I recently started to attempt to write up many of the ideas and clarities which I learned through the past few years of working on these struggles. 
The first is the idea of taking full advantage of your situation and to recognize the unique opportunities you were given despite the initial appearances of struggle. all feedback is very welcome.

Becoming a legend in my own story - It’s easy to feel that you're not worth much when objectively you’re not accomplishing what others (and yourself) feel is valuable. In the beginning I used a strategy, which I believe is quite common, of focusing on your own potential, recognizing that Hashem created everyone with different limitations and just because someone else is able to reach amazing heights doesn’t mean you were given those abilities. The goal of this world is to become the best person you can be, and within that is the recognition that it doesn’t matter objectively how you’re doing, the only thing that matters is subjectively whether you are reaching your potential. 

OK, great, so I don’t feel bad that I’m not michael jordan or barry bonds because I was not given the ability to reach those levels. And so too in yeshiva, I wasn’t created with the ability to become the gadol hador, memorizing and fully understanding all of the torah. But I could still feel like garbage. In fact I did. Great so Hashem created me to not accomplish and to fall behind my peers and to not be able to get a good job in teaching. It doesn’t feel great. I believe that fully feeling and living this perspective is important and can help me move past these struggles, but I found another angle which was very helpful to me in my situation.

The comparison to michael jordan is a good one. If my purpose in life and where I found I could be the best person was by playing basketball, then I would need to confront the idea that I wasn’t created with the abilities of MJ. But what if my purpose was something else? Would it really be enough to justify my lack of skill in basketball and learn to be ok with being a benchwarmer on a minor league team?

The key is to recognize that even if you weren’t given awesome strengths or opportunities in one area, it is very possible (and I would venture to say likely) that you have power and skill in another area. An area that you may not have focused on so much until recently.

There are many ways to do good in this world and to become legendary, many times we give ourselves over to what the general world values and what is toated in our communities as the ultimate good. And there is truth in what they see, but it doesn’t have to be a limitation on your life. If one has a particular talent for building craftsmanship, then he can accomplish great things in this area, helping many people and affecting his community in a positive way, despite not focusing on the same things that others do.I grew up in a community where the value was placed on learning torah. Knowledge and understanding were the foremost values of life and generally decided ones social status and feelings of life fulfillment. In the beginning of my years of learning after highschool I invested myself tremendously in my studies and was actually quite successful. However as I grew older and started to face my addiction and mental health struggles I was not able to learn as well as I once was. And so, I had to start with the understanding that for me what was the best thing was to be spending time regularly journaling, exercising, going to meetings and going to therapy. But this all came at a tremendous cost to my torah studies! So I needed to accept that I had a lower potential than my peers. But the big shift came when I started not only accepting my circumstances but embracing them. Focusing not only how much I can accomplish despite the struggles, but also how much I can accomplish because of them. Some of the new opportunities hashem has granted me include: Being able to help others struggling with addiction, being able to be a more compassionate husband and father, learning to listen to others, learning to help others, finding an interest in therapy and its ability to help others going through struggle and pain.

I was triggered yesterday.   No, bh not that type of trigger.  My emotions were triggered.  I was watching the 24Six talent contest from Camp Aish and I just started crying. I was alone and I just let myself cry out loud for a few minutes.

For those of us that struggled for many years, it is very confusing.  How did I get so entrenched in such a bad habit. What is wrong with me.  Why wasn’t I able to stop when I knew it was wrong.  I always wanted to be good, how did I end up so bad.

The questions are certainly valid but the answer is often just as valid.  While we remember everything we did wrong, we have forgotten the pain that led us there.  Many of us endured deep rooted pain when we were younger.  Pain of loneliness, pain of feeling left out, pain of being shamed and pain of feeling worthless.   The forbidden pleasures that we indulged soothed and numbed that pain.  Life goes on. We grew up and forgot about the pain, but the bad habits and the addictions stayed.

When I watched the camp singing contest I saw counselors and campers cheering on each singer.  Celebrating their accomplishments and success. It brought back memories of wanting  that feeling.  The feeling of being accepted and recognized. for a few minutes I let myself once again feel all that pain of loneliness, rejection and shame.  The pain was intense and deep.  It left me drained.  But it also reminded me of why I need to forgive myself and stop questioning how I allowed myself to follow the wrong path that I did.  

best wishes for continued success 
Vehkam 

Chapter 11: Facing the Truth
...
Shaya sat across from Hashem Help Me, still nervous from unloading everything in their first meeting. The man’s calm didn’t waver. He listened, then leaned forward slightly.
“Let me tell you something,” HHM said. “You don’t have two separate problems. You have one pattern. Fear, shame, and escape. You run from the fear into your addiction, and the shame from that addiction drives you back into the same fear. It’s a circle that feeds itself.”

Shaya looked down, twisting his fingers. He’d never heard it put that way. He thought the business mess was one disaster and the addiction another. HHM shook his head.
“Every time the pressure rises, you look for relief and this thing you’re using, it works for ten minutes. But it also weakens you, clouds your judgment, and leaves you less able to fight the real battles. The more you escape, the bigger the mess becomes. The bigger the mess, the more you need to escape. You see how that works?”

Shaya nodded slowly, his throat dry. HHM opened a small notebook, the kind he used for every guy he mentored. He sketched a simple loop: Pain → Escape → Shame → More Pain.
“This is where you’re living,” HHM said, tapping the page. “And until you break the loop, nothing else will change. You can try to fix the money, you can try to calm your wife, but if you don’t deal with this cycle, you’ll end up right back here.”

For the next hour, HHM walked Shaya through practical steps: guardrails for the phone, accountability, and most of all, a plan to stop fighting alone.
“You’ve been hiding because you’re terrified someone will find out,” HHM said gently. “But hiding is what’s killing you. Hashem gave you this test not to destroy you but to bring you closer to Him and closer to people who can help. The day you start being honest is the day you start being free.”

By the end of the meeting, Shaya felt both lighter and exposed. There was no quick fix, no magical trick. But there was a path and for the first time, someone was walking it with him.

Chapter 9: A Door Opens
...
One Friday morning, Shaya sat in shul staring at the siddur in front of him, the letters swimming until they lost all meaning. His lips moved, but no words came out. An old friend slid into the bench beside him and studied his face.
“You don’t look okay,” the friend said gently.

Shaya wanted to laugh it off, to throw out some line about not getting enough sleep. But something inside cracked. In a voice barely above a whisper, he admitted he’d been slipping again worse than ever and there were other things too dark to explain. The friend didn’t flinch. He didn’t ask for details. He just said, “Call this number. It’s for GuardYourEyes. Ask for a mentor named Hashem Help Me. Just talk to him once. You have nothing to lose.”

Shaya shoved the slip of paper into his pocket and tried to forget it. But all through the day, the words kept echoing. That night, when the urge came strong as ever, instead of reaching for the phone for his usual escape, he stared at the ceiling, heart pounding. What would it feel like to actually speak to someone to tell the truth without being judged?
..................

Chapter 10: The First Conversation
...
The first call was anonymous, his voice low, almost shaking. “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” Shaya said. “I don’t even know if you can help me.”

The man on the other end didn’t sound shocked. His voice was calm, warm, steady. “You’re hurting,” he said. “Start wherever you can. I’m listening.”

And Shaya talked. Halting at first, then faster, as if afraid the words would rot inside him if he didn’t pour them out now. He spoke about the scam, the threats, the fear that kept him up at night. He admitted how the addiction had once been a way to shut it all out, a dark room to hide in but now it had become its own prison, chaining him down, making everything worse.

Hashem Help Me didn’t interrupt. He just breathed on the line with him, letting the silence speak when it needed to. “You’re not crazy,” he finally said. “You’re carrying pain, and you’re trying to numb it. But numbing the pain is digging the hole deeper. I’ve been there.”

Something in Shaya broke. For the first time, someone wasn’t lecturing him or giving him slogans this man understood. Before hanging up, Hashem Help Me said softly, “Come meet me. In person. You shouldn’t carry this alone.”

A week later, Shaya drove to a small, quiet neighborhood and rang the bell. A regular-looking man opened the door, no judgment in his eyes, only understanding. Sitting across from him in a simple dining room, Shaya finally let it all out the money, the sleepless nights, the shame, the endless scrolling and hiding. For the first time, he saw the whole picture: not separate problems, but one vicious cycle feeding itself.

As he walked back to his car, the cold winter air stung his face. But inside, for the first time in months, he felt something he couldn’t name. Not hope not yet. But maybe the first tiny crack where hope could seep through.

Yosef'l oi Yosef'l Chap Dich un in shtrick ( You're probably too young to get that song)

As emphasized many times in GYE, porn or sex addiction are often responses to deeper questions. We all carry baggage, and some use sex to numb or find comfort, leading to addiction. The root cause remains and must be addressed; healing involves learning to live with that pain to move forward. Discover what prevents your happiness. You don't need to do anything special to be happy—it's natural. Something is blocking us from happiness, and that pain can drive us toward sex. Over time, this becomes another problem instead of a solution. Thinking alone can't resolve this, though analyzing thoughts helps identify triggers; it won't solve everything. You must confront your pain and explore what led you here. First, you need to overcome the addiction technically. The 90-day counter, in my view, provides space to breathe, teaches perseverance, separates you from automatic responses, and signals your brain that there's a new leader. However, desire and craving won't disappear easily; deep work is necessary. You have many strengths—believe it or not! I see in GYE posts that you are special. You carry a lot of pain, yet you're committed to doing what's right, fulfilling Hashem's will, and growing. You are evolving and will continue to grow. Don't be discouraged by others. Once you've found your path and gained control, you'll realize you've achieved something remarkable—something few others can. If it were easy, you wouldn't be here.
Stay sane, stay holy, stay strong!

Chapter 7: The Walls Close In
...
That night, Shaya lay awake listening to the rain on the roof, staring at the ceiling. Leah had barely spoken to him after the discovery. Her voice at dinner was polite but distant, as if talking to a guest she barely knew. At the same time, the calls from the handlers grew sharper, their tone leaving no room for excuses. “You fix this now, or it will get worse,” they warned. Each word coiled around his chest like a rope.

His mind spun between panic and craving. The addiction had always been a way to quiet the noise, but now it was tainted. Every time he reached for the phone, he saw Leah’s face in the laundry room. Every click felt heavier, every image more hollow. But the pull was still there—stronger, in some ways, because of the shame. He needed to escape the feeling of failure, and the only escape he knew was the very thing making it worse.

The two problems were no longer separate storms—they had merged into one hurricane. The financial mess fed the addiction, the addiction fed the lies, and the lies fed the financial mess. And Shaya was standing in the center of it, unable to move without being struck by both at once.

What an inspiring and courageous post! It's clear that you've developed incredible wisdom and resilience through your recovery journey.

I wrote down some points that we can learn from you:

You demonstrate that our value isn't tied to being "the top guy" or being perfect - we have inherent worth even when we make mistakes or face struggles.
Your experience shows how sharing struggles with trusted people (whether in meetings, therapy, or forums like GYE) makes burdens lighter and recovery possible. Opening up creates connection rather than shame.
You beautifully illustrate that recovery involves daily choices, new learnings, and fresh starts - "ODAAT" (One Day At A Time) really comes through in your message.
Your path shows how working through addiction can actually deepen one's relationship with Hashem and develop genuine emunah and bitachon in ways that purely intellectual study might not achieve.
Despite feeling that acting out stunted your emotional growth initially, you've clearly developed tremendous emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and the ability to care for others.

Your story is a powerful testament that no matter how deep the struggle, recovery and transformation are possible. Thank you for sharing your chizzuk with us!

Chapter 5: A Double Prison
...
The two worlds began to feed each other in ways Shaya hadn’t expected. At first, the scam and the late-night addiction were separate in his mind. The phone calls were one nightmare, and the secret hours online were something else entirely. But soon they began to weave together until he could hardly tell where one ended and the other began. A threatening call would come in, the sharp accent on the other end reminding him of the danger he was in. His chest would tighten, his palms sweat, and within minutes he would be locking the bathroom door, the hidden phone in his hand.

It was like pressing a pause button on reality. In those moments, the fantasy drowned out the panic. The images and conversations transported him to a place where the money didn’t matter, the voices didn’t exist, and no one was judging him. But the peace never lasted. As soon as the screen went dark, the weight came crashing back down—only now it was heavier, because he had wasted more time, avoided another call, and sunk deeper into a pit he couldn’t climb out of.

Leah began to notice changes. He stayed up long after she had gone to bed. Mornings, he would stumble into the kitchen looking drained, half-listening to her words. She thought it was just the stress of the business, maybe debt or bad deals. She had no idea that every glance between them was shadowed by two secrets instead of one. Shaya told himself he was protecting her by keeping quiet, but in truth, he was protecting his escape.

Chapter 3: The Scam in the Shadows
...

It started with a casual conversation in the hallway after Maariv. A guy he barely knew from another neighborhood said he had something “solid,” a small investment opportunity, something involving a business overseas. “Totally legal,” the man said, “very quiet, very low-risk, but the returns are amazing. I wouldn’t offer this to just anyone.” Shaya laughed it off at first. But the next day, he kept thinking about it. He had been feeling more desperate lately. He wanted something that could give him a fresh start financially, emotionally, spiritually. He didn’t want to keep relying on in-laws or feeling like he was just treading water. So he reached out. The guy introduced him to someone else. A voice on the phone with an Israeli accent, a little too smooth, who promised he could “make things work” for someone like him. No one needed to know anything. It was just a few transfers. Just being a middleman. The kind of thing everyone does. “You’re not stealing,” the voice said. “You’re just moving money around.” That’s how it always starts.

Within two weeks, Shaya had made his first “commission.” It was real. The money came through. He bought Leah a surprise bracelet and told her he got a bonus from a side gig tutoring. She beamed. She didn’t ask questions. Why would she? Shaya was always responsible. Trustworthy. Smart. But then things got more complicated. The amounts got bigger. The instructions got weirder. Foreign wire transfers, encrypted messaging apps, strange names he wasn’t allowed to ask about. When he asked for clarity, the Israeli voice got colder. “Don’t worry about what you don’t need to know. Just do your part. You’re helping us, and we’re helping you.”

He should have walked away. But by then, it was too late. His account had been used. His name was on things. And then he made a mistake. One wrong wire, one transfer too large. And suddenly the voice changed. It wasn’t friendly anymore. “You owe us now. You messed up. You fix it.” Shaya tried to explain. He didn’t know what had gone wrong. He didn’t understand the system. He begged for more time. But they weren’t interested in excuses. They wanted results. Fast.

That night, he sat at the kitchen table staring at nothing while Leah lit the Shabbos candles. Her tefillah, sweet and innocent, filled the room. Shaya wanted to scream. He was drowning in something he didn’t even understand, with people he couldn’t even trace. But he said nothing. He smiled. He made Kiddush. He joked with her over the soup. And when she went to sleep, he sat by the window shaking, his hands ice-cold.

He still hadn’t told her a word. Not about the business. Not about the threats. Not about the old phone in the laundry room that had started buzzing again with things he thought he was finished with. All the darkness was merging together. The addiction. The money. The lies. One big mess. And it was only getting darker.

BenHashemBH wrote on 23 Jul 2025 12:58:

I'm reading your message again, it gives me more clarity, especially to help me continue as I seem to be getting of the ground. Bh, I'm up to 12 days. Thank you to everyone for your input in helping me get this far. Hatzlocho to everyone.

Friends yes but whiskey and cigars may simply be switching one addiction for another.

Welcome to the forum. You have a good question which usually takes some time until it can be answered. Since you haven't really used the forum yet it probably isn't yet the time to look for an answer. Have you done the mini-courses already? Are you reading the book TBOTG regularly? Did you do the 3 circles exercise on your dashboard? What else have you done?

If you want an answer to your question start by reaching out to the main mentor hashem help me. Aside for an answer to your question it is worth having a general conversation with him about your struggles. Keep on posting and sharing, and grow together with us.

What is the difference? What if I told you that there's a good chance that whether you're clinically addicted or just plain struggling if you follow the lead of the good people here than you CAN break free? (Cuz I did and I've been clean for 562 days)

In other news...
Welcome to the warmest family in the world!

Here you will find true care, concern, and warmth.
Here you will learn that you CAN break free!
As you may know from your time here, there are many tools here to help you in this fight, some of them you may not be familiar with.
There is the F2F Program, the Vaad Program* (click here for an explanation of what the vaad is), and the book The Battle of the Generation - many have found this very helpful in reframin' the struggle.
Posting is a great way to connect, learn, and grow also. 
(The Hall of Fame Thread is an awesome compilation of some the great threads on GYE.)

There is also an extremely powerful tool of accountability, friends, and mentors that has helped hundreds - myself included.
HHM - Hashem Help Me - is the mentor-in-chief around here. He's reachable at michelgelner@gmail.com.
Some of the other great guys here are Eerie - 1gimpelovitz@gmail.com, Muttel - muttel15@gmail.com,   Reb Akiva - mevakesh247@gmail.com iwantlife - iwantlifegye@proton.me minhamayim - minhamayim1@gmail.com amevakesh - amevakesh23@gmail.com iwannalivereal - iwannalivereal@gmail.comcleanmendy - mendelclean1234@gmail.com

Keep postin', you'll see, the oilam is here for you.

Lookin' forward to seeing great things from you!
And don't forget, as always, KOMT!!

Hey, I'm a bachur who has a question. What is the difference between an addiction and a really strong nisayon? And how can I tell which one I have?

I need a place to vent 
I don't know if this makes sense, but I'm fed up with Hashem. How could He allow me to get myself into such horrible things? 
I'm fed up with myself, and how come I can't just be a normal person like everyone else.
I'm fed up with my nisyonos and my addictions.
I'm fed up with all the times that I failed miserably.