Hi Damien

I don't wanna sound like a skeptic asking you another personal q, but what is the "everything" you risk losing that you're taking about??

All the progress. And don't want to overreach.

Hi Damien,
I'd like to wish you lots of siyata dishmaya, and to share with you a few things that worked for me in the first 90 days. First of all, I was very clear about what I would lose if I didn't come clean: I was going to destroy my family. I was going to eventually act out with real people. I believe I would have ended up in jail. I would have ended up divorced, alone, and irreligious. These are the things that still pop into my head when taava hits me.

At this point (1 year recovery), I have some positive things on my list: continued success at work and at home. real shalom bayis. Growing relationships. A sense of wholeness before Hashem. Being honest with myself and others, which feels really good.

What I found was that at 90 days, my mind changed. I literally began thinking differently about things. It was like a fog was lifted. I became more sensitive to the subtleties of my addiction, and also (painfully so) to the variety of negative emotions I had been bottling up inside and medicating out of existence. That's where I'm putting the most energy these days - into removing the source of the desire to run away to po***raphy and mast***tion.

Finally, the piece of advice that helped me the most in the early days and works best to this day, is surrender. Instead of fighting the urge to lust, I acknowledge it. I own up to it. I admit I want to. I admit that it is more powerful than me (לא יוכל לו), and then I turn to Hashem and surrender it to Him, offering it to Him by letting go of it, literally begging Him to take it from my open hand and save me from it.

Bracha v'hatzlacha,
Moshe

This is a very important point. We are sick. But it's also true that what we do in our sickness is bad and destructive.

Tonight has been the closest I've come to actually masturbating since I began. Before my circuit consisted of erotic stories spiced up with occasional pictures. Lately I've been fantisizing about real encounters. Today I started researching tours, and watching videos...
But I stepped back and chose not to complete the act.
So after 40 days I've actually kept my goals, which were to break my dependence on pornography and stop masturbating. But now I find myself planning more disturbing behaviors.
So now I need to think as out where I'm headed.
One thing I've noticed is while I meditate the drumbeat of lust fades away and that I need to reignite it, which tells me that in my old age its the mind that is choosing fatasy not the need at the flesh.
So now I'll get to sleep and tomorrow, I'll thihk. (And maybe edit this post its probably barely legible)

So should I consider last night a "fall"?

Damientweeter wrote:

My friend

According to the laws and regulations of the 90 day Chart you haven't fallen

For my own sanity, I would consider it a fall when my head is fantasizing / planning disturbing behavior

Some of us lustaholics can make it to 90 days by being chained to a wall of honor, but deep down we're lost and on the wrong road.

Time to turn on the GPS (in my signature)

All the best!!

Thanks. Makes a difference to me actually. Gives me an indication if whether to start over (which has its own risks) or rethink the direction I'm going in.

Thinking that what I've done is strip away one layer of self deception and that I'm beginning to see clearly the impulses that have been driving my behaviour.

Kind of unfair to reach one level only to realize that it is t enough, but that is how growth works.

Going to work on developing mindfulness through meditation and prayer.

Time to bring out the big guns...

Daminetweeter

How true!
Daminetweeter also

This where guidance is so important. You are right. There are levels upon levels. For me, acting out is a symptom of emotional sickness, which also drives my craving for lust and fantasy. But, one step at a time. When I started recovery, I worked on cutting our mast*ation and touching certain people in any way that would cause me arousal. Then, suddenly I found myself looking a porn, but not mast-bating. I was able to rearrange my surroundings to eliminate the porn, and then I found myself fantasizing. I carry an HD porn theater around with me in my head! There's no escape! That was when I began working on surrenduring the urge to fantasize to Hashem, and I'm not always successful with that. In the White Book it says that "we have found that recovery requires increasing victory over lust." This statement is important to me because it makes it clear that recovery doesn't come all at once, just one day at a time.

i didn't join program so i would stay technically sober. i wanted my life 2 turn around. so even if i don't finish i still lose sobriety. if i watched porn for a significant time or if i went on phone sex for a significant time, in my book it's losing it.

There are "slips" and there are "falls". "Slips" do not require restarting the count. "Falls" do require restarting.

A "Fall" is one of the following things:
1. Intentional masturbation (with finish)
2.. Intentionally viewing improper sites
3. Intentionally calling inappropriate telephone numbers
4. Intentionally seeking out and reading erotica
5. Worse things, which we need not mention

In regard to number 2 (and 4), if someone saw something by mistake and then got a little bit carried away and kept looking at it, or even if someone saw a link and couldn't resist clicking on it but then catches themselves within a few seconds, that would only be considered a "slip", not a "fall". However, if someone decides to actively pursue viewing bad sites, that would be considered a fall.

Hello write more posts!!