Hey Everyone, This is my first post ever.
So like many here. I used to be addicted to P&M, basically since I was like 14, now I'vw been clean for a while but I have a big problem with hirhurim. It's usually the worst at night and when I'm feeling down. The next day I'll feel bad about it but in the moment its like I dont care and I've been clean for like 70 days now but I just feel discouraged right now and I'm just afraid at some point I'll slip...Anyone have any good ideas?
Thank You

Moshe1185 wrote on 15 Dec 2009 04:11:


Dear Moshe,

You've come to the right place, and I'm sure you'll get some good tips.  One is not to try to block out the improper thoughts, but to involve yourself with something else.  For example, have you read the new biography of Rabbi Moshe Sherer?  Why not get yourself a copy?

Now let's give you an official GYE welcome!

Welcome to our community! Once you’ve arrived, there’s no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here.

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You’re worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can’t be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week… This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps – which is known to be the world’s most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn’t jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn’t be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc… So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they’ve tried already, and if those steps haven’t worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won’t be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it’s anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not…

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook

This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude

The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth…

May Hashem be with you!

Welcome Moshe!
number one, 70 days is incredible! kol hakavod!
keep it up!


For myself, i have found that fantasizing a little turns into a lot.
and i try not to get to the point where it's too hard to stop.
a lot of times, if you do as kedusha said right away, and start thinking about something else, that helps.
when you feed the hirhurim with your imagination, though, you have a problem. and it continues to haunt you.

you already identified the situations that make the hirhurim worse, good job.
can you be more specific?
maybe when you're feeling lonely, bored, depressed, upset?

once you know in advance exactly when the hirhurim are going to hit you, it becomes easier to push the thoughts away.

there is also another method.
In AA, there's something called a dry drunk. We can be like that too, and a lot of times that's what happens when we just try to stop without changing ourselves. if you change yourself, and the way you react to the thoughts, (an internal change) you may find that the thoughts go away.

Wow! 70 days? Reb Moshe, that's incredible!

Hirhurim are not a good thing, and you should definitely work on stopping them. However, make sure that you also feel good aboutyour successes, and the newfound connection that you have with hashem.

And as Rebbetzin Habib  pointed out, we need to change ourselves on a deeper level. In fact, that's what Yesod is all about, right - digging down deep, and making things strong, so that we don't have to keep propping up a weak building!

Whether it's going to therapy, doing the 12 steps, whatever you find that works for you to affect a real change in your life - go for it! Clearly, you're an extremely motivated person, and I'm sure that wish hashem's help, you'll be very successful!

You've come so far - remind yourself of how good it feels to win...

Moshe1185 wrote on 15 Dec 2009 04:11:


Hi Moshe,

I'm the admin of the forum. Welcome to our holy community! You can find many great tips to dealing with Hirhurim on this page of our site. Read from the top to the bottom and find what works best for you!

YOU ARE SOMEBODY SPECIAL!!!