Great cheshbon hanefesh questions...not easily answered. Food for thought, indeed.
I'd love to know your answers to those same questions. I can learn a lot from you guys with experience.

I've tried many things:
1. posting daily updates on my experiences and feelings, as I keep trucking along
2. updating the 90-day chart daily
3. reading the 20 steps gye book, which I got printed out
4. reading the 30 attitudes book, which I got printed out
5. emailing several people from the forums
6. emailing a support buddy/coach/sponsor ( even trying a few different ones, to find the right one)
7. talking at length on the phone 3 times to Dov (well over 4 hours total)
8. talking with Cord, and deciding to meet someone who he thought to set me up with. 
9. meeting him, a "success story" from gye...and talking at length with him in person (for several hours)
10. removing all streaming capability from my computer "Cold Turkey"
11. putting on time limits when I can access my computer
12. talking and opening up to a Rov about my problem and the possibility of giving my son 1/2 a password
13. giving my son the second 1/2 of my password, so that I cannot change the time or content settings
14. listening to the 12-part series of shiurim by Rav Ben Zion Shafier on tyvah called The Fight
15. emailing him and receiving his notes on the lectures, and then transcribing the shiurim 
16. listening to the 17-part series of shiurim by Rav Simcha Feuerman on The Chasan Shmooze 
17. taking notes on them, so it sinks in better and in order to eventually email him some questions
18. emailing Yaakov for help, and deciding to try his suggestion of the taphsic shevua
19. figuring out all the components of the shevua, to give it the best chance of working
20. davening daily to HaShem for help to succeed and break free (this should have been 1st)
21. listening to Rav Fishel Shechter shiurim on Yosef and Chanuka
22. transcribing some of the main points/insights and stories 
23. exercise-walking regularly to relieve stress and tension and get in shape
24. strengthening my night seder of learning with my son
25. posting on several new guy's forum threads, trying to welcome them and help them 
26. making a few "date nights" with my wife, giving her more positive attention (though still lacking)
27. going to a big Rav and having the chutzpah to ask how to succeed long-term and become a tzadik
28. instituting or reinstituting quality "family time" when I come home for dinner
29. opening up to a friend in real life, in person on a long walk
30. taking the SA are you addicted test
31. taking the actual shevua (hasn't happened yet, because I'm still deciding on the nusach)
32. going to the mikveh (hasn't happened yet, because I really dislike going, but I will once)
33. listening to music and trying to relax and "breathe" and calm down (though not too good at it)
34. reading a long article and watching a couple of videos on breaking bad habits 
and probably a few more things that I left out and can't think of now.

20 days clean. I just heard someone I know reached 1000. Wow. ODAAT...as if there is any other way of getting there?! Anyway, I hope to follow in his footsteps.
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Sing, you're right, I've put a big focus right now on breaking free,
and have taken away time from most other things to do this...but I had been wasting time I didn't have on "stupids" (streaming videos) and even going to porn before this focus...so overall, a VERY positive switch.
I think this will settle down, once I get in a groove, and find what works...which is what Gibbor asked.
Mayan, I don't think it will be TOO hard to go to the mikveh once and do all the dishes one night. Yeah, it will suck, and I really won't like either experience. But that is exactly the point, and why it might hold me back from sinning/falling/acting out.
EC, I signed up for a ton of stuff. But will probably just stick with a few after trying them out.
Cord, I clicked on the white book in your sig, and read a few pages. I don't think it's for me. But I'll try it.
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I'm feeling really good today, Boruch HaShem
Hope everyone has a great day!
Gibbor, don't forget to answer those same questions you asked me. Everyone will gain from it.

@Pidiani, I don't think my life is unmanageable, I don't think it ever really was. Last night I re-read some of my first posts and I realise that it sounded a lot like my life was unmanageable, but the truth is those days were very few. For the most part I have been able to live a normal life despite my porn and masturbation habits. I keep trying to quit and work on it not because it has ruined my life but because it's an aveiroh.

A drunk is a drunk and if his addiction is ruining his life then his life is unmanageable, whether he's religious or not. But porn and masturbation to the extent that I was doing it, is only a problem because I'm a frum yid who's trying to do rotzon Hashem. Could my life have been better if I never saw porn or masturbated? Probably, even if i was a goy there would be something in self-improvement that would tell me to stop p&m, but self-improvement is very different from saying my life is unmanageable.

I think that this aveiroh is very common, something that lots (maybe most) frum men have done, or even do, and they might be so upset at having done it even once or twice that they come to GYE to find out how they avoid the aveiroh next time. I don't think you would call these people addicts. My worry is that send these people away because we try to convince them that they are addicts, that their lives are unmanageable and they have to revolutionise their lives or else no matter how long they're clean for, they will still be addicts and the fall will come.

Am I an addict, I still don't know, I still don't think it really matters. I mean, where do you draw the line? Some people would say I'm addicted to caffeine, but i don't care cos i like coffee and it's not disturbing me. Am I addicted to p&m? Maybe. Is it just because i do it every few weeks, or is it because i'm consistently trying to control myself?

So what's the answer? Try to work on this issue no matter where i think i stand. One is too many and a thousand is never enough. I'm trying the 12 steps, I'm going to attend the phone conferences, i applied for a sponsor, I'm trying to let go and let G-d. iy''H I will be successful, I don't see why my life has to get worse before it can get better.

3) Is ז"ל actually/always a sin? What difference does it make? Even if it were definitely not a sin I would still want to stop because it makes me feel like crap.

For me, recovery is not something that makes olam hazeh harder but I do anyway because I think I'll get schar later. It's something that makes olam hazeh much much better. What happens after 120 is up to my Maker.

I answered yes to 8 out of 20 for the SA test, and not to the more serious ones.
(1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, and 16).
I don't think I have some very big problem. 
I am a pretty normal guy, in terms of sexual attraction and sexual release.
If I wasn't a frum guy who wants to grow and be an eved HaShem and a tzadik,
I wouldn't even consider myself as having a problem at all...

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Mayan, I don't think it will be TOO hard to go to the mikveh once and do all the dishes one night. Yeah, it will suck, and I really won't like either experience. But that is exactly the point, and why it might hold me back from sinning/falling/acting out.

Why would SA give a test, and then not say what the answers mean?
It can't be. Also, not every question is the same. Some are much more serious.
Whatever. I have little interest in it and only took it on Dov's suggestion.

GS, that website gave a different test with 50 or 55 questions, also not all equally problematic.
And 2 or 3 of them, I answered yes, but it could have easily been an honest "no" as well.
Not really a clear yes or no answer, which is, incidentally, the reason why lie detectors
don't work and give false positives.
Anyway, the graph had 1-8 covering the majority of non-addicted people
and 11-20 covering the majority of addicted people.
And I scored a 9 (again answering yes to at least 2 iffy ones).
Yasher Koach, I have a real problem. I'm struggling. No chiddush there.

I answered yes to 8 out of 20 for the SA test, and not to the more serious ones.
(1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, and 16).
I don't think I have some very big problem. 
I am a pretty normal guy, in terms of sexual attraction and sexual release.
If I wasn't a frum guy who wants to grow and be an eved HaShem and a tzadik,
I wouldn't even consider myself as having a problem at all...
or at the worst, a bad habit that I tried and failed to give up. Still, pretty normal.

Debated with myself to post or cancel...a real decision this time.


I am going to post it, but put yourself in my shoes, I'm opening up and making myself vulnerable.
Please consider your comments before posting them to me: will they likely help me or hurt me.

Dr.Watson wrote on 09 Aug 2013 13:27:

I can really relate to you Yosef. I wrote the above over 3 years ago.

I wrote the following 1.5 years ago.
Watson wrote on 27 Sep 2015 08:04:




What's my point? Not sure I really had a point. I guess al I'm trying to say is take it easy.