NOYA,

just poppin in to say thanx for being mechazeik me, and especially for joining the DC group. it's gonna be great watching this amazing crew give each other chizuk and sharing. And watching you grow and grow is giving me such strength and life you have no idea. You're on a real winning streak now, Keep it up!!

I also have the same issues with laying in bed. As the Shulchan Aruch suggests, start out on your left side, like a korban was placed, "giving yourself over". Your right side, your side of strength, then faces up toward Hashem's "left" kaviochel, which is the side of the heart and therefore represents relinquishing your control of your life over to Hashem's mercy. The pasuk "Rigzu V'all Techata'u..." in Krias Shema Al Hamitah was written and placed here SPECIFICALLY to help avoid this temptation to sin in one's bed. (Ayin Berachos Daf Daled or Hey for what to contemplate when saying these words.) Then plan to awaken while lying on your right side, so your heart faces upward, as if to rededicate yourself to Hashem's service anew each day, with your "strength" under you, which you can use to "awaken like a lion" and propel yourself upward to serve Him after saying your Modeh Ani.

Sweet Dreams!!

Hailegeh Steve,

What an interesting dvar torah! Thank you very much for sharing that with me. I'll try that tonight bli neder. Also, I enjoy hearing your insightful comments on DC's call as well; I am inspired by having veterans like yourself coming on the call and helping to pull up the new guys. Oh! And wasn't it great when that Yanky guy showed up out of the blue - first time he heard of GYE was an hour before the call, something like that. GYE is mamash bringing in lots of people, Baruch Hashem, and I'm excited to be on DC's cruise liner.

Anyway, on to today's exciting entry. Well, I have bad and good news for today. First of all, I messed up REALLY badly with one of my personal gedarim last night, and it could have ended horrifically. What happened is I signed onto Gchat, just to see who is on. That broke geder one. Then I unblocked my old girlfriend, y'know just to see for fun if she was on. I wouldn't talk to her I promised. Well, she was on and talked to me, so I spoke with her, which broke geder number two. I thank Hashem that I was able to control myself and did not talk inappropriately with her at all, and just had a normal conversation, but it could have been really bad. That door is now sealed again with the same fences as last time and we're going back into 'drifting away' patterns hopefully. I tried to be a little on the cold and boring side so she wouldn't be so interested in talking with me. I think I was somewhat successful, but I did get a geshmack in talking with her - not sexual, but I was excited to talk with her again because I hadn't heard a peep in months.

So Baruch Hashem, that's the bad news, and it ended without incident, and it ain't happening again, so we're still holding. Today was a very good day, full of learning, accomplishing, Duvid Chaim, good food, friends, etc. And Thursdays are nice and chilled out BH, so it's almost like Shabbos is right around the corner. Still doing well, BH. Thank you everyone and thank you Ribono shel Olam!

Day 40: Very good day today!

post script - this is my 5th time in seven years making it to forty days! Woo hoo!

Noya, that's an amazing post. It's the stuff of real life. This is exactly what the Rambam defines as true Teshuva: When one is faced with EXACTLY the same circumstances as in the past, and has all the same feelings and strength to carry them out, and yet REFRAINS from sinning SPECIFICALLY because of his teshuva, that is a "baal teshuva gemura!"

I had a similar situation many years ago, a few years after becoming frum and an alter bochur (and while b4 internet, still also living in the addiction by acting out every other day cuz i "missed" my past). My x-love (whom I thought i would marry one day but we broke up because of my unilateral decision to become observant) calls up out of the blue to shmooze. She had just lost her father a few months before, whom I remembered well, and needed to talk. She was obviously trying to make a new connection. I mentioned I was very happy living a religious lifestyle. She did not volunteer any interest in joining that life, started talking about new plans she had for hers. I still had strong emotional feelings for her, thought maybe if she would be interested in yiddishkeit things could work out, and was about to suggest we meet again, this time platonically. But as she became more comfortable on the phone, she started using language that i was no longer used to hearing. It woke me up to the profound diff of where i was at then and where she was still at. I politely but curtly ended that call right away, and never spoke to her again. Two or three years later i met my wonderful wife, and have been married and raising our family for 21 years.

WHO KNOWS what would have happened to my life had I not broken the ties completely at that point. I THANK HASHEM that I was given the siyata d'shomaya to make the right choice. My life is so much more spiritually fulfilling than it would have been if I hadn't.

So DO NOT look back, LOOK FORWARD!! You, NOYA, will find freedom from this addiction, you will develop a close connection with Hashem, your life will take off in ruchniyos leaps and bounds. And when HKB"H presents you one day with your zivug, at the right time, you will be able to present to her a Noya who is Pure, Holy, and a fully non-selfish partner for life. What greater gift could you possibly give to your soul mate one day!

I'll see u monday, as I can not join up on tomorrow's call due to an appt. Take good notes for me, OK? PM your insights when you get a chance.

Thanx,  Good Shabbos!!

NOYA - I'm really glad that things didn't end as badly as they might have - but that bad news IS bad news.

You opened up a huge door, and you showed yourself that it can be done. Trust me, I can understand that desire to reconnect. If you've read my whole thread, you know that I do. And while I may not udnerstand your precise situation, i do know that it's extremely dangerous.

So I'm going to ask you the same question we all to ask ourselves - what have I done to prevent this from happening again?

Thank you for posting, Steve, and for sharing an episode of your life with me. It really is amazing when one considers how one's life could be totally different based on just one decision. A rebbe of mine once told me that youth is like a bow and arrow. If you aim the bow one degree higher, the arrow will completely miss the target. One degree lower and you'll get a bull's eye. One tiny deviation in the aim makes all the difference because the results are realized years down the line.

I should be happy right now because I found out that I did manage to land the very prestigious internship I mentioned earlier, so I'm very excited about that. However, I'm feeling a little down this second for some reason. Maybe because the episode of the show I just watched was a little weird and had some weird somewhat triggering stuff in it, and I'm upset about that because I like the show a lot and want it to be normal, and not have any pritzus in it. Damn filler - get back to the main show already. At least, I think what I should do is stop watching the show until the pretty female character is out of the show - she's a filler character so she should be gone soon. Or maybe I should give up the show altogether? I know that that is really what I should do. I should also give up LOST and not watch the sixth season. But I'm already 5 seasons through and am curious how it ends. I don't start any new shows. Gosh, I don't know what to do about that. I'm thinking that I'm gonna wait for it to come out on DVD and then just get it all over with in a week during the summer.

But maybe the forum can be mechazek me to break free of it all the way. I should really give it all up - I know that. Am I ready, chevra? I don't know. I'm too tired to think about that right now.

Anyway, today was really good overall. First I had a nice session on DC's call. I read from the Big Book for the oilam and it was very exciting and lively. I had a good seder, shiur, good classes, did my homework, was productive. Solid. Got that very nice call informing me of getting the prestigious summer job, happy camper. Let's go to sleep in a good mood. And oh my gosh, I just went on Yahoo.com to cover up the fact that I'm posting here. Shoowee, talk about pritzus. Don't go.

Day 41: Very good!

Okay. I'm in my room on my laptop posting again because I realize I did not respond to silentbattle. I also must confess I feel the old thrill of being all alone with my laptop with no roommates to bother me or anyone to walk in. Good thing the internet is heavily filtered or I'd be finished. I have a major yetzer hara to look at that picture I saw on Yahoo, but I'm going to sleep right after I post this so no worries. No time to look at yahoo. Anyway, sb, I wish I had a good answer for you. All I can say is that I do my best to live by my computer rule of never sitting down at the computer without an exact plan of what I'll be doing. My gchat is signed out, I blocked this particular friend, the window is minimized, and I don't allow myself to do it. Can all these things come crashing down? Yes, they can. And they did last night, except miraculously I escaped unscathed, but I recognize that this fact is a straight matana from Hashem and I can't rely on a neis like that again.

There really isn't anything else I can do. The girl leaves me alone unless I give her some sort of pesach like I did the other night. She understands I don't want to talk to her and she doesn't bother me. In the past I have been the rekindler, the reinitiator. All I can say to you is that I'm working on removing the reasons for needing to talk to her. I talked to her because she made me feel good and not lonely. I have real live friends who can do that too - maybe not quite the same, but close enough. I have fellow people to call up, like IT, or Anon, or I'm sure anyone else for that matter if they would give me their number. I have ways to get out of myself without her now.

I know that there is no future with this individual, and I do not want to talk to her and that's the best I got for you. What else can I do?

~ NOYA

I'm peeking in your window right now (well...proverbially at least...and it could be for real now, couldn't it?). :D

Again, I understand - it's never quite the same. I feel the urge to get back in touch with girls that I've known, who made me feel simply wonderful when i was with them. They saw the good side of me, and expressed their caring for me, made me feel wanted, needed, loved.

If you see that the old fences you put up weren't enough - well, hopefully this time, they will be. But it might pay for you to consider putting up some other fence.

I don't know what else you could do, honestly - that's something you need to figure out.

Glad your still going strong!!  KUTGW!

Hey dude,
How was shabbos?

Hey SB and Anon and Sci and everybody else,

The girl sent me some random crappy poetry she wrote. She did that last time I talked with her too. I wonder why. Anyway, I just ignored it and deleted it. Keep your day job, girl! Anyway, I had a nice Shabbos with a friend with a rather strange family history. I don't want to go into details for fear of identifying him or me, but it was pretty darn interesting. There were several encounters with members of the opposite sex, mostly his family members, but I was normal. I still can't help initially "summarizing" a girl when i first meet her, but after that's done I was normal. And I think I did less summarizing than usual, which I suppose means that I am improving in lessening the way I objectify women.

It helped that the friend's sister wasn't really that attractive to begin with, I suppose, but I was able to not think inappropriately about her, which is a big accomplishment. Hurray!

Interesting: I saw this video with my friend on Friday that was a certain advertisement that Dove Shampoo put out. The premise was "The evolution of a model." It had this normal looking girl (maybe a 6 out of 10 if you're generous) come in, sit down on a chair, and the lights went on. Then it had this super speed up, showing all these people working on her, removing blemishes, applying makeup, doing her hair, eyebrows, lipstick, everything. So she already looked completely different and much better. And then they showed this super speed Photoshop job they did on her. They elongated her neck, increased the size of her eyes and lips, really made these subtle changes to her facial structure that resulted in a whole new look that was glamorous and very appealing. Then it showed this new picture being displayed on a billboard. The commercial ended with the caption: "No wonder our perception of beauty is so messed up."

I have to daher this, and daher it well because girls really are not what magazines say they are. So it's not even worth lusting after these girls because they don't even exist.

Day 43: Very good. Baruch Hashem!  

Smoke and mirrors...that's all it is. It's easy to say that, of course. The real difficulty is actually acting in line with that when we get hit over the head with lust. THAT is when it's tough to adhere to it.

I have one point to make on what you said about it being easier to relate to and not objectify the girl who wasn't so attractive. I used to pat myself on the back when that happened, but I've realized that I was making a mistake. When I see a girl, judge her as unattractive, and THEN proceed to pat myself on the back because I'm not objectifying her, I am very badly mistaken. Looking at a girl and judging her to be attractive or unattractive IS objectifying her, regardless of the result of the objectification. The mere fact that we feel compelled to "sum up" every woman we see is indicative of our problem-seeing women as merely objects which exist for our satisfaction. Patting ourselves on the back because we were able to relate to a woman "normally" after she failed to pass our judgment is foolish. Of course, I suffer from this as much as anyone else does, but at least now I realize I was making a mistake all along, because I should not be doing that judgment of a woman's appeal at all (unless, perhaps, I'm going on a date). I would appreciate your input on this idea (yes, I'm talking to YOU, whoever you are). Glad to hear you did well even with all the tests! I'm almost at a week and a half :D Thanks NOYA!!

Yeah, you're right. I got a long way to go Anon. Oy, I am such a pervert. I'm doing this Microsoft Excel tutorial to learn how to use pivot tables and they had some stupid data in there that triggered me a little bit. Can you believe that? Data in an Excel spreadsheet triggered me to want to read some erotica. I'm gonna finish up this tutorial and then go do some math homework.

I ended up reading some forum stuff that was somewhat inappropriate. G-d Almighty, I don't want any of this crap! Take away my desire for pritzus! It's a good thing that real erotica is blocked, but I can't read this other stuff either because it's basically a substitute. I didn't do anything physically BH, but it's just a rotten feeling that the YH got me that far at least. Pretty damn big slip.

I'm in a rotten mood and am depending on the sympathy of you guys to get me smiling again.

Okay, I'm still in a pretty bad mood. Today was pretty bad. I did some questionable things. I don't feel horny - I just want to read certain things and talk to people I shouldn't be talking to. Ugh, what a crappy day. Thanks Anon for trying to help, but it didn't really work. I went to that dumb stranger website again - no inappropriate things, but it's on my do not go to list so I feel bad for going to it. I read some questionable forums today, basically I spent a lot of today doing questionable things because I want to act out but am restricted, yet at the same time want to try to act out to the best extent possible without breaking the campaign. Which, unfortunately, is not at all what we're trying to do in this 90 day fight.

Uch, I feel like crap. I didn't get anything done today, how the hell is it freaking 9 PM already? What was I doing all day?! Why can't I just be normal and straight shooting without these stupid games?! What happened to my old discipline and prioritizing and time organizing skills? My goodness, all I can say is I hope I wake up tomorrow morning ready to kick ass again because it's been a few days since I've had a day like that.

Post script - I just realized I have my boxers on inside out. FML.

Day 44: Crap crap crap.