Hi everyone.

Thank G-d, our forum has been experiencing an explosion of growth recently. I can't even keep up with all the newcomers anymore, and I need your help. I notice that when a newcomer shows up, many people greet him/her, but until I show up (sometimes a day or two later) no one mentions the handbooks and other important tools... I guess everyone assumes that's my job.  :D ... Well, I need your help now, please!

I posted at this link an exact copy of the standard welcoming letter than I use. Please copy the text and paste it in a post, to welcome the newcomers.

Feel free to make additions/modifications based on each newcomers specific story / questions.

Thanks for your help!

Perhaps a short and sweet:

Hi, and welcome!

Here are 3 ways to benefit the most from this site, and change your life around in a matter of months:

1) Post away! you may feel shy at first, but it will bring out a wellspring of sweet waters that are inside of you.

2) Read the handbooks! these summarize the 'best of the best' advise of the site
1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude

3) donate to the site  ;D

If you find that after doing the above, for 3 months time, you are not off your old habits and instead fully addicted to this site, we will refund your money upon request, no questions asked.

:D :D :D

BLACK GEVALDIGGGGGS FOR THE BOYS

PINK GEVALDIGGGS FOR THE E.N.

Yes. Reb Bardy is the official welcomer, in my mind. He should be in charge. With his black berry for men and Pink berry for the EN, he is well equipped for the job.

Dear Guardureyes Administrator Hero Member:


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! I understand you are having problems with people sharing with you their personal triggering? stories. Don't be concerned we have members here who can help you! Let me introduce you to our friend Dov who has alot of experience in theses matters.

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.

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!

I think this issue that Reb Guard brings up is very crucial to the future of this site and the Jewish people. I think people are coming to this site and just seeing people on the forum having regular chats. I don t have a problem with this but i think newcomers are shying away from this.

IT IS A VERY IMPORTANT POINT THAT INH BRINGS UP

IF YOU ARE NOT HERE FOR AT LEAST A WEEK YOU WILL NOT "UNDERSTAND " WHATS GOING ON HERE

MANY PEOPLE WHO COME TO THIS SITE ARE REALLY IN "PAIN"

AND THEY ARE SEEING WHAT RESEMBLES A VIRTUAL "KIDDUSH

WE NEED TO WELCOME ALL NEW PEOPLE

AND HOLD ON TO OUR ALUMNI

MAYBE THERE SHOULD BE AN INITIATION PERIOD THAT

NEWBIES CAN ONLY BE  IN CONTACT WITH MODERATORS FOR THE FIRST WEEK OR 2

ITS AN IDEA

MAYBE A GOOD ONE OR NOT BUT THE  POINT IS VERY IMPORTANT

Kutan, please change this to:

If you find that after doing the above, for 3 months time, you are not off your old habits and instead fully addicted to this site, repeat #3 ad-infinitum.

guardureyes wrote on 19 Oct 2009 20:46:


LOL
May I say you have a one tracked mind, or is that triggering (to TA - tightwad addicts!)

Seriously, Rabeinu,
consider cutting the introduction post down to size.
Kutan is a big advocate of short and sweet, and with lots of colorful pictures if possible.
Some how, most people relate to it better.
k

i think berdichev's point about newbies is very strong . i have been here a while and have a hard time working thru the inside jokes and nicknames of nicknames and people calling each other mom and sis and bro, it's confusing  ???.  in SA meetings things  are very serious and rules rule if you know what i mean.  that may be too much but maybe a spot up front where people can goto first to ahve serious talks b/f they goto the kidddush club.

Do we really have to hit the guy even before his first post?

LV -   mom=7up          
bro=yo man=dude=muchacho=chaver=freind=anchuldigs      
sis=the guy is talking to the wall (or the one way mirror hanging on it )
         

Kollel Guy wrote on 27 Jan 2010 15:01:


ABSOLUTELY!  ;D ;D ;D

Do I need any special type of smicha to do this.  How about getting rshus from GUARD?