I understand, but the people in face to face meetings weren't born that way either. To me the real question is not the theory behind the behaviors but whether you are happy and successful day to day with those behaviors. That's why I brought that up, just to try more engaging things and think out of the box.

I have a real issue, I don't know why, I don't hink I ever used any email address for any inappropriate sites, and I don't think I would have used my main email address of I had. But I get a lot of inappropriate spam messages. A while back I looked up how to get rid of them by setting  up a filter to send spam straight to the garbage. It felt awesome to be rid of that nisayon for a while, until I realized that they all sat in my trash folder for 30 days before getting deleted. Now I have them sitting in trash and I have such a hard time not looking at them before I delete them. This is on my phone, so let's say one day in feeling strong and delete them, but the next day there are 10 more. The emails are also mostly not nude pictures so in a twisted way I feel it's not as bad even though it's still terrible and I've been having such a hard time not looking every day. I don't act out from them but I can tell it's making it much much harder to stay clean and I feel that's a big contributor to my fall a few days ago where I used eBay to see inappropriate things ( not my finest hour) (I've since deleted the app and can't get it back). 

Anyways I'm really in need of an eitzeh for this spam thing. Unsubscribin only makes them send me more.

@Jman356 i had the same problem as you, and therefore i went through the pain of opening up a brand new email address and changed all my important email's to go there, And deleted my old email address. It's been a few months since then and i'm extremely careful to who do i share my new email address with. B'h so far i haven't gotten any spam. I know it's a bother but i highly recommend you to do the same.


Good Luck.
  Love Yankel!

Jman356 wrote on 06 Jul 2018 16:44:

I have the same issue.
I once went looking through my spam emails for 10 minutes about a year ago and i saw some upper nudity. My sponsor told me that if I did that again I would have to reset my sobriety.
BH I am in a good place now and I simply delete all my spam emails every so often without clicking on them or reading the subject line. I only go there when I'm in a good spot.
So suggestion #1 is to make clicking any of those emails a red line for yourself.

Suggestion #2 is to call someone, tell them what you need to do and delete them (without reading them)  while you are on the phone with them. Don't open your trash folder unless you are on the phone with someone. 

Hatzlacha!

Jman

Never unsubscribe from those
I believe you can easily can block certain addresses

If that doesn't work I'd simply open a new email account and tell all my friends the news (no not about spam...)

I think its called target marketing - the way to avoid it i think would be erase the browsing history under your google account and cookies and cache

"dont ask how i know how to do this" )))))))))))))))))))

Jman356, Markz is correct about not unsubscribing or clicking any spam links, it would only cause problems to exacerbate. You can modify the email filter to not send to trash but instead to permanently delete. Or if you only access your email on your phone. You can use a 3rd party app and set up imap. Using imap, you can choose which folders to sync to your device. 
Alot of these emails are (un)purely random and you will get them even if you open a new email address. After a while it starts coming in. I use the filter to permanently delete and haven't had issues. One suggestion found online is to set up your new email address with the following settings in the profile. Gender: Female, Age: 70+, Country: Afghanistan.

Have a good shabbos!

lionking wrote on 06 Jul 2018 20:55:

Then only guys like me would email you.

Now you have triggered me.

Thanks so much guys! It's so helpful to have all of you who care so much! I really need to utilize this more. I'm going to call covenant eyes and have them tell me how to disable video on Netflix and Amazon video, I've had enough of it. I fell 3 times today while I was supposed to be cleaning and helping my wife around the house while she was at work. I need to obliterate any potential weak points and go from there. Needless to say I got into an argument with my wife over the lack of cleaning that was supposed to have happened. I would love to get rid of my internet completely, that's my dream. Wife claims she needs it for work which is mostly true but I wish we didn't have it. 

On a better note, hashem hooked me up big time and I passed my first of three smicha tests. Was a ton of work over this year and feels great for it to have paid off. 

Feel pretty guilty about how I paid back hashem for his chessed. I know I shouldn't look at it like that but it's hard not to. 


Anyways, have a great shabbos everyone 

Cord's I'm sorry for the trigger. However I totally don't mind when guys like you email me. I can use a little chat.

Hey Jman,
Mazal Tov on passing your test! The tests are not easy, and passing is a major accomplishment. 
I also get lots of spam emails that let's just say "should never be opened." Every once in a while, I erase the entire folder without looking at any of them. A friend I know has an app that will only let him receive emails from addresses that he approves of. When I sent him an email, I received an automated reply that this person only takes emails from people that he knows. There was a short application to fill out to send, and get approval. (Since this was a friend, he knew who I was, and approved.) I don't remember the name of the program, but I can try and find out!
In my own struggle, I was only able to stay clean once we got a foolproof (for me at least) filter, and had it set to a whitelist. Only the sites that we really need (credit cards, banks, this site) are allowed. This filter can be set to a timer also, to open itself up at certain times. Even when it does open up, it doesn't allow "adult material". Perhaps you can check it out? gentechsolution.com

Thanks so much, I think it's a great idea. But how do I tell my wife we need a new filter? She doesn't know about my struggle at all and is under the impression that webchaver is great. 

Truth is I can just tell her I don't want access to anything that isn't absolutely necessary, a white list is a great idea

My wife is also unaware of my struggle. If I was in that situation I would say something like, "While recently browsing, an inappropriate site slipped through the filter. I don't want that to happen again, so how about we get a better filter. I heard about this filter called"...or I would end off with "so how about we set the filter to a whitelist, that will only allow certain sites"?



I try to operate with the rule "Everything you say should be true, but not everything that is true do I need to say". As far as how you phrase this to your wife, that is for you to decide. BTW, the name of that mail blocker is 'Choice Mail'. This is a couple of years old, and I don't know if this is still around or if it costs any money.

All the best to you!

Jman356 wrote on 08 Jul 2018 12:50:


I think that you could tell her that you're spending too much time on the computer and feel that you would be more productive if you had a whiltelist filter to block most time wasting sites. Regardless even if she still disagrees you could ask her to simply try it out for a few months and if she wants to switch back you are okay with it. This way even if your wife isn't happy with this change she will probably get used to it and allow you to keep the new filter. Don't forget tefilla! Hatzlacha raba!