doingtshuva wrote on 31 Mar 2019 00:44:

DT, if are you a changed man was it due to your Rav / Wife / Boss?

Generally people aren’t forced by anything, until it’s their rock bottom - read Dov’s story for example. 

Change has to come from within.

So look at this thread. It’s amazing Gye’s Success!
Post 1 Hershy wasn’t ready for anything. 4 days later he was already crying out for help. Thats very quick lane change. 

Hershy you’re on a good road to DoingTeshuva :-)

Keep On Trucking

Markz wrote on 31 Mar 2019 02:08:

As long I was able to P&M together with work/family/shiurim/etec' I didn't think of stopping.
But when life started to get unmanageable, then I decided to take it seriously.

With tremendous gratitude to the RBS'O, to Guard, and to the GYE community, I am happy to report that I reached a special milestone today, be'H - 10 Years Clean!

Now, this is very important - I need to keep reminding myself:
Take it one decade  DAY at a time!

Wishing everyone a wonderful Lag Ba'Omer.  Keep on trucking, and hoping to hear good news from all of you!

#0
. i had a fall. i was in a situation with a bad book around and i knew i shouldnt be looking inside and i flipped to a bad part. actually it wasnt a ''bad book'' specifically. in terms of its labeled category it was a novel. but apparently nowadays, either the authors have lost their talent or if they dont put in an inappropriate scene, the book simply wont sell (as much). 
 Either way, i probably could have rationalized that it was just a slip and maybe even gye wouldve allowed me to continue on the streak and all that.
 But im tired of slips as well. for me, i want real clean days. so i scratched the whole thing. 
 Im proud of all the times ive said no the yetzer hara, and i know that ive made Hashem proud over the different successes within this streak. the streak aint my religion and quite frankly (in terms of gye rules) its not even a goal of mine, so here i am. 
and im gonna keep on trucking. 

Welcome. I like the username!!!!





Don’t forget it’s only a screen name. The real good things are going to come as we jump out of the screen and meet some sweet guys here, or take your marriage to a new level as the Rabbi guides you to a marriage counselor which I believe will also help you with the looking problem we all face.

Keep us in the loop and Keep on Trucking!

Sorry you felt let down by the fact that you joined gye and didn’t make it to 900 days on 1st try.

Maybe try what I did, don’t focus on the days - at all. Take a tool that really works and run with it and Keep on Trucking :-)

higher wrote on 11 Jun 2019 04:46:

REM, i appreciate your point. its true.
but i must confess. i dont feel like a garbage can.
see the bold.
and i will still keep on truckin'.

It’s been way too long since I posted. B”H I’m still clean. 59 days!! I’ve made it through Elul, Yomim  and  succoss! There’s a lot of craziness going on my life now. The fact I’ve made it this long on top of everything going on is truly amazing and a gift from Hashem. Now the real challenge begins. I don’t have the added inspiration of Elul and Tishrei. I need to keep on trucking one day at a time. 

Fell Shmell. 
Gotta keep on trucking! 
(Do they still say those things here?) 
I finally decided to come back and fess up. Been a rocky 8 months after almost 4 years of being clean. 
Perhaps the accountability of staying clean for 90 days will get me back on track again, I hope (have they started allowing that word here yet?) that by getting through 90 days, I will have moved passed the bad habits that are starting to gain traction again. 
Don't have patience yet to write a full post and analyze what happened. Done that too much for the last eight months. Time to just move forward and start again. 
I didn't think coming back here would help me for a round two. There won't be any chiddushim to enlighten me, or inspire me. Been there done that. 
But I finally decided that i can perhaps gain from some kind of accountability. 
Other than that life is great.

Just beat it! (this)

Welcome! Don't worry, your story sounds like the story of thousands upon thousands of others. Well, unfortunately I suppose. Huh.

Keep on trucking through the site, we can work together and win for today!

Hi!
I believe you were not around 'way back then' when I was so nice to meet you

I want to relate to what you said purely through my experience without implying that your experience is/was/ or will be the same:

I spent many years going through the cycle I described, from early teenage years. I would struggle to be clean for a few days. After 3 or 4 days and ever so occasionally after a week I would collapse. I would go on a binge that would last till the early hours of the morning, sometimes continuing the next day.

As an addict I was almost never the type who could watch porn for 5 minutes, masturbate and get on with my day. I can't remember this ever happening. For me each time I gave into lust (and as I would later learn it's a power greater than me) I would be swallowed into a obsessive pursuit that would take me further than I wanted. This is not to say everyone is like that.

At first it was as you described, easy to rebound from these falls, pull myself together, get inspired, get some chizuk and be on my merry way back to day 1.

However, as time goes on it got harder to 'keep on trucking' (do they still say that here even???) after a fall. Things got darker and the inspiration and wishful thinking that once worked no longer were helping me.

Things got alot worse along the way and that's for another time to elaborate on.

So yes, every day of sobriety is precious. But looking back, and having built up longer periods of sobriety I can say one thing with certainty: in that ongoing binge, remorse, inspire, absolve, retry once again cycle my growth as a human being was stunted. My ability to develop at many levels was almost non existent because I was stuck in a constant cycle of withdrawal, flooding my psyche with the drug of lust and fogging my brain, numbing out whatever little emotional capacity I did have. The few days after the binge were not truly living. Living in constant inspiration, withdrawal and struggle is not life.

I don't mean to detract from the value of any day amount of sober days. My point is that eventually the cycle became for me very painful and things became more unmanageable.

bitochonGYE wrote on 01 Jul 2020 06:02:

Guess that's why they say "keep on trucking" and not keep on cruising and enjoy life...

Keep working at it!

Mazel Tov on 3 weeks!! Keep on trucking!!

Grant. Thank you. Just thank you for your support.

I'll update the full story tomorrow. I've been pushing it off, partly because I'm embarrassed, partly because i'm in a bit of a pit. 
But ITK, you've held off the last few days right? So how do I know you won't go back into hiding? How do I know your 'I'll do it tomorrow' is different this time?
Because I owe it to Hashem, and you guys, and myself (and now my new partner.) And because you guys will spam my inbox if I don't write up the story of my last few days tomorrow!

Thank you for the support all.

p.s. sorry Meyer, I'd already fallen when I got your message, sorry to disappoint. But the chizuk's still great, I'll keep on trucking. NO MATTER WHAT!!! 

Days 96 & 97: Just checking in here. Googled something innocuous and without bad intentions but something came up and I took a look. Luckily caught myself quickly. I had a pretty strong reaction though. Objectively speaking it wasn't even a very sexual image, but as some of the longer streakers know, if you've been a while without looking, you can have an especially strong reaction, even to "minor" triggers. Especially when you let yourself look and are "lusting". Anyways, BH, didn't go further than that. But it definitely was like wow, OK, haven't had one of those moments in a while. Honestly, it's very tempting in those moments to take that strong reaction I'm feeling and let myself try and pretend I'm getting swept away. It's tempting to start thinking about the reaction and saying, wow, see how powerful this is, there is no way this is going away, no way you can fight this feeling etc. But it's actually BS. It's just that if I keep holding on to the experience, keep dwelling on it etc, then ya, I may make it impossible for myself to resist. But if instead, I don't pretend to "Fight" the thought, which is actually a really clever way for me to actually give in, I just let it go, I'm OK, BH.

I think sometimes in the past my ego got in the way of me letting go after a slip or if I was exposed to something triggering. I thought, oh look what I did, I'm not perfect etc. To somehow try and fix the fact that I screwed up I would try and fight what had happened reject it, etc. Really that was a recipe for failing.

Anyways, not sure what I'm saying really. Just rambling if I'm honest. But, BH, I haven't even had a tough moment such as tonight. I sort of hesitate to even call it a tough moment, cause it's triggering. But whatever. Basically Hashem has been making it sort of easy for me maybe. So I guess I am grateful that up until now it's been relatively smooth with triggers even if life itself was difficult. It's funny, winning the battle here is like winning an argument. Only way to do that is by not actually arguing  

I wonder if me not having my medication today played a role in making me more vulnerable. Hmm... not sure. Just a thought. 

Ok, sorry for the lengthy analysis, have an awesome week and keep on trucking! Gut voch and Shavua tov!

Im Tevakshena Kakasef wrote on 05 Aug 2020 22:45:

No problem, we are still cheering you on! 

shmuel83 wrote on 06 Sep 2020 02:57:

attitude, attitude, attitude and keep on trucking, you got this!

Mazel Tov on the 3 week milestone!

I had my first wet dream after 16 days clean last night. Ironic no? Ah well, at least were handling this together. 

I don't know about reading up on these things. For one, that tends to put them at the front of the mind, and I think its best to ignore them. And none of the sources I know on the topic of nocturnal emissions in halacha are particularly cheery. More like downright depressing. That having been said, I don't know much so ich veis nicht. And the ones I do know are probably not discussing our situatuons - more likely they discuss when you are the one at fault, not when you are trying to do better. Could be some cheery mekoras out there. 

Keep on trucking.

Day 129: I had a tough day today. I had a massive headache for most of the day. It seems the headache came from my glasses pressing against face. Hopefully, I can get them adjusted tomorrow. I took them off in the evening, and since then I've gotten some relief. Doing school on the computer for hours with a massive headache was no fun. I also have loads of work due which is sort of scaring me. I'm also worrying about all sorts of other things. Finding my bashert, or more accurately, I'm more worried about not finding her. Worried about what people think of me. I have a physical issue which I worry people can detect, although it seems like that it is mostly just a worry. (Sorry for being vague, I can't quite just go and describe myself exactly for you, can I?)

I don't know how much sense the above paragraph made. I don't know if it's relatable. Maybe it sounds like I'm just saying crazy things. If so, I apologize. Going through a pretty tough time now on a lot of fronts. I'm in school in a very challenging subject area. Shidduchim is also a great source of stress. Among all the other areas in life. Mental health stuff.

Yes, I'm complaining. Hey, I had a bad day. Ok, sorry for ranting and raving. I'm going to go and write in my gratitude journal app to set my head straight. Also, so important to move my body. Just walking to maariv and back and getting in some more steps has helped me a bit. OK, maybe I don't need to worry, Hashem knows what he is doing. Sorry for the negative vibes. Planning on having the positive Ihavestrength back tommorow Have a great night everyone, and if you made it this far, thanks for reading! Keep on trucking!

Erev rosh hashana
14 days clean
Baruch hashem

I have no words to thank you all my dear gye brothers
May we all have the strength and perseverance to keep on trucking and achieve lifelong sobriety 
שנה טובה ומתוקה