hi,
my name is jamie,
i live in london and became religious when i was about fifteen and it was around that ime when i first found out the true horror of what my sin has bee for the last few years.
i am 18 and just finishing my end of school exams and then i am off to yeshiva!!!
i am just starting this wall because the time has realy come for me to bring about the decisive change i have davened for and wished for, for so long.
i am quite nervoius about this whole community board thing bu t found out about th website in februray when i visited yu and saw posters about it al over the walls (pherhaps that is why Hashem sent me to new york??)
anyway, before i was religious and throught no bad of it i have been badly addicted and in the last 2 years i have been continuously struggling for so so long. all i really want to do is stop but i just find it so hard, and it breaks me but then i get even more week and continue to do it untill i feel to guilty for a week, and the cycle continues, i even said i would give ten pounds to tzedaka and go to the mikva every time a couple of moths ago and since then ive had to give over 100 pounds to charity andnow have a mikva membership itrs so often!!!
i just feel so so low that ive faiked so many times and am so addicited in this awful struggle.
so i have now decided to take the steps in the 90 day log, looking at how close this community are truely inspiores me, so hopefully, with becoming part of the family, in my 90 day runup to leaving for eretz yisroel to yeshiva (just realised i go in almost exactly 90 days!) Pleas please HAKADOSH BARUCH HU, will help me to break free finally, with all the help, chizuk and determination he sends my way!
chang samach and hopefuly this will now become the start of a very long, but truely meaningful and happening journey
thanks!

Dear Jamie,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community. Have a great Kabbalas HaTorah tonight!

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!

Hi Jamie,

Welcome, welcome! Please know that you're among friends, people who have gone (and are still going) through what you have and understand you and are looking to help.

I am also a newbie and am using the forum to help break the isolation that encourages and feeds my addiction. Reaching out helps tamp down the flames in my heart. Feel free to be honest and let us know what you're thinking and feeling, there's no judging here, only chizuk and understanding. Gut Yom Tov!

thankyou yechiel,
for the warm welcome, and you you also!
Be'eztrat Hashem we will succeed, learn well tonight!

You're welcome, Beezras Hashem we will.

As for learning, a friend of mine from Brazil once told me "you guys have it easy, you learn from about 12 to 4, by us it's winter so we finish the seuda around 7 and can't daven until 7" Ouch! Now that's learning!  ;D

about to get ready for shul now, going to mikva... i see with this shavout a new turning point, and hopefu the very beginning of a new, better start to life! when i come out the mikva in about 30 mins with lots of SIATA DESHMAYA after the two days of shavuous i will be on my way, on the wall chart of honour and fighting stron...looking fowrad and extra exctied for the journey (even if this sight has distracted me from revision the whole day...its alot more intresting than chemistry though!)
chag sameach!

GEVALDIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!

WELCOME ABOARD!!!

GYT

BARDS

Jamie, WELCOME!!
I hope your Shavuos was rocking and that you are ready to enter the beautiful and holy Shabbos!
Much hatzlacha and keep on posting!

be strong and happy with yourself. Your honesty is your greatest ally. Keep clear of challenges and keep posting. Waiting to hear from you, especialy your feelings about your difficulties.
Chaim

FIRSTLY, THANKYOU ALL SOSO MUCH FOR YOU R WELCOMING COMMENTS, IT SEEMS STRAGNE BUT EVEN OOKING FORWARD TO THEM KERPT ME SLIGHTKY STRONGER OVER SHAVOUT!! i realy feel past of the family, and now that im part, stronger than ever to suceed! today wil be m fourth day clean BH and i feel closer than in along time... i did some very meaningful hitbodedut over shavuot and have an exam today as part of my a level exams and somehow these last few clean days ha built me stronger. i need to get back to revision and BH my breaks from work vcan now be on this forum as aopposed ti the evil other side!!!
have an amazing shabbos everyone, thannkyou so much fro keeping me strong and determined!
GOOD SHABBOS!!!

Hi Jamies,

Great to hear you had a good Yom Tov! I find that the more I can lead a happy and healthy day, the less likely I am to need to turn to acting out. Acting out for me is an escape and why escape when things are going/feeling good? Do you agree?

So I'm happy you're moving along and living well and wish you a good day and Shabbos. Day by day, as Dov always says, longer then that is not my concern. I want to live good today.

Yechiel, you dont know your keeping me alive!
feeling quite weak now, i watched alot of tv  before and i think thats why im feeling week, but its shabbos soon so i think im going to go to the mikva and when i come back ill quickly get ready for shabbat. thanks so much for the support thou. ill concerntrate on today and daven hard!!

also i was looking for some advice, i am a BT and go to a jewish secondary school but almost noone is religious... there is carew of about 10 boys who are the "frummers" (baruch Hashem i am one) and our school has three hundered students in each year group (grade).
i however, am the only one out of us who is still really friendsly with the non religious people on a everyday social level (whihc makes shmiras enayim and bris all the more hard!)
my propblem is that the school prom, whihc is not like a normal prom but a student run prom which be in a club in london, with lots of dangerously dressed people and lots of drunk people will all be there and the worst part is the whole club is hired out. i do not go clubbing and spend most breaks in our school boes, however all of these popel are my good friens, although no other religious person in my whole school will not be there i would really like to spend the last time with all my friends togetehr,, i know it will be very hard and am not sure how well ill cope, with my addiction and everything, but really feel i need to go, i will stay by the bar, obviously not drinking, but just chatting to people all night with my etyes above head hight! and will be clinging onto my tzitzit, but should i go?? i feel i really really want to, and feel my friends may even be slightly ioffened if i dont (feeling that i see myself as "better") however i am at a loss of what to do?! i even know the gemora with the two paths,telling me i should chose the one without the "dodgy" route....
thanks tzadikim and if i dont speak untill after to holy shabbos, have an amazing and uplifting one!!!

Dear Jamie, It's tough to break away when I am in a group, and when I think back to 479 years ago when I was 18, well, then it seems just impossible! Admittedly not understanding the ins and outs of your entire situation, here are some questions (mostly rhetorical):

If you are going away to Yeshiva and will part from all these friends soon, what does parting a week earlier mean? Even if there will still be time together with all of them after the prom, then I understand some embarrassment, but still: in a year from now, the peer-group shame will be a vague memory, whereas your accomplishment in yeshiva (or wherever you'd go) will be much more dear to you. There were many risks I took as a young man, and many of them where a real net loss. I knew I never ought to have taken them, and the only memory of them is the bitterness. Don't do what's good for anyone else. Do what is good for you. You are worth it. And any people who do not respect your decision, do not respect you. They don't mean it though - they are kids!

On a lighter side... ???....uh oh....I have no lighter side. Go to bardichever for that!

Good Shabbos!

Lighter side

Here we are

Gevaldigggggggg

Keeeeep on lorrieng!!

Bards

Hi Jaimies,

I hope you had a good Shabbos and will have a good Motzei Shabbos. Motzei Shabbos is a particulary hard time for me for a number of reasons, so what better is there to do then say hello to some buddies on the forum!

Anyway, as to your prom question, I'm too new to all this to offer any practice advice, but I would encourage you to pay close attention to Dov's words, I know I do. As I mentioned earlier, once i"m in a bad place, I'm lost, I need to focus on living good, making sure that there are only a few straws on this camels (myself) back, so there is no chance of the last one breaking it (acting out). A struggle with lust is a loser for me. Personally, if I were to put myself in such a situation (i.e. clubbing etc.) I wouldn't stand a chance at this point, but everyone and every situation is different.

I just want you to know that I'm davening for you so that Hashem helps you along your path of freedom and true joy.