I fell on Friday with P but no M. I have been falling about once a week now for a month or two. I have listened to AA recordings on the big book but I feel like since I haven't done the inventories and don't have a good guide I didn't get the full benefit.

I am going to try to write every day except Friday to give me some space to think about what I am doing.

I am still in school and working in an externship which is both good and bad. I am doing real work which is good, but I sometimes feel that my supervisor is ultimately responsible so that if I waste a little time (often looking at personal finance websites or blogs, but wasting time often leads to looking for things I shouldn't) it's not the end of the world. I want to get out of this habit for two reasons: (1) I personally want to be the type of person who gets things done responsibly, quickly, and reliably, and (2) it bothers my wife when she hears that I have wasted time at work.

This is one of the areas outside of shmiras enayim that I am working on and I have been somewhat successful by using a timer to give myself 1 hour uninterrupted periods of work. But, after such a period, I often "reward" myself with a too-long break and yatza scharo behefseido.

I have been working on my tefillah and I saw an eitzah that has helped a lot, making sure to translate at least every three or four words. This is good but I still feel like a hypocrite when I come back to Hashem approximately once a week to ask for another round of forgiveness.

I would also like to get in to deeper learning. I still do daf yomi and go to a halacha shiur once a week which goes through the shulchan aruch and the nosei keilim, but it's not as satisfying as those rare times when I taste real iyun learning. This is something I have wanted and struggled with for a long time, but haven't found (or tried?) a solution for.

For future posts I will probably focus more on the daily struggles but just wanted to catch up again and say that my struggles are not just with P and M but generally with wasting time and being concerned with things that have no relevance to my life or are in fact antithetical to the life I want to lead, and yet I can't stop myself from just taking a "peek" or a "quick look."

I totally agree with what your saying- "For future posts I will probably focus more on the daily struggles but just wanted to catch up again and say that my struggles are not just with P and M but generally with wasting time and being concerned with things that have no relevance to my life or are in fact antithetical to the life I want to lead, and yet I can't stop myself from just taking a "peek" or a "quick look."
I have the same problem too and I too started writing a diary, it helps lift the weight.

Day 2

Today seemed to be a a set up for a fall tomorrow. I woke up early for a minyan because I thought they needed me (they didn't), and I had to leave my wife with three kids after a not so good night of sleep. The minyan had no hallel so I had to find another minyan after daf yomi to catch hallel so I hardly got home any earlier. This was frustrating and my wife and I were both more tired than we had to be. My wife made a point of how making me acknowledge how amazing she was handling the kids (probably my fault for not appreciating verbally, but still annoying).

The rest of the day was okay but then mincha time I got a call from my wife with no indication of what she wanted and I decided to stay for maariv after texting and calling but getting no answer, immediately after beginning birchos krias shema I started second guessing my decision which did not help with my kavana. When I got home I found out my son wanted to call me because I left without saying goodbye so it was fine that I stayed.

When I got home I gave my boys haircuts and the little one's was much shorter than my wife wanted and it just made me feel inadequate/stupid/thoughtless and led to a disagreement with my wife. (not a fight, but generally this kind of thing is the closest we come to it.)

I'm just worried about tomorrow, because I often fall on Rosh Chodesh and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow but it's not clear how it should get done (a trigger for escaping into wasting time or worse). I think my plan will be to open up this forum topic and keep writing throughout the day as the desires to take breaks or distract myself arise.

There is something called Ayin Harah, it is not superstitious, and I will explain, for when you say that you "prepared the stage to fall tomorrow" you basically are saying that you will fall and you were Machtim your Din, be optimistic, it can go both ways, being a Tzaddik and falling the next day or falling to the bowels of hell and being a Tzaddik the next day, good luck! we are all rooting for you!

Day 3

I didn't fall today! I was tired and a little cranky, but I started working when I got to work and took care of things for my wife. I started flagging around lunch time and did waste significant amounts of time. I was a little tempted a couple times to turn to inappropriate sites but managed to get back to work instead, I did end up looking at a blog/forum related to my profession that often has some inappropriate content (not too bad but it is geared for students and is therefore racier/less appropriate than is good for me.)

I am happy that I did not fall and I am happy that I at least got a good chunk of my work done, but I feel like I could have done more. For some reason it didn't feel like a good day even though I didn't fall. Maybe there was too much time-wasting to feel good about the day.

But, I can always try again tomorrow and hopefully writing in this thread will help me to realize that all those breaks don't feel good in the end.

I'm going to turn off my computer now so that I don't do anything stupid.

Really Kol Hakavod, your doing well, think positive, and that you are just fighting today (I know that thought is not simple, I have not mastered it yet), and just a thought, when you feel the real urge to sin think about your wife or your kids.
KOT
Aish

Day 4 (and 0)

I fell today. I was working at school instead of at work which meant nobody was going to bother me. I started off OK and finished at least a rough draft of the project I was working on, but at some point I got lazy and tired and looked for literature that I shouldn't have. That turned into about 4-5 hours of reading in an eight hour day. The weird thing was that it didn't seem so bad in my eyes, almost like what I was doing was normal. I know that this is insane and that it can't be justified if I want to get better, and it is about getting better not just stopping the acting out. I feel like my mind is not in it, like I'm not really committed to changing who I am. Maybe I'm just tired, but I will be tired throughout my life and I am going to have to learn to deal with this situation in a more productive and sane way. I used my K9 filter to attempt to block the site where I found the material but I immediately found a way around it that I may not be able to block.

I am thinking about covenanteyes and have a friend who I told my "secret" to who said he would be willing to be my "supervisor." It is not a complete solution because I still can't use it on the work computer but It would protect me better at home.

I just feel so low. I wish there was some magic button or drastic action that I could take to end this lust addiction forever, but I know that's not how it works. I just get so frustrated with my constant failure. But, I don't know what else I would expect when I keep on trying the same old things.

I feel like my attitude has to change but that I would need to take a break from computer based work and go out and do something productive for a while before I could really commit to the idea of a non lust-centered or time wasting "escape."

Tomorrow will be a new day and I hope I can deal with my frustrations better tomorrow.

Sorry to hear about your fall

MickeyMussar wrote:


Roy in the SA White Book noted that we frequently prayed and it did not work...because the best we could muster was begging G-d to "Please take it away, so I will not have to give it up!

MickeyMussar wrote:


No. Now will be a new now

KOT

Eli

Day 5 (or 1)

Today was better. I still found myself wasting a significant amount of time, some of it that I should probably consider a slip, but I got some good chunks of work done. I did have one fleeting temptation to look at the kind of site that I fell with yesterday (after my slip) but I managed to get my head back into working, so that was good. I will try reinstituting my efforts at hasmada by giving myself 55 minutes of uninterrupted work with a 5 minute walking break to the bathroom or to refill a water bottle. Hopefully I can repeat that cycle throughout the day perhaps with a nap thrown in around 1:00 if I find myself too tired to work.

I fell like I have made myself unable to focus for extended periods of time, I don't know if it is specifically related to P or just to my constant escape from anything difficult, but it's definitely something I want to work on and something I think will help with many difficulties in life.

I sometimes wonder if listening to something all day long (music, shiurim, books on tape) is distracting me from thinking about how my life is going. But, when I turn it off I can only talk to myself for a couple of minutes before I start repeating myself, go quiet, or start thinking about unimportant things.

I was just thinking about how I hadn't watched TV or a movie in a couple months and it made me happy. TV was usually an excuse to go find something that would be slightly arousing and push me to worse things. It also exposed me to a culture that I don't really want to be a part of my life. I have been lessening my exposure to media over the past few years and I think I need to apply that process to this process. Finding better ways to use my time and arranging to have less access were two major factors of weaning myself from TV.

Day 6 (2)

Today was a busy day and a lot was not in front of a computer. I am still struggling with getting work done instead of going to Financial independence sites but most of the time in front of my computer was probably work.

I need to start keeping a time journal to really see how I am using my day.

Day 9 (5)

I did not journal the last few days, but I'll try to be more consistent in the future.

I struggled a little yesterday at the end of the day looking at things about inappropriate books, but not reading them. I think I will consider that a slip.

On a related topic, how do people write about things that they are struggling with without triggering other people? I want to be honest here if only to get my thoughts out of my head and on "paper" but I don't want to use too much or too little detail so that people imagine exactly what I've been exposed to or use their imagination to come up with worse than what I've seen.

Day 10 (6)

Today was okay. I was busy sitting in on a case today, but the clerk was dressed inappropriately and it was hard not to look and lust a little. I did get some good work done tonight and managed not to look at anything inappropriate even though I was working on my computer and my wife was at work. I also cleaned up the dinner dishes and pan and wiped down the table which I know my wife appreciates. Its definitely a good feeling to do for other people.

I went to a talk about the "master torah" program and will hopefully be starting some version of that program tomorrow to get into learning and retaining what I learn. Hopefully it will add to my connection to Hashem and help me feel good about what I am accomplishing in torah instead of feeling down about not remembering anything from daf yomi.

Day 14 (1)

I fell last night and it feels as if I don't see anything wrong with it. I was trying to catch up on work and I needed to do some online research and just opened up another tab and was off and running. I spent ~2-3 hours reading literature (and eventually being mz"l twice) instead of working on my assignment, and I felt bad about it last night and today.

I just don't understand how I can be so insane when it comes to this. I fought one impulse to look something up and then 2 minutes later I gave in to something else which lasted for multiple hours.

MickeyMussar wrote:


We all have asked ourselves that question many many times. But after a while we need to come to the realization that this is what our sickness is all about. And for better or for worse, this insanity will follow us for the rest of our lives, trying to catch us off guard. So we need to change our way of thinking and we need to change our way of living, to get off this crazy roller coaster. As for myself, I need to avoid even the smallest sip of lust, and I need to occupy myself with healthy activities. It helps to set up a 'seder hayom' and to stick to it. Early to be and early to rise is a good foundation upon which to build a successful day. Treat yoursel to a trial period of one good day. You may like it so much that you'll come back for more.

Hatzlacha

MT