has this ever happened to you: This past Fast day, Shivasar B'tammuz was really hard for me. Pounding headache, felt starving, etc. What was interesting was how long it lasted. As soon as the fast officially ended, all my symptoms went away, like magic! Same thing on Yom Kippur: by Neilah, I'm dying. as soon as Maariv comes and its home stretch. I feel great. tons of energy, no headache. It all vanishes. So some will say this is all psychological. I say its my Yetzer Hara trying to get me to cave, or to not daven Neilah as well, etc.

Likewise by your 90 day journey. Youre suffering, its so hard. Triggers everywhere. come on, just one movie. ask yourSELF, your yetzer, why does it/you want to watch a movie so badly anyway? You need a distraction? from what? my YH constantly wants me to watch movies but I sit there bored by them anyways. Hollywood has no imagination left. I know the good guy's not gonna die, I figure out the jokes most of the time ahead of the punchline. Whats the point? And yet I'm still dying to go. Why? Because the truth is, if youre distracted, you wont be doing what youre supposed to which is getting close to Hashem in one manner or another.

Or better, youll see something and thatll get the taste buds flowing until you just cant stay away from the computer and seeing the whole kit 'n' kaboodle. Yes I've been there.

Lets test my "theory": the last thing the Yetzer Hara wants is for you to get close to Hashem. The best possible way to get close to Hashem is...drumroll..praying to Him in your own words. So tell yourself the next time he makes you desire to go to a movie, you promise youre going to spend 5 minutes talking to Hashem instead.

Don't know what to say? Try thanking Him for every bit of good in your life. Thank him for your heart, lungs, go thru every working organ. Thank Him for no diseases, thank Him for sight and your hearing and your ability to talk and eat. Thank Him for your family, friends, job, spouse?, kids?, cars, house. be as specific as possible. ask forgiveness for anything you may have done wrong in the last 24 hours, looking at girls, anger, selfishness, inappropriate behavior or speech, etc. And ask for the future. What ever needs fixing materially or spiritually.

Want to understand all of this better? Read "The Garden of Emuna" by Rav Shalom Arush

Movies help me to escape life stress in general. However i tend to overdo it, as well as they can have provocative scenes, content etc which can stimulate urges. If i am not exposed to them I experience less triggers.

I hear you. I have similar problems.

I think you said it well. We use X (in your case movies) to escape stress. Cause as addicts we have a tough time facing life's challenges. We usually shy away and end up escaping to really anything most notably lust.

I think this is different than relieving stress because that is just an outlet and a temporary break. We definetly all need those but when it consumes us it turns into escaping.

I think we have so much tension, we need to calm down and take a few breaths. We need to screw our heads back on becuase we think "some thing is wrong" but really nothing or "we can't do this. It's tooo hard, easier said than done" but we CAN do it. Then we escape life....

These thoughts are poison for an addicts and lead is into a pit of self despair. Start by trying to notice them after you gain the awareness you can start building yourself up!

There is a thread about how some of us here relate to movies, it's called Movies and you