I'm 31 years old, and I've been battling masturbation and pornography for 19 years now, with, of course, ups and downs. My longest break was managing to hold out for six months, but I always ended up going back to this bad habit, which creates problems in all areas of my life. Despite prayers, studying the Torah, marriage, and having children, and  with filters on my computer and phone, I have always fallen back into this bad habit.

This is the first time I'm talking about it on a forum, and I hope to find with you that extra strength to finally, with God's help, succeed in overcoming the yetzer hara

Welcome to the warmest family in Klal Yisroel! So happy you took the brave step of posting here. You won't regret it.

A big thing members here found helpful starting out is reaching out to a mentor. The chief mentor can be reached at michelgelner@gmail.com. He is someone who's been through similar struggles and was clean for years.

Wishing you the best of luck,

From a dark room in Jerusalem

Welcome. 
We are excited to have you on here. 
You've come to the best place to get help. 
There are many great winners who can help you get clean and stay clean. 
By reaching out and connecting with them, you will be able to change your 19 years of struggles. 

Hatzlacha and feel free to reach me at my contact info below

All the best
Od Yossef Chai

Welcome! Try strengthening yourself with these great free resources:

1) The Battle of the Generation: a sensational free ebook that seriously gets you excited to fight and win this fight. It's a real game-changer.

2) The Fight: an incredible audio series from Rabbi Shafier.

Links are below in my signature. Wishing you much success!

welcome aboard!
You can get clean and recover from this struggle with time and patience and friends from GYE!
I found many things that helped me through the struggle, you can read about my journey on my thread link in my signature.
Try the flight 2 freedom program, and keep on posting! Reach out to guys from here and iy"h you will get the connections needed for recovery. Feel free to call or text or email me anytime of day or night, info in my signature.
Hatzlachah Rabbah!

After falling once again and feeling angrier than ever at my weakness and inability to overcome this addiction, I made a promise to myself to write here every day. I’ve seen others do it, and I want to prove to myself that I can do it too. My goal is to stay clean for 90 days. I’m going into the dark, not knowing where this will lead or if anyone will even read this post. But I’ve made a promise: whenever I’m overwhelmed by an urge, I will write here to describe what I’m feeling.
Tonight, I had an opportunity to give in—a phone without filters—and I didn’t resist: I watched videos and masturbated. The anger that followed was immense, probably the strongest I’ve felt in years. I can’t take this anymore. It’s been 20 years of struggle, 20 years of successes and failures, 20 years of doubts, loss emouna,, confusion, and broken prayers—all because of one single behavior.
These 20 years have been like a roller coaster. Today, I feel exhausted and just as frustrated, and I don’t even know what to say anymore. I truly want to break free, but I can’t seem to. I feel like I’m missing that ultimate strength, that ability to stop myself at the right moment, to flee instead of giving in, to cry out instead of staying silent, to call for help instead of falling, to pray instead of rejecting my god.

yoshi wrote on 08 Jan 2025 13:14:

Welcome to this wonderful club of people who are in a similar situation. Working in tandem we can garner the moral support to overcome the YH. So in addition to the material on web site, maintaining contact with others is invaluable in your battle with the YH 

I know people have told you already, but I'm three weeks clean, and ill tell you what's working for me.
I spoke with a mentor here, and we talk all the time. I poured out my life story to him, cried like I never did before. he understood me and even connected me with another guy that had very similar struggles as me (I thought I was the only one...)
I'm beginning to understand myself, my struggles, and how to deal with them. Reach out for help, you wont regret.

today i had a urge and I don’t know where it comes from, and I couldn’t manage to regain control of myself, as if I were in an off mode, and I feel likeI feel like it’s happening more and more, which makes me fall more often than before, whether I’m in front of a phone or a computer, with or without a filter. I still don’t know how to regain control of myself in those moments, so I’m going to try going to this forum or the GYE chat each time I feel this sensation coming.

yoshi wrote on 21 Jan 2025 15:13:

Hey chaver. You're not alone. We're all familiar with those "irresistible" urges. It's tough. Here's the dirty little secret of GYE. If any of us knew how to "regain control of myself" in those moments we wouldn't be here. We'd just control ourselves. We've all learnt that most of the time we can't just flip the switch and regain control.

Here's the good news. There's work that you can do that will help you not give in even when you have no control. As you put in the work and time goes on, those urges come less often and, more importantly, become less "irresistible". 

Love the idea of posting when you have an urge. If you feel comfortable, calling a chaver from GYE is 10x more powerful. Maybe give it a shot.

Some other helpful things you can do not at the time of an urge - work the the Flight to Freedom tools, read the battle of the generation or the AA big book to reframe the struggle, get honest and real with someone (the vaad is a great place for that). Never give up.

Hatzlacha.

thank chosemyshem
Yesterday, I couldn’t fall asleep before 2 a.m., and then an urge started . But just thinking about this forum and the people who are here every day to help others or who are working as hard as they can to overcome their struggles made me feel less alone and helped me avoid falling into a negative spiral and calm down.
Today, I was alone at home, and right now, things aren’t going well at work. I suddenly felt a deep wave of sadness, and I started feeling really bad. To try and feel something positive again, I began looking for a way around the filter I had installed on my phone. (I still don’t have the reflex to go straight to the GYE chat or call someone I trust, but I think part of me also wanted to fall and experience pleasure.) Then, I found the loophole, and that’s when everything went wrong. I fell twice in an hour and felt so alone and horrible.
So, I went directly to GYE, and I promised myself to write down everything that happened with no secrets, to truly expose myself entirely, like a sort of confession. I think the reason I still struggle with this issue is that, in some way, I’m not making every possible effort, and I’m also hiding behind lies I tell myself.
That’s why, in this thread, I’m deciding to do what I’ve never done before:  share what I’m going through without any lies.

Today nothing to report b"h

yoshi wrote on 23 Jan 2025 21:41:

Amazing and best report ever!!!!!!!!!!!!