personally I feel that I do get all that from quite a few people here 
Cordnoy, Markz, Gevura, Dov, GS, just to mention a few (sorry cannot mention all but thank you )

Did I hurt your feelings? 

MayanHamisgaber wrote on 20 Feb 2017 17:15:

When you say you have been helped, do you mean that they helped you get through a rough moment, or they helped you make real, long-term changes?

IIf you have a personal connection and they KNOW who you are when they see you in shul

IF you have that then your good but I imagine most of us don't have that

Gevura:
No way I purposely included you as this is one of those times that I am "forced" to be honest and think honestly

Eslaasos and Tiger:
I do not know anyone on here (though sometimes I wish I did) and I have gotten through a rough patches and gained a better perspective on things that will change my life forever. 

I hope you realize that I was kidding. You said you got all those things from us and that was on the list...


P.S. If it wasn't me then who was it? 

Totally got the point no worries 
everyone please keep telling me your' opinion it helps me more than I realize 

signing off for the night see ya'll

Good q!

It's definitely both. It is what I believe must be based on my own experience and logic, as well as a statistical judgement I make based on my experience speaking with easily over 100 GYE guys who started in-person sharing and discovered it to be a totally different experience than the stuff they were getting on the forum.  

Really what honesty is there to people who you do not know and who do not know you? Isn't it a different animal getting real with people and then being honest w them? I think that's obvious. Yes, in the imagination we can say it is 'not necessarily so, whatever'...but in reality and practice, it just is. A hint that this is true is the simple fact that most are here and telling things  only because they cannot be known to anyone with whom they are sharing! 

I think Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai teaches us this simple reality.  He blessed his talmidim (who were tanno'im!) to take G-d as seriously as they take a total stranger at the bus stop. They thought he was talking about yir'as Shomayim and asked him how he could possibly equate and even compare yir'as Shomayim with fear of people. He explained he was not talking about madreigos in yir'ah, but about simple taking G-d seriously....the way you and I take anybody even a total stranger who sees us. Just that. That is worth a blessing from the greatest tanna of the generation before he died (when his brachos were strongest).   

The challenge he was trying to bless them to overcome is the simple problem we will always have with G-d: He is totally invisible! Maybe I am talking to a wall, right? Is He real at all?? No such problem with a person - a gentile at a bus stop is far more real than any invisible G-d is, even to a tanna in front of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai.

So we are in good company!

Similarly, the main advantage of GYE - and why it has helped you so much - is that since you can come on here wearing the burka of a fake name and remain unknown, you can therefore let it all out without fear. Do you recall the first time you posted here and how scary it felt? No butterflies at all, even doubts afterward if you should maybe erase it after all? Well, if so, then that's probably why it worked for you - because it was a real behavioral change.

Even wearing a burka (by hiding behind the computer and fake name), it is still effective because it's weird enough - enough of a 'coming out'. And as long as this opening up is still fresh and meaningful to you, it will help you. But it becomes stale eventually, and I think that is why so many GYE guys make it to so-many days and then plotz. They just lost those butterflies, and their honesty lost it's fear factor, became a silly game again. So I think that unless most folks 'up the ante' by making real friends here and opening up with identity and all, to other safe guys (there are some), things will not last that long in the world of GYE for that person.

And the great advantage of GYE is itself it's greatest limitation: the relationships are just to other burka-wearers.

Do you think any of this doesn't make sense? Please let me know. Discussion is awesome!

And remember please, I am a guy who has been hanging around GYE and loves it. I just know what it's limitations are and feel it is essential to keep people aware of them. Otherwise they are likely to find out after a while that it doesn't work and then leave, thinking there is probably no further step they can take. I am trying to keep the door open. 

Thank you all for the replies, even if I don't know your real name:)

Dov are you saying that nobody can be helped without getting to know real people? Not that I'm against it, I'm just not up to there yet, it was a big enough deal for me to post on the forum. Not b/c I felt butterflies I didn't feel any - the burkas here are real good - but rather b/c it was a new step, doing something I had not done b/f and told myself I wouldn't need to do. As others mentioned, change requires change and I finally recognized that, so I did something I did not do in the past 8 years. Maybe t work maybe it won't  I just don't know that such a broad statement is true.

I would just like to add another great thing the forums bring. Just by other people writing their story and their struggles, it gave me a lot of insight into myself, and yes it did push me to change. Although I am still at the point where I hope I don't have to change to much:) But if I continue to struggle yes I am up to taking the next step (So says the man behind the Burkah i.e no one can really hold me accountable to that statement:) 

@ eslaasos

Great question, something that bothered me for years. Was it rhetorical, or are you interested in getting responses?

I am interested, Plz weigh in. Does that question bother you despite the fact that it seems you talk to real friends?

BTW anyone know what happened to MBJ I loved his posts...

Hakolhevel wrote on 21 Feb 2017 03:02:

True

Even just the exercise of writing things out is very enlightening.

And as Dov says (I hope I'm not misquoting you! Keep posting more, or else I'll think you don't exist!!!):

GYE is a good springboard for bigger things. Personally, I've joined a gmail chat group, speaking to someone on telegram, emailing (Dov among) a few other guys and most of all, joined the live SAA group that has proper transformed me, and I wouldn't have thought of it if not for the simple posts on GYE. Check my thread for the transition!

So keep coming back. It works blah blah blah et cetera.

Dov:
I can't agree more to what you said let me know if I understood correctly

While a non addict might get what he needs from this "fake" honesty/opening up and that's fine however it does not make it real and that is why for others and especially addicts it does not work and can possibly make it worse.

I should count my blessings that it seems that this all I need....Ble"h

Hakolhevel wrote on 21 Feb 2017 03:02:

Great Q, but hey, I never said GYE relationships "don't work" glatt like that. Look again, and sorry I wasn't clear.

 wrote that posting here definitely often works! Just until the weirdness of it wears off and the person loses that 'thing' that was making him hesitant to post in the first place. Soon after that happens, the limited relationships established here will start to become insufficient. Opening up by posting, will no longer be a change. His posting will start to revert into the same isolation he had before, and eventually it will become predictable, nearly meaningless chatter. That may take a year, but it usually takes a few months, tops, I think. 

So even for addicts, I hold tremendously from GYE. Just not as the solution. It's tremendously instructive, yes. It shows the path - and for this reason I have over a hundred contacts in my phone of guys I originally saved under the G-file in my cell, who after a few months or years I had to move over to the S-file in the address book because (1) they were addicts and (2) they switched from GYE to real 12-step meetings in various S-fellowships or started getting real, good therapy. The overwhelming majority of them are doing very well, b"H.

Frum yidden have far better statistics of devotion to and success in recovery than SA and AA as a whole, b"H, I have found. I believe this is mainly not a neshoma thing, but rather because culturally we have so much more family and community stability, so we usually have so much more to lose than the Joe-in-the-street-American does. 

Did I respond to your point?

@Dov yes you did respond to the question. I guess the follow up would be1) How does one define an addict vs a regular struggle.
2) I would agree that real friends are better, and most addicts need that, but I'm sure there are some that don't?

3) what's the g file and s file

Forums are great for learning the vital tool of opening up and sharing honestly our issues. They also show us that we are part of a bigger picture of many many frum intelligent people secretly struggling with these challenges. And as mentioned - eizehu chochom halomed meekal adam - we pick up good solid advice and inspiration from others.

Personally, despite not classifying myself as an addict I have gone another step which for me has been very beneficial. And that is speaking to people that I have met through GYE (Dov is one of them) and even using my real name when doing so. Obviously I have been very careful in choosing people who to the best of my judgement would safeguard my privacy. There is one fellow that I speak to almost every day - and we end up speaking about anything and everything - a real friendship iyh in the making. My reasoning - Why should it be different than opening up honestly face to face with a therapist? The people I speak to have loads of experience in the battleground.  I cannot describe the relief the first time I unloaded for real to another yid that wanted to hear me out and help. Of course to each his own and what worked for me may not necessarily work for someone else. Hatzlocha.