Hi. I'm 14 years old and I'm determined to stop all this nonsense. If anyone has any tips feel free to let me know!

Edit:
I don't really have a story but what I do I'll say. In eighth grade my Rabbi talked to us about the prohibition of shichvat zerah, I already knew about it and had no inclination of ever doing it. I happen to go to a modern orthodox school and one of my friends said after that "ya right, like I'm going to stop". This truly bothered me, how can he be messing up his life and he is going to be killed and go to h*** I thought. I don't exactly know how much later, but some time after this my yetzer hara got me. I felt horrible after I did it. I literally cried out to Hashem that night and promised I would never do it again. About two leeks later I did it again and again and again and here I am now. When I lose a battle which b'ezras Hashem will not happen again I say to myself two things "He won a battle, but the war I shall win" and "The die I die, is the die I give up" this encourage me that I can't give up and must continue to my eventual goal of being free from this disease. I've also started learning on my own at night, usually every day, a perek in chumash. This gives me something to think about torah wise and is always a good thing.

Dear OneDay,

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

congrats on starting out on this struggle so young. We have a few 15 year olds who recently joined, and I'm sure they'll be here soon to welcome you. Check out their threads, and join them on this journey....

One of our goals on GYE is to help people "hit bottom while still on top" so they will take recovery seriously. To explain better what I mean, please see this page. If you're here, you're already taking serious steps in recovery, so keep up the good work!

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!

First of all, welcome, and - wow! It's incredible that at your age you're serious about being free from this!

I think you've already taken a few major steps forward - not just wanting to stop, but taking concrete action (joining GYE). Also, you've accepted that it is, indeed, nonsense. We convince ourselves that the pleasure and self-indulgence is necessary, that we NEED it - and it just isn't so. The longer you stay clean, the easier it becomes to see that (even though there may always be days that are tough).

Welcome, post away, and I look forward to being inspired by you!

Hi and welcome. It's terrific that a young man your age would make the decision to tackle this problem. That really is a great step. Glad to have you here and best wishes.

If you are in yeshiva get involved in learning b'hasmodo. Make sure you are able to get sipuk from your learning and you do a lot of chazaroh.
How is your davening. Can you be from the first 10 to come to minyan?
Don't forget to say a few k'pitlach of Tehilim-short and easy ones to connect you to Hashem. I am just a newbe so I am sure the veterans out there can add a lot more.

Hello, when i came here i was 14 as well since than i have turned 15 after being here for only 2 and a half months or so, anyway i would recommend spilling your heart out and telling everyone about yourself, it will feel better than you can imagine, like a wight lifted off your shoulders. post as much as you can and get out of isolation. from what i have heard from the amazing men on this site the few teens who are on this site are very lucky, so we should take  our opportunity and run with it! ask questions and people will answer to the best of there ability! you are cared about here more than you realize now...but it will not take long before you do! if you have any questions as someone who is my age feel free to PM me and maybe i can help. welcome again!

Welcome!

Seriously, as was said, it is great to be working on this at your age.
There are tips all over this forum, go a hunting.
Read, read, read, and post!
Ask us questions, share your thoughts,
the darker ones and the lighter ones.

B'hatzlacha!!

Chazak Amenu wrote on 13 May 2010 02:38:

I actually read some of your thread and your thread convinced me to get an account here. I don't really have a story but what I do I'll say. In eighth grade my Rabbi talked to us about the prohibition of shichvat zerah, I already knew about it and had no inclination of ever doing it. I happen to go to a modern orthodox school and one of my friends said after that "ya right, like I'm going to stop". This truly bothered me, how can he be messing up his life and he is going to be killed and go to h*** I thought. I don't exactly know how much later, but some time after this my yetzer hara got me. I felt horrible after I did it. I literally cried out to Hashem that night and promised I would never do it again. About two leeks later I did it again and again and again and here I am now. When I lose a battle which b'ezras Hashem will not happen again I say to myself two things "He won a battle, but the war I shall win" and "The die I die, is the die I give up" this encourage me that I can't give up and must continue to my eventual goal of being free from this disease. I've also started learning on my own at night, usually every day, a perek in chumash. This gives me something to think about torah wise and is always a good thing.

I also want to thank all the people with their warm welcomes and hope that we all live to see Mashiach Bimheriah B'yamenu.

oneday wrote on 13 May 2010 23:20:


Wow, Guard, is this really true? That the posts WE make can help change someone ELSE's reality? It sounded like such a cute idea but I was convinced my obsessive posting didn't affect anybody other than myself. Maybe there really is a greater impact.

Maybe some GYE fundraising could help bring this home to people. (Assuming the site actually needs any money.)

Wow - OneDay, you're truly inspiring! It sounds like you're a very deep, motivated person!

Thank you!

Briut wrote on 14 May 2010 11:49:


come on Briut! you know what you say has an affect on other people! did you read what alloneontop wrote to you today?

Briut wrote on 14 May 2010 11:49:

For me, yes. I thought that this was mostly men with a few 18-20 year olds. By seeing a teen a few months older than me here, it shocked me, nevertheless a good shock. You never know who is reading the forum, I thought I would read and never get an account but that changed. Always post more people than you know are looking!

I'm totally with you guys and both of you just gave me a boost of inspiration today. (And a bit of jealousy that it took so long for me.) i'd love to hear more from both of you. We WILL get through this. Also read stuff from battleworn's corner. viewpoints based on torah may encourage you. Don't think about what happened, think about the future. Where the baal teshuva stands a tzadik gamur is unable to reach. We have incredible potential (and the added benefit that we're still essentially in a yeshiva environment and therefore more kedusha surrounding us helping us. USE OUT THE POTENTIAL.

Oneday, it is amazing to have someone like yourself here on board.  Myself I am more than twice your age (married with children) but how I wish, how I do very wish, that I would have made it here when I was your age.  I can't call you lucky or else you should not have this challenge but I think you are fortunate to have this resource at this early stage that many of us had to wait years for.  You have the opportunity to rectify this problem well before you even think of going out and for sure before getting married and having children.

Post your story.  It is our story as well and with each step we will be here to cheer you on and to lift you up when you need it.

Wishing you much hatzlacha in this wonderful journey.  Yes it is a wonderful journey, it is the journey to connecting with Hashem and to truly see and experience what it means to be a mentsch.