You definitely have my applause. Keep it up!

Wow 18 days - Chai 

This is definitely what true living is like. 

Happy Hanukkah!! 

Its a great clean day!

Also, just saw that my account says 500 cumulative clean days!!!!

Realestatemogul wrote on 26 Dec 2019 03:05:

The cumulative clean days is a very important part of this battle.
Some people have the misconception that if they fall they lost whatever they worked on in the past... and that's 100% false.
Every second that you kept strong is yours to keep forever!
The 90 day chart is another tool to help in the recovery process and does not indicate the person's value and past accomplishments.   

Hi REM

Happy Chanuka! So glad you are having your own personal Chanuka miracle!

Re the 500 days, I totally echo Davit T. It's a massive accomplishment. For me the clean streak count is really important for motivation (as I can improve on my cumulative count tomorrow, but can only improve my current streak today!), but ultimately the main thing is the long-term to get free from this disease, and every day that I am sober is a day I have worked on myself irrespective of what happened the next day.

Thank you! Its really incredible how far you are!

Just posting to keep up my connection to all those that support me. B''h 41 days clean. I have my easier moments and my tougher moments, but they are all moments that I am living a healthy life without addiction. 

TYH

Wow REM

Sounds amazing. Are you doing anything in particular / different to help you along the way. I'm finding things a real drag right now and would love to hear anything you can share.

Realestatemogul wrote on 15 Jan 2020 05:48:

It's so amazing when we see people actually breaking free and succeeding. I hope the ones that are in the stage of starting out after a fall are realizing how possible it is to win in this fight!
​Keep up the AMAZING progress, we're monitoring it and celebrating together with you. 

pickamoniker wrote on 15 Jan 2020 09:41:

Hey Pickamoniker! Good to hear from you. 

Lol, I'm not sure why you think things aren't a drag for me right now also. This past week or two I have been tempted several times to just give in. I just spent a day or two in places that I am more vulnerable to seeing people dressed less appropriately. I have been tired, lazy, and bored which are terrible states to be in with this challenge. They have an acronym - HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired) for things that we need to be mindful of that may be moods we are easily triggered in. 

But that's is what life is really about.

My success is two fold.

One - After many many many conversation with Hashem Help ME, I finally understood what he kept telling me about giving up P#@n irrespective of my mzl streak. So I did that and spent a few weeks recovering. When I say recovering, I mean that my commitment to giving up P@#n made it overbearing for me not to be mzl and I kind of told myself it was okay. Obviously, that isn't the right thing to do but I had listened to my y''h WAY too long about being all or nothing. B''h after a few weeks I finally came around to myself and decided I needed a strong commitment to stay clean from mzl. You can look back at my forum thread and you will see this struggle with me barely getting a week streak at points...sometimes I couldn't even hold a day. This streak I am on is from that decision to commit to getting back on a serious streak.

Two- After many years of being depressed from acting out, I finally appreciated and realized that depressed feelings from doing something bad is one of the yetzer hara's biggest tricks. Anything that is an emotional downer and ONLY relates to the past is NOT PRODUCTIVE. Now, if you ask me about Teshuva and Charata that is different. Tshuva is about doing something going forward not being depressed about what you did. Charata also is only regretting that you did something hurtful to your relationship with Hashem. If you wrong a friend, you aren't depressed about it, you just feel saddened or pained that you did something to someone you care about and you want to make it up to them. I guess this is kinda of also a certain acceptance on my part. "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change." -Carl Rogers. In the past two years or so I have come to recognize that Hashem made us all different, but he didn't make ANY of us perfect. If we didn't have challenges we wouldn't need to be here and we could be malachim who served Hashem without difficulty, but also not getting the reward we get. Once I had accepted that Hashem gave me this struggle to work on and stopped getting as depressed when I failed, I have now been able to just work on doing my best at this challenge - because that is all Hashem wants from us - to give it our best! If I fail and I gave it my best, than I am totally okay with that. I know that If I continue working on it eventually Hashem will let me succeed. "Sheva yipol tzadik v'kam" B''h I have fallen several times and got up and that is the secret to success. 

So in short, I am saying that it is tough, but that's okay. It is hard and we just need to accept that we need to do our best and keep going. Pickamoniker you have done absolutely incredible stuff and have been inspiration to everyone on GYE. All you gotta do is decide that this is something you really want, accept that it may be tough sometimes, realize that it is only tough in the moment not after it passes, and keep on giving it your best!

To answer David T, I actually find it discouraging sometimes seeing how many people are successful on GYE. It isn't as exciting to post about failing every day. What I want people to take away from my forum thread is that if they are giving it their best, even if their count is low, then they are succeeding in incredible ways! Every time GYE members get back up they are that much closer to getting Siyata Dishmaya to finally break free. 

Anyone who created an account and is on GYE has already succeeded tremendously and I wish everyone continued V'kam, V'kam, V'kam. 

Beautiful and helpful post. May I add that you touched upon an important yesod. Charata and yi'ush are worlds apart. Part of the tshuva process is charata - feeling bad to the extent that will cause one to examine what happened and figure out a plan how to not do it again. Charata can be the catalyst to cause someone to join GYE, to install filters, to make a contract to avoid certain triggering situations or places, learn an inspirational sefer, say tehillim, etc. Yi'ush means simply walking with the nose down, depressed, feeling rotten. This has no place in yiddishkeit. 
Continued hatzlocha!

Realestatemogul wrote on 16 Jan 2020 05:38:

Thank you for this interesting point of view. I want to clarify 2 points:
1- When I said "It's so amazing when we see people actually breaking free and succeeding" I should have been more specific what succeeding means... Having a low count does not point to failure at all. I agree 100% that even the slightest effort to be strong in a major success!
2- It's still important that the goal (for most people) should be to become fully clean... The way to get there varies for each person based on many factors. 
3- The words you wrote "Anyone who created an account and is on GYE has already succeeded tremendously" is 1001% true, thank you so much for your amazing post and may you have continued Siyata Dismaya and Hatzlacha!

Realestatemogul wrote on 16 Jan 2020 05:38:

This post is golden!

Realestatemogul wrote on 16 Jan 2020 05:38:

Amazing post! Thank you!

Thank you all for the feedback and support!