Keep up the good work. You are giving Hashem great pleasure tzadik!

I notice that you updated your chart manually. That's wonderful. I am putting the info here on your thread as well, so that next time you will have the links and know what to do...

We created a new "automated" 90 Day Wall of Honor chart to make it easier for everyone (it is still under construction, but it is already functional).
Click here to see the new automated chart.

From now on, you can updated yourself manually. The chart automatically keeps track of how many days you are clean and what Level you are on, each time you update.

Here are the RULES for the new chart:
- You must update yourself at least once a week.
- If you do not update yourself for over a week, your name becomes RED.
- If you do not update for two weeks, your name falls off the chart.
(Even if you fall off the chart, your name remains in our database, so you can choose to go back on the chart by logging in with your username and password and pressing "edit profile" and then selecting "Put me on the chart").

To update yourself, click here to Login.
Type in your username: Yesodos
The password for everyone on the chart is currently: GYE
(you can change your password by clicking "edit your profile" at the bottom)
To update the chart, choose "Still Clean" and then press "Update Chart"

We hope you enjoy this new feature. It is one of many new features that we are working on.
Please send us any remarks about the new system, or if you think something should be different or that we should add/change anything.

Keep strong!

I WAS JUST A LITTLE "SHVACH" WHEN IT CAME TO THIS LITTLE THINGAMAJIG CALLED UHH UHH YEAH INTERNET

WRONG WRONG WRONG DEAD WRONG

I WAS ADDICTED LIKE CRAZY

bardichev, you could not have put it down better.

That is what we ALL do.

It is unbelievable what we can rationalize!!!!!

hoping, please keep us posted. We are all with you in spirit and are drawing inspiration from you for ourselves...

kutan.

Ish es reihu yazoiru eeluchiv yoimar CHAZAK!!!!
CHAZAK CHAZAK V'NISCHAZIEK

Holy Yesodos U R mechazek us all!!

Shkoyach everyone.

Also, thanks R Guard for putting me in the chizuk email!

Dear Yesodos12 -
It is very nice to read your posts and the rest of this thread you started, thank-you. You may find a focus here on discovering and doing the right actions, rather than on attaining a deeper understanding in our problem. This, in my experience, would be a very good thing. As I have heard (and enjoy remembering!): We can't think ourselves into right living. We can only live, (meaning: behave/taking action) ourselves into right thinking.
BTW, re shalom bayis, as I have posted previously somewhere, due to my addiction, early recovery was accompanied by a very rocky homelife. Not that things were that great before, mind you... But after about a year and a half of sobriety and my working the steps (very imperfectly), the relationship my wife and I had began to noticeably improve. Of course, it was steadily improving all that time, we just failed to notice till about then. The degree of sholom bayis we have now after a few more years of the same is better than I would have ever imagined. During the years I was acting out I went to shrinks and rovs (and got seforim and books to improve my marriage. My wife and I had many long talks about improving sholom bayis, and the like in those years. Generally useless... Strangely (w/my sobriety) w/o any conscious, direct work on that topic, our lives improved tremendously and are improving further - really - year by year. Sholom bayis means so much to me and I know how why Hashem wants us to have it, and I am no smarter than anyone - including myself twenty years ago in gehinom (w/my poor wife!)! B"H I do not think very much about what is wrong any more and no longer focus on how bad my (and her!) deficits/defects are. I just recognize them and move on appropriately, using the steps with Hashem's help.
If there is any group of people who need to be mekayem the mishna that states: Kol shema'asov merubin maychochmoso, chochmoso miskayemes, etc., it is addicts! Hatzlocha heiligeh yid!

Today was a hard day, but thank god I got through it by distracting myself, and then reading through the attitude handbook until the urge subsided.

A close call, but 2 weeks completed successfully!

Still a tough day. I want everyone to know that I'm fighting here, and I couldn't do it without you all. Its a funny sort of fight now, because whilst I'm posting I feel myself slowly reentering reality and the fantasy world of the menuvel slowly melts away. This is a very encouraging development.I also know that after counting day after day, it would be devastating to be back on zero and break my clean streak.

I wish it was 90 days already!! (In a good way!)

I love the handbooks. I realise now that I am not running away from the yetzer, but am running towards the loving embrace of my father in heaven, who is looking on with pride as He removes the hold of the yetzer from upon me. 

I wonder whether part of the idea behind 'I'm poga bcho menuvel ze mochheihu lebais hamidrash' is not just that LEARNING is the key to overpowering the yetzer, but perhaps the idea of dragging the yetzer into the PUBLIC FORUM of a torahdik atmosphere is what does the trick. I'm sure this observation has occured to everyone else already, but I guess I'm new here so please excuse me!
In which case, I have just successfully dragged the yetzer into the bais medrash, and chazal's words have been proven true once again, and he loses another day!

I LOVE GUE!!!!

OHHH is that beautiful!!! Rabeinu Guard, tell me if you could imagine greater nachas then this!!!




I love your pshat!

yesodos12 wrote on 22 Jul 2009 19:04:
Fantastic angle on that, Yesodos! No, never heard it before! Thanks.

What a great pshat "geonos", please please keep on fighting, when i read your post from the beginning tears came to my eyes what a holy neshama just craving to be a good yid. I could tell you what helped for me a lot i started waking up early and learning a good hour before davenining the whole day starts with kedusha and everything is different, besides the point going to sleep early is a very important geder as a lot of the this crazyiness starts at night when you have extra time.

Yesodos, you have a way of giving over the "yesodos" of this struggle very well!! What a holy Jew. Hashem is having tremendous Nachas from you...


BTW. When you write you brought him to the Beis Medrash, did you mean a real Beis Medrash, or this forum?? Someone sent me the following today and I want to share it in your honor (and in mgsbms's honor):

Returning to Torah

At first it will seem next to impossible. You will feel antsy and be unable to focus. You will barely be able to stifle your yawns. You won't be able to wrap your mind around a simple piece of shaklah vetaryah. But rejoice. That is the perfect raw material to work with. The tumah toxins inside you are screaming against the powerful chemo treatment of the samah de'chaya, the elixir of life. Focus, focus, focus. Drag yourself through the Gemmara, then Rashi, then Tosefos, then Maharsha. One hour. Two hours. Be brutal with yourself. No quick fixes of "acharonishe torahs." Memorize the shakla vetaryah. Think through it backwards, then forwards. Try to find flaws in the breathtakingly beautiful logic.

Do not learn the way you learnt way back when, in yeshiva or kollel, lackadaisically looking for the quick chidush fix. Learn with total and absolute focus, as if you are trying to decode the secret key to a million dollars. Let the sweat gather under your armpits and let a tingling feeling run down your spine, as you slowly, ponderously, with great effort, unlock the strands of Divine DNA within you and within the Gemmara. Do this night after night and early morning after early morning. Write down you kushyos. Take them to your local Rosh Yeshiva.

Consider the "drip-drip" of this daily regimen to be a vital part of your treatment. Know that it is building up your antibodies in small but steady increments and restoring your health. After a while compare before and after photos of yourself. Before: dead eyes, forced smile, deep sadness. After: twinkling eyes, warmth, attractiveness. Rejoice.

Your yetzer horah will still attack you, and is guaranteed to continue to do so till your very last breath, but almost immediately you will begin to notice the following:

1. Extremes that at one time glittered, now seem repulsive. They no longer interest you. You cannot imagine how you once embraced certain sewage up to your eyeballs.

2. The frequency that you fall will diminish. You will finally get a life outside your two-dimensional self-made gehinnom. You will feel and exhibit genuine warmth for your family and community.

Hashem has sent us an extraordinary blessing, the mp3 player. Switch off, for good, that radio in your car and your home. Wash your ears and starving mind with the beautiful sound of shiurim, downloaded to your mp3 player. Many times, especially when you are driving, you will not be able to focus on a shiur, but background noise is also fine because you will still be living in the Beis Hamedrash. You will be steadily rising, not sinking. Find a maggid shiur who speaks to your heart, who resonates emotionally, whose neshama resides in a holy place. Mix upbeat and non-threatening halacha shiurium with uplifting hashkafa and mussar. And here is a very important tip: Say your yetzer horah gets the better of you; you fall and go somewhere you shouldn't. There is no reason to sin on the way there and back. What a bitul zman! Listen to a Torah tape. Farkert! Show the yetzer horah that bit by bit you are taking over. You are on your way to winning, and winning big.

Chazak VeYe'ematz!

Thanks for that R Guard. I meant the gue forum, not the actual beis hamidrash.

Ditto on what Yesodos just said, thanks, R' Guard. And a super Shabbos to all!

Very nice Guard.

Yesodos12 I love the bit about the Beis Hamedrash that's really want GUE is all about.

The idea of being in a  Beis Hamedrash is clever. In such a atmosphere one must choose to behavior properly. Which is one of the reasons the "GUE Beis Hamedrash" has such a good effect.

Returning to Torah is really beautifully written!! Thanks Guard for sharing

Yesodos U R from front line warriors in the "Guardani brigade" the toughest fighting force ever  know to man

Of course our motto is "Hashem yilacheim lochem....." G-d will fight for us!!

Remember to say out loud every morning (and any other time the YH bites) the following words, its a segula gedolah from the gemorrah:

"Rachmana nigaar bei b'soton" "May the Merciful One do battle with the Soton"

This segula is beduka umnusa/tried and tested and comes from the mouth of the ..............YH himself see kidushin 81b

With the utmost love and respect

Noorah