guess its good, because otherwise I would feel guilty when I woke up.

Re: One day at a time 09 Oct 2013 06:57 #220606

LEARNING
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Day 0:

Unfortunately, I just had a fall. Today would be day 9. I feel like a real hypocrite for multiple reasons.

a) I was doing really well, and this hit me all of the sudden.
b) I fell in the shower. I thought my problems in the shower were solved. See here guardyoureyes.com/forum/2-What-Works-for-Me/209936-Shower

I know that this fall is a wake up call from God, and I hope that he will help me on my new journey, starting now.

The reason I fell was because I got lax, and went on a site which I assumed wouldn't cause a fall.

Anyways, I know I needed the wake up. My head was so fogged up that I just didn't realize how dumb I was being in being lax.

I know that I am growing. 6 months ago I would never be able to stay clean for 9 days! Look where I am now thanks to GYE.

Re: One day at a time 09 Oct 2013 07:14 #220607

gevura shebyesod
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Get right up and keep going. 1(+8+16)

KOMT it's the only way.

!אנא עבדא דקודשא בריך הוא

וּבְיָדְךָ כֹּחַ וּגְבוּרָה וּבְיָדְךָ לְגַדֵּל וּלְחַזֵּק לַכֹּל

"If it would be so easy there wouldn't be a GYE, but if it would be impossible there also wouldn't be a GYE."
"Sometimes a hard decision leads to an easier outcome."
- General Grant

My story: guardyoureyes.com/forum/19-Introduce-Yourself/111583-hello-my-friends

Last Edit: 09 Oct 2013 07:15 by gevura shebyesod.

Re: One day at a time 09 Oct 2013 14:48 #220620

Pidaini OFFLINE Platinum Boarder פדני מעושק אדם-מיצר הרע העושק את הבריות-רש"י Posts: 2189 Karma: 107	Fell Shmell, just KOT!! just one little question, if I may. What's gonna change this time around?
	Yankel \| My Ladder \| Talking to Hashem I'm just a dude, another guy on this bus. Have a great day, unless, of course, you made other plans. ~ obbormottel "Nothing changes as long as everything stays the same" ~ Dov

Re: One day at a time 09 Oct 2013 22:27 #220649

Larry
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Wow - thank you for sharing with us your daily progression. It's definitely an inspiration to me!

One thing that I find helpful to keep in mind is that falling does not happen in a vacuum... falling is just the result of something going on deeper inside of me that I have to force myself to face up and deal with... sometimes I'm more successful than others, but that's the general strategy I have to take, espescially right after a fall, c"v... so that this fall, however down I feel about it, wasn't in "vain".

Re: One day at a time 09 Oct 2013 23:52 #220665

MendelZ
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LEARNING wrote:

b) I fell in the shower. I thought my problems in the shower were solved. See here guardyoureyes.com/forum/2-What-Works-for-Me/209936-Shower

I know that this fall is a wake up call from God, and I hope that he will help me on my new journey, starting now.

From aforequoted thread:
Dov wrote:

Showering was real torture for me back in the day. OMG. I hated showering with a passion. I remember it like yesterday. In the end, only G-d can remove the compulsion from us, and we can never be good enough to deserve that! So obviously when He does remove it (which He does from over a hundred guys I know), it is not because we deserve it! He loves us, period. But we must give it up first - or else he will take it away and we will just grab it right back! You know this in your heart, right?

And I do not believe that it is because of how we are in the shower that showering is such an impossible place for us. Rather, it is because of how we are out of the shower that we have such a torture time in there. If we live with our lust out of the shower, we will practically need to masturbate ourselves in there. Even if we are learning in Yeshiva all day long - but living our lives on the inside knowing we love the sweet fantasy (and it is very sweet!) and truly are ma'aminim that it's The Solution, then when we are presented with a warm shower, naked, with soap -and totally private! - it will just be the perfect theater to finally act out our lust. Right? As the gemorah says: Mah ya'aseh haben v'lo yech'toh?

Segulos are cute. Cold water is cute. Quick shower is cute. Only showering in the mikvah or in public is cute...all cute tricks for tying our hands for the moment. But none of those are facing the bitter and simple truth: We love the way sex with ourselves feels! Our problem is Lust. There is no easy way out. None.

The only way out is to give it up. And I could not do that alone. Meaning, without opening up about my story and problem clearly and completely to another clean (not from the shower

) person. Otherwise it is a joke, and we fall again and again until we see ourselves as a joke, too. For we are.

Also, speaking

of jokes - laugh a lot. I am not talking about 'simcha', here, but this: I smile and/or laugh in the shower now whenever I get the slightest memory of a desire. I smile because it is a distant memory, b"H, and I know that I could go back there after all these years just like that. It makes me laugh about how nutty I am! Here I am, sober for a long taime, my life so very different than it was in the insane days (that were full of learning and masturbating - or fighting it)...and here I desire it all back? Hah! You gotta smile at that. It's just funny. It's been over 16 1/2 years without it, one day at a time.

Give it up by opening up to a real safe person (not just posting) and make yesterday's insanity a distant memory. Get out of the private shower (hah) and get honest with safe people, brother, about what and who you really are. Then the person you will become is not a guy who has to have sex with himself in the shower today. And that's all you need.

Love,

Dov

Learning, its really, really awesome that you see your fall as a gift from Hashem, as a wake up call that you need to take things to the next level. I wish I could see that more often. KOKO!!

אלא יש לו לייחד כל מעשיו לשמו הגדול לבד, ולא ישתף עמו דבר אחר
That's the goal. The key to everything. Working on it, bs"d.

Re: One day at a time 10 Oct 2013 01:21 #220674

Brother OFFLINE Gold Boarder Posts: 162 Karma: 3	HI buddy I;m in the same shoes as you I just fell begining of the week after bieng clean for more then 3 months( it was the after yom tuv feeling compounded with some other glitch) I gotup and screamed FELL SHMELL!!!!! on top of my longs and made a few changes and moved on.

Re: One day at a time 10 Oct 2013 01:23 #220676

chesky
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Why is it a new journey? What happened to every thing before? (I just realised that you yourself called this thread "one day at a time"!)

I can relate to this. For me life was (and still is) black and white; all or nothing.

For me coming to terms with the concept of living one day at a time, just doing HaShem's Will for today was extremely difficult.that sounded much too plain for great people like me; and when things did not go as great me planned, lust was a great solution!

Today it is still hard but liberating.

May HaShem grant us sobriety and sanity TODAY.

Last Edit: 10 Oct 2013 01:38 by chesky.

Re: One day at a time 10 Oct 2013 01:35 #220682

chesky
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One of my favorite paragraphs from the Big Book:

Most people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who
wants to run the whole show: is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet,
the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements
would only stay put, if only people would do as he wishes, the show would be
great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful.
In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite
virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and
self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and
dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.
What usually happens? The show doesn’t come off very well. He begins to
think life doesn’t treat him right. He decides to exert himself some more. He
becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the case
may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be somewhat at fault,
he is sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry, indignant,
self-pitying. What is his basic trouble? Is he not really a self-seeker even when
trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction
and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all
the rest of the players that these are the things he wants? And do not his actions
make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show?
Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?
Our actor is self-centered—egocentric, as people like to call it nowadays.

Re: One day at a time 10 Oct 2013 05:08 #220712

skeptical
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We should learn what we can from a fall and then move on.

What sticks out to me, maybe you'll agree, is that complacency is dangerous.
The YH taunts us, "You're doing so well! You don't even have the desire to do such things, you finally beat it! Congratulations! But maybe try it out to prove it, to make sure that it's really gone!"

We need to realize that this is the yh talking and push him away with both hands. We don't care if it's finally beaten, and we don't need to prove it.

The biggest proof is by not going anywhere near the stuff.

Hatzlacha and Forward March!

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Last Edit: 10 Oct 2013 05:08 by skeptical.