I've been monitoring these forums for a while now, but I've never posted. 'Coincidentally', I can't seem to make it past day 15 on my path to cleanliness.

Accordingly, I've decided to strat my own thread and join an accountability group. Hopefully, the additional chizuk/ peer pressure will provide me with the catalyst that I am so desparately searching for.

I am 35 years old and I have has a problem with masturbation and lusting most of my life. I am married with a wonderful wife and beautiful children who all look up to me and put me on such a high pedestal. It kills me when my wife crticizes herself saying that she doesn't measure up to me - if she only knew.

As with everyone here I've tried to quit millions of times. Every day of my life has either been spent encouraged that I am n a clean streak or regretting that my streak just ended.

My longest streak ever was 38 days (it ended 2 days after hoshana rabba). I even remember the image that tigerred that fall. It was the most innocent image that I most people wouldn't even think twice abot if it passed accross their screen.

I know that we are not presented with a nisayon which we cannot overcome. I just hope I can overcome mine while I still have an opportunity to savour my life as a clean person who can be oveid hashem b`kdusha u`btahara. I want to know what a shemonei esrai can feel like as a pure soul. I want to know what a blatt gemara feels like with an immaculate neshomo. I yearn to live life without this cloud hanging over me. I want to fall asleep at night knowing that Iam not hiding anything from my devoted and loving wife.

I am sure that with your help I can achieve these goals.

CHAIM 3

HELLO AND WELCOME
ABOARD

RESOLVE TO STAY HERE

POST AWAY

THROW UR GAMEBOOK IN THE GARBAGE

YES U CAN WHITEKNUCLE IT FOR A FEW DAYS

REAL CHANGE IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU "DECIDE" TO CHANGE

THERE ARE MANY TACTICS MANY IDEAS MANY DIFFERRENT VIEWPOINTS

SOME ARE AFFECTIVE SOME ARE NOT

SO WHAT WILL WORK FOR YOU??

HMM

#1 GET FAMILIAR WIYH THE FORUM
#2 BE HONEST AND OPEN

HONESTY HURTS YEAH BUT LIVING THE LIE AND IN DENIAL AND IN MERRY-GO -ROUND LAND  HURTS MORE

#3 YOU MUST DO SOMETHING POSOTIVE

34 FEEL FREE TO CALL OUT FOR HELP

WE ARE A FAMILY OF FREINDS HERE WE ALL LOOK OUT FOR ONE ANOTHER


I CANT EXPLAIN YOU HOW IT WORKS BUT IT DOES


FOLLOW MY THREADS YOU WILL LAUGH YOU WILL CRY YOU WILL DRINK BORBOUN YOU WILL BE BESIMCHA AND AT PEACE!!!


BARDS

Welcome to the club! :D

We are in it together!  We were waiting for you to join! You finally made it!

Reading wasn't enough for me. I couldn't start my journey away from looking around on the internet until I started posting. Post, post, post, and post some more. Others may get chizuk from your posts, but even more importantly, YOU will get chizuk from posting. So post, post, post!!!

We have have some work to do. There may be some difficult days ahead, but here you'll find the tools to deal with those days. Keep moving and keep growing. You may reach your goal sooner than you may expect. The sun will eventually poke a hole in the clouds and shine brightly on your head. You will feel its warmth in your learning and davening. Just be patient with yourself and keep working!

Welcome, Reb Chaim! And I mean that sincerely - you've just joined pretty much the only frum group of people today that are committed to changing their way of life in this area. That in itself is an incredible first step!

I agree with Bards - coming here helps you change your whole perspective, helps you see things in a new way. Helps you understand yourself better, and also view the struggle itself, and the temptation, differently.

Glad to have you with us!

Dear ChaimIII,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community!

On GYE you will learn how to "hit bottom while still on top". Don't wait for the addiction to destroy your life. See this page.

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...

Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best - and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"... See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information...

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!

Thanks for the encouragement
!!

Today is Day 5, and I am quite apprehensive about tonight...My wife is probably out for the night leaving me alone! Unfortunately, we all know what that means.

I will try to learn for much of the time but I will have to do some work which means using the computer. Wish me luck, I'll report back on my success tomorrow.

incredible!!!

whenever you feel the urge do to something...

get up and do something...

for example:

- clean the light switch
- clean teh toilet
- dust off the top of the tiles in the bathroom
- dust off the floor tiles
- do the dishes
etc

so many Things-to-do this time of year... no need to limit yourself to one thing on the computer.
be creative.

(besides staying away from the computer - it might even win you a few "brownie" points with your wife)

dovinisrael

...... and when you do want to take a break at the computer, come to GUARDYOUREYES.org. There is enough around here to keep you busy for quite a while!

Sounds like you're doing well - you can identify a problematic situation coming up, and begin to prepare for it. Fantastic!

How did the night go?

I'm sorry to report that I let you all (and myself) down, and I didn't make it. I was close but at the end of the day the heavyweight won out.

But I wake up this morning to beautiful sunshine and chirpng birds and I am re-energized for the next battle.

Thanks for all your kind words of encouragement, I'm sorry I wasn't stronger.

GYE Lesson #1: The heavyweight will always win. The only chance we have is if we AVOID the rink!

GYE Lesson #2: Never let him KEEP you down. If your down, bounce right back up.

Congrats on your honesty.

Keep on trucking!

Exactly - ask hashem to step into the rink for you!

Glad to hear that you're moving forward. One question - what can you do differently next time?

The source of the problem was the computer/internet filter. I got my wife to install a filter (K9) on our home computer about a year ago for the benefit of "the kids". Unfortunately, I figured out the password and can bypass it at will.

How can I get her to change the password without arousing suspicion?

My kids are pretty young and barely send any time on the computer so I don't think it's plausible to say that they have figured out the password.

Any ideas??

join a 12-step program.

and get to the root of the problem.

filters are too easy to by-pass.

Thanks DII, I started with DC's daily group this round. I realize that the acting out is just a symptom of a deeper underlying issue.

I ask about the filter because I am having difficulty controlling myself and am trying to remove from my surroundings as much temptation as possible. I know it won't cure the disease but at least it will help manage the symptoms.