Thank you for this very beautiful response; it goes straight to my heart.

Thank you for opening my eyes. It’s true that if I don’t gain anything from being abstinent, then of course, masturbation—offering easy and instant pleasure—will seem very tempting. I must not forget to work continuously on the motivation behind staying clean. I’m starting today!

I feel less and less the need to come to this forum because I have the impression that the sin of masturbation has really distanced itself from me.

Several thoughts come to mind as a result of this reflection. The first is that when we become too confident, that's exactly when the Yetzer Hara takes advantage to make us fall.

The second is that, from my point of view—regarding education and frumkeit—shemirat enayim  is not really a central point. I don’t feel bad when I see an bad dressed woman on the street it's not a big deal  I only feel bad if I start staring and realize that I’m arousing my Yetzer Hara.

In any case, the fact that I’m not very preoccupied with shemirat enayim leaves me open to bad opportunities. For example, unfortunately, I recently happened to come across my wife’s phone code, and her phone is not filtered. At times, I find myself, almost without realizing it, browsing online, searching for P sites—not actually entering them, just "warming myself up." In fact, as I write this, I realize that this has nothing to do with shemirat enayim, but rather that I am not so much addicted to masturbation as I am to provocative images, no matter their level of nudity.

Besides that, I talk a lot about sex, and I realize that it takes up too much space in my internal dialogue. For exemple when I don’t know how to start a conversation with my wife, I use inappropriate sexual jokes to break the ice—even though it annoys her. I tease her a lot with this. I also often find myself imagining inappropriate things. In fact, a big part of my thoughts revolve around sex.

My wife often tells me that I’m obsessed, and I’m starting to realize that this has nothing to do with pornography. There’s an internal mechanism that makes me go in circles around this issue, especially when I’m not at peace with a situation.

Wow... Things are coming out of me that I didn’t expect. It’s tough to realize that, in fact, yes—there is a deep internal mechanism that makes everything revolve around sex. 

I have very mixed feelings about what I just wrote.

I think I've never opened up like this before.

A little scare this Friday morning, on Purim day—my filter was deactivated, but I managed to contain myself and reactivate it when I realized that I could truly lose all the efforts I had put in place just for a bit of pleasure, and in the end, it's really not worth it.

Otherwise, second Niddah period—let's see if I can go back-to-back.

Well, yesterday I started searching for P on the internet again, despite the filters I set up for myself. And on top of that, I actually managed to find some. But at this point, I don’t even have the strength to watch it anymore. Every time I come across the hard stuff, I just feel disgusted now.

But the real excitement seems to come from the search itself—trying to find a loophole in my filters, seeing if I’ll finally manage to access those shocking images. I feel like that’s what really excites me. And I realize that this is going to be the second part of my journey: I’m still caught in the grip of addiction, but I know I’ll break free from this part too.

So now, I’m going to create another account—one where I won’t even try to look for shocking images, whether I find them or not.
masturbation: day 54 clean !! 
pornography: Day 0: The Beginning of a New Journey. !!

Thank you for your response, my dear friend.

I just want to add some nuance to what I'm saying. As I’m trying to express here, I’m not even at the stage where this is about whether it’s forbidden or permitted. When I reach that stage, then yes, I will be able to start seeing it more through the lens of mitzvah/avera in relation to my actions.

Right now, I’m at a stage where it’s completely automatic. I feel bad, I feel disconnected from myself, like I’ve lost awareness of my own state (I’ve already spoken in this topic about certain phases I go through). Instinctively, I turn to seeking excitement as a way to shake myself up a bit and search for pleasure. But this excitement that I feel during the search is even more deeply ingrained in me than the habit of M.

Recently, I have been able to recognize this addiction mechanism within myself. My first step is to bring myself back to a place where there is a real conflict between the Yetzer Hatov and the Yetzer Hara. When I do these searches, it’s not that I’m deliberately trying to “wake the bear.” As I said, I’ve reached a point where seeing P actually disgusts me. (Of course, I agree that if you awaken your Yetzer Hara, it will consume you, and you will fall.) But right now, this is more about the work of a 31-year-old man who realizes that he still has a 12-year-old child inside him—one who never dealt with certain issues.

And because it's a child, he doesn’t even ask questions; he just does what he wants. When certain triggers arise, he instinctively searches for the excitement of discovering something “new” or “hidden” online, things he has never seen before. But now, he is no longer 12—he is 31. And there are things in his life that matter to him much more than that momentary excitement. He needs to address certain unresolved issues to finally be able to make a real choice.

I hope to reach the stage you describe as soon as possible. And when I do, I will also repeat to myself: “This too is pornography.” And I hope that I will be able to stop myself before even starting.