markz wrote on 31 Mar 2016 18:22:
Yes, positive feelings, but more importantly positive actions, eg join a daily call as one of 48 examples
Do you have a particular call to suggest?
I'm clean today, and very thankful for it.
I kept to my resolution yesterday to stay off of TV/Movies V'chadomeh, with a great deal of difficulty though. So there is this stupid game online that I got into the past week called "Tidal Trek" - there are other online games that I really like, but this one I happen to think is pretty dumb. But I find it addicting. Very addicting. Anyways, about every 10 minutes or so this little voice in my head says "maybe just play for a few minutes... it's not porn after all...".
I'm glad to say I didn't give in to that voice at least. I made it to Shacharis in the morning- a bit late, but with enough time to do be caught up for hagbah, which helped me feel needed because lots of the minyan was older men that have trouble with hagbah. Then I stayed in shul to learn, and learned a really inspiring piece that I enjoyed alot, plus got some decent shmoozing in with the older men. When I got home I called an old friend that I have been meaning to catch up with and we had a good long chat. Then I had a long breakfast..I texted my GYE buddy to tell him about my new plans..I signed onto GYE and caught up on the 50 or so new posts that I missed during my hiatus.. I posted to the forum.. that all took me up to the noon conference call that I am trying to be more consistent with - thanks in part to markz... as you can tell, I would do almost anything to avoid the work I was supposed to be doing
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/grin.png)
. Actually, to be fair, I had a more productive day than I have had in a while. I took notes on some research I was doing over breakfast (I'm a student, mostly), and about when I decided to sign off of GYE for the day I left my house to prepare for a sort of presentation that I had to give last night. I also took a 30 minute break from time I didn't have to play basketball, watched a
Ted talk about procrastinating that I suddenly realized I absolutely could not afford to push off until my work was done, and spent about an hour or so on watching videos and web browsing to prep for my presentation that was mostly unnecessary... but the end result was that I felt good about my day's work and was satisfied with the outcome, though it was far from perfect or ideal.
After it was all over I met up with a chavrusa to learn, which was also a good end to my day. And I left my laptop in my car last night despite "all the work that I could still accomplish before bed" so that I would not be tempted to "just put on a movie in the background to help me fall asleep. I did have a smallish setback on my resolutions around bedtime. I have some boundaries that I set for myself about things that I do in preparation of acting out with myself, and when I got into bed I had a strong urge to do a few of these things. One of them I gave in to, but I was able to stave off the rest, so I consider it a victory basically. Someone on this forum once wrote about how they were really tempted to just act out once in order to get the obsession out of their mind and then they would be at peace for a while. I've certainly felt that way many many many many times before, but for me at least, I know it's insanity. Acting out just makes me want to act out again and again and again, though eventually I get depressed and even out a bit. Maybe that's one of the differences between someone who is addicted and someone who is not. Anyways, last night I'm pretty certain the craving was brought on by my previous days of acting out. The things that I think helped me to survive this one were:
1. I really wanted to hold onto my resolution
2. My accountability partner had just shared a few hours before that he had a craving, and I remembered how desperately I wished that I could have helped him stave it off (as it turns out, I did help him)
3. A certain part of what I was being tempted to do was pretty repulsive to me (though I have done it countless times in the past), and I guess I'm still not totally immune to that reality
If you're still here, thanks for reading : ) Also,
what are you planning to do when you need to just blow off steam and have fun?
I admit this is a hard question for me to answer..