Hello, everybody

Let me introduce myself. My nickname on this forum is Mordechai and I'm 34 years old and living in Holland. After reading many posts on here I'd like to start one of my own and want to share my story with you and tell you how porn and nudity affected a young boy at a very early age.

My battle started at a very young age. I was about 3 or four years old I think. Because of circumstances I had to stay a night at my neighbours house.  They had subscriptions to a variety of magazines and one of them was a nude magazine. When I was playing I stumbled upon it and began to look at the images. It took quite a while for my neighbours to find out what I was doing and when they discovered it they took the magazine away and told me that I was not supposed to look at it. Ofcourse this sparkled my curiosity, and when I had another chance I took the magazine again and began to look at it again. Because it was forbidden it was extra fun to do it. this was the point when lust got a hold of me. It wasn't very long before I started to search for those kind of images. when catalogues of post order companies would come in I would look for women in underwear and the swimsuit section. One time when me and where collecting old newspapers for a project at our school at 6th grade we got a box full of old newspapers but with a bundle of playboy magazines at the bottom. We discovered them and started to look at them. A couple of friends from my school had older brothers who bought porn magazines and they got hold of them and took them to show them to me. What I’m trying to say is: that in my childhood there where plenty occasions where I was presented with improper images and wasn’t able to refuse them. It felt like there was this power which got hold of me at a very young age and was not willing to let me go. During my childhood and teenage years I kept struggling with it. I also learned how to masturbate at a very young age and kept on doing it.  I promised HaShem to stop doing it over and over again, but wasn’t able to.  Before I got married I confessed my struggle to my spouse to be and fortunately she was very understanding and willing to keep loving me in spite of my addiction. Unfortunately, I still kept falling back in my addiction and kept disappointing her. I’m now 34 and as you can all see on the chart am now 67 days clean thanks to HaShem for leading me to this great website. B’ezras HaShem I will reach 90 days and beyond!!! I have good hopes that I will stop this addiction for Good but I know (as is stated in Pirke Avot) to not trust myself until the day of my death!

I want to close with a general call to Please, please keep the filth out of reach of children because otherwise this addiction will grab hold of them too. Prevention is the best cure!!!
I want to encourage all of you who are in this struggle to keep up the fight!!!!

Mordechai

Mordechai,

I identified very strongly with much of your story.  Keep coming back.  In my experience I had to admit I would NEVER be able to solve this problem on my own.  Eventually I found SA and B"H I'm almost 22 months sober.

Hatzlacha

welcome Mordechai,

your story sound very familiar and many people have had similar experiences. you will probably find that you will like it here at GYE and will gain from being here and reading and posting.

much hatzlocha
zs

Dear Mordechai,

Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

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!

thank you so much for your encouragement! I find the 90 days chart a very helpfull tool in my lifelong battle with lust. After seeing the days I've won so far, it keeps me strong and gives me enough determination to keep going. I don't want to throw away the days I've gained so far. This is what I tell myself when the yetzer hara knocks on my door.  The daily chizuk emails also encourage me and keep me focused on HaShem and makes me aware of the importance of the olam haba.

toda rabba all of you at GYE!!!!

Welcome Mordechai!

You are an inspiration for all of us.

Keep on posting, and Keep On Trucking!

Ah Gitte Vuch!

E. Ben Durdayah

Thank you ben durdayah,

You are an inspiration to me as well. I just reached 72 days clean!!!!  By The grace of HaShem I've come this far!!! Thank you all so much for your encouragement.  Today I was thinking about the difference between love and lust. Some people think that hate is the opposite of (lust) [love - moderator's correction]. I disagree. I think that lust is the opposite of love. When you hate something or someone you still have an outgoing energy towards that thing or someone. Love is also an outgoing energy, while lust is only self centered. When you lust after a woman, you make her an object to meet YOUR needs, to bring YOU pleasure, to give YOU satisfaction. The yetzer hara tells you she is there just for YOU to enjoy. Lust is the desire to receive for the self alone while love is the desire to receive in order to give. Love gives because it wants to give, while lust takes because it wants to take.
When you take a look at the letters with which the words begin you will see that in Hebrew Love (ahava) begins with an aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet --numerical value: 1) Love unites, makes one. The numerical value of the word One (echad) = 13 --just like the word for love (ahava=13) the word for lust ta’avah begins with a tav (the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet--numerical value 400)  When I think about the number 400 it reminds me of the 400 years spend in slavery in Mitzrayim. Lust got us trapped, while Love sets free!!!! Just a thought I had today. I thought I’d share it with you.

Sincerely Mordechai

Your words were inspiring, Oh have I got a story for you!

73 days and still clean!!
I am so thrilled I got this far!
Thank you HaShem!!

That's gigantic (73 = Og)! 

gevaldig!

and Kedusha, that remez has a lot of truth
i once saw in a sefer that Og and Sichon were formidable forces of tum'a that manifested as the physical kings who fought against Moshe Rabeinu
since then when i say on shabbos morning
והרג מלכים אדירים
לסיחון מלך האמורי
ולעוג מלך הבשן
כי לעולם חסדו
I often think about how Hashem can destroy all the urges and addictions i have fallen into

ZemirosShabbos wrote on 02 Feb 2011 22:16:


This Sefer?  ;D
Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 18 Feb 2010 21:37:

that's beautiful!
thanks!


but the sefer i saw it in was called הנאמרים באמת, a likut sefer on nach

Mordechai wrote on 01 Feb 2011 23:55:
Mordechai wrote on 01 Feb 2011 23:55:

THIS you call "Just a thought"??

It is GEVALDIG!!!


Mordechai wrote on 01 Feb 2011 23:55:
We sure are happy you shared it!

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 03 Feb 2011 19:44:


I agree with Yosef Hatzadik on this one.  That was a beautiful vort. 

Welcome Mordechai.  You're doing great and it sounds like you have a lot to share with all us.  So we hope you will keep on posting.  And remember 90 days is just a stepping stone.  After a nearly 30 year addiction, it will unfortunately take more than 90 days to overcome.  So please stick around here even after you B'ezras Hashem reach 90 days.

B'Hatzlacha Rabbah.