Stealing a moment for a check in on this very busy shavous eve.

Very grateful for the first sefira I've traveled through clean in a very long time.

Ayyy, it wasn't totally clean? Ayyy at the end I dropped the ball and spent a day watching porn?

At the end of the day, it was a radically different sefira and a journey of closeness to some extent. Still on the road, but grateful to Hashem for carrying me forward down the path. 

Ihave whatto say about "opportunities" and that bad day. But another time. 

Checking in.

Some days I feel like I'm cruising along. And some days I really just want to go to work but find myself stuck in front of the computer lusting. Wanna bet what today was?

What's a technical fall? Saw some porn so I guess that's a technical fall by GYE standards. It's not what I want to be doing and I felt totally out of control, so I guess that's a fall by my standards. But I didn't masturbate so it's not a fall by the somewhat arbitrary standard I set my counter by. I do think there's a certain value in using that as a tracker, as long as I can drive home to myself that if I don't clean up my act it's inevitable that I'll end up masturbating. Soon. 

Shavous was actually very nice. But I feel like I'm falling right back to where I was the day before the sheloshes yemai hagballah. Not in a good place.

Came two hours late to work today. I lied and said I wasn't feeling well and fell asleep. The being sick is true at least lol. I don't like this.

Now I should be going home but stayed to indulge a little more. When I get home no doubt I'll lie and say it was a busy day (which is partially true - when you come two hours late things get busy.) But I could've left an hour ago . . . I don't like this either. 

For all that I still feel optimistic. Not confident, but optimistic. 

Hmmm. What else is going on?

I'm noticing an occasional pattern of looking for excuses to indulge. Staying up late so I can claim weakness the next day to give in. Noticing that I still don't have a healthy way to handle work stress/boredom. Noticing that I can be on a call talking to a guy and giving/getting chizzuk and still engage in lust towards the women walking by.

Also noticing moments of kedusha here and there. Moments of changed attitudes and changed habits. Moments where life and death hang and I chose life (occasionally). 

So it goes. 

I remain, sometimes crawling, sometimes sliding, sometimes flying awkwardly, and sometimes curling up into a ball and dying slowly, but always feeling

Shem

And always have a way with words. You and CO should write a book!

Choose, thanks for the update. Sorry if this has been discussed already, but is there anything to do for your work computer to block things better?

Hatzlacha!

Checking in for a minute.

Sober still. I guess. At least on the most technical level.Had some good days last week and a couple pretty bad ones. Generally feeling very engaged in lust, even on days where I didn't see anything. Been toying with that shiny red nuclear reset button.

Feeling negative towards work for some reason I can't put my finger on and I'm allowing myself to use that as an excuse to check out of work (and inevitably in to lust.)

Feeling a lot of financial pressure as well - somewhat self-imposed but as largely imposed by my wife. 

Gonna keep on trying, one day at a time. 

Checking in.

Been very clean this week and it feels good. 

Boss man is goin' on vacation for 7 days, and left me with enough work for 2 days. 

Praying for strength and serenity. Ain't no way I can do this without G-d carrying me through. Especially since the red line of personal internet use (and porn) at work has already been shattered. 

Quick check in. 

What's the right way of saying this? 

Let me philosophize for a minute here. A thought kicked up by the religious pain thread: It's silly how limited we are. It really feels like we should be able to be so much better, on both an individual and worldly level. All the way from the holocaust and an educational system that has an acceptable loss rate down to how I spend my day. It's not just that we could be better, it's more like the way we are is just so inadequate compared to what we could or should be.

I think this is one of the feelings that drives me to act out, and I suspect also what drives me to escape to fantasy. Why should I be trapped in a mediocre existence? Lust provides, for just a moment, an endless thrill. Of course, after the moment passes lust just reinforces the feeling of mediocrity and the hamster wheel keeps on going. But for a moment while the lust flows, life is exciting like it should be.  

And so but the outcome of this feeling is that sobriety is also attractive but only when it's electric. When the feeling of kedusha suffuses my life as strongly as the lust does then, and only then, is it worthwhile. This is something Dov has posted about extensively, the high of teshuva can be a part of the problem. Because teshuva can be just as exciting as sinning, and we want life to be exciting. 

It's hard to accept we're so limited. I think this is because we're truly not so mediocre, we're connected to G-d himself and our spiritual greatness dwarfs the world. But that's not an electric greatness, generally speaking. It's slow, hard work building yourself up, and the feeling of greatness is imperceptible. So this true greatness ain't all that exciting or tempting. 

Point being. I've been reluctant to check in about this week. (I think I'm worried somehow about tripping myself up.) But it's going okay. Not perfect. Not exciting. But largely clean. Spending a lot of time reading stupid novels online since I have almost no work to do, and at the end of one day last week I slipped into a little bit of porn watching, but largely clean.

In fact, my wife went out of town Sunday with the kids. This situation, as I believe I've posted on here multiple times, is kryptonite for me. In some way the freedom of having her out of town becomes an opportunity to binge that cannot be denied. And yet, through Hashem's kindness that I consider an open miracle, I didn't act out. 

It wasn't an exciting day. I didn't spend the day in heartfelt teshuva, didn't whisper tehillim alongside a choir of angels, wasn't zocheh to a truckload of gold landing on my front steps a la vayimaen. It was pretty much just a regular Sunday. I stuck to my regular schedule, with the addition of a knas-backed geder to keep the internet off the whole day and a shwarma at the end of the day to treat myself. But no fireworks. 

And this whole week my boss is out has been suspiciously lacking in fireworks. It has not been productive, not been using my time well, and not even totally clean. And yet somehow I'm still sober and not binging. I'm grateful (and suprised) about that. But missing the fireworks I think. 

You could have just said this Hatzlacha!

Ho-hum.

today was a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever saw one.

Spent the vast majority of the day watching porn. Somehow kept my hands out of my pants, though I'm not sure that makes me feel much better.

You win some you lose some. 

chosemyshem wrote on 23 Jun 2025 21:13:

Sometimes the fireworks is that you're clean . You just gotta notice that

Was just about to go for the fall. Access, opportunity, desire, all lined up. 

But it's a road that I really don't want to go down. We'll see what happens. 

One thing that keeps on becoming clear to me and then gets ignored is that there's no way for me to stay clean long term if I indulge myself with lust in any way. Am I going to masturbate after taking a second look at a woman on the street? No. But if I take that second look I'm much more likely to take the third. And then maybe walk a little out of my way to keep on looking. Then maybe I'm getting a little fired up and I want to search if another sight/site will get through my filter. Etc. Etc. Etc.

It's not a slippery slope, it's pushing the down button on the elevator. It's a poison that makes me thirsty for more poison. 

Oy.

chosemyshem wrote on 19 Mar 2025 21:33:

Checking in for a sec.

Today's highlight:Extending a conversation on the phone with my wife so I could stand on that street corner a minute longer to get an eyeful of the woman I spotted in the distance heading my way. Grateful I can be honest with myself about what was going on there. Also grateful for the vaad where I was able to honestly share about that. It bothered me equally or greater than porn, actually. The same amount of going to take in lust, with the added bonus of being a shtickel sicker by shlepping in my wife as an unwitting accomplice.

Also grateful that I didn't have the opportunity to overreact to some mild criticism by escaping to porn (like I wanted to). 

Also grateful for the awareness that if I keep up taking in lust and fantasizing it's only gonna end one way.

Hoping for a saner day tomorrow.

Checking in. Didn't quite avoid porn last night. And by that I mean I binged while my wife slept and then felt like garbage.

Avoided porn today, although definitely a bit of crossing the borders.

I feel ready to recommit to trying on shemiras einayim. Not resetting the chart because of that, but I am resetting the chart because I realized I've been checking it as I've been getting closer to the magic 90 (for masturbation). I'm going to try to avoid the chart completely for now. 

That's all folks.