refrec wrote on 15 Nov 2022 21:38:

In the past you have “let it go” for one reason or another…the sponsors, the meetings, whatever you were doing at the time. Do you understand why you did that? With the stakes so much higher now, can you muster the koach and commitment to save your marriage and family? Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom to actually follow through. Are you there yet? Is it really worth the loss? How can we help you? What do you need. We will surely try! ❤️

refrec wrote on 15 Nov 2022 21:38:

Welcome; many of us share the same sentiments.
Sorry to hear what you're goin' through.
There are no easy fixes and it sounds like you already took some difficult steps.
Lookin' forward to celebratin' with you sometime in the future.

Godspeed to you

Hi Everyone, 
I am new to GYE. I have struggled for many years with a pornography addiction that then morphed into other forms of online sexual behaviors. I am married with multiple children and with another on the way. I had been able to maintain sobriety for a significant period of time (close to a year) until recently. My wife subsequently found out (again) and she is fed up and wants to leave me. I don't blame her. She see's no hope (neither do I??) and there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. I have nothing to tell her and no response to give her. This has happened time and again and I have no answers for her and no answers for myself. I have tried in person 12-step groups over and over again and invariably I stop going, stop with my sponsor or discontinue in some way. I have struggled with consistency all my life and this area is no different. I figured I would give this program a shot but it's difficult for me to truly believe that this will result in anything different. I am devastated and in a tremendous amount of pain. Thank you for reading this. If you choose to respond it would be meaningful for me. 

                                                                                          Long read. enjoy

I was trying to explain to my mother the way the healing process works, and I was thinking to myself, so many people have no clue how it works, so I figure I might as well lay it out here and put in on the table.        PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!!

Being emotionally neglected in childhood is traumatic for a child. A Childs brain cannot be "masig" (perceive) why it is being emotionally isolated. He is terrified and alone and doesn't know why. He cannot understand logically what is wrong with the connection to his parents that is making himself feel so unsafe. So what happens is, a child starts reasoning with the only information he has. The only information a child has is himself. A child at a young age cannot come to understand that his parents don't have skills or are unhealthy emotionally. All a child has is himself, his feelings, his thoughts and his experiences.  

What happens next is the main point in so so so many painful childhoods. Isolation and abandonment becomes rejection.  We as children start trying to comprehend why we are getting isolated and emotionally abandoned, and the only thing we can come up with, is that we are the cause of the abandonment. That there must be something wrong with us.  

Once we as children started to 'understand' that there must be something wrong with us, we then start confirming it. We even start looking for it. We want connection and safety from our parents so badly, that we want to "fix" the things that are making us unworthy of love, connection and safety. 
We start looking in our lives for all the things that make us "no good" "unattractive" "bad" "unlovable" "worthy of rejection".

And once we start seeing all these things in our lives that "prove" we are unworthy, --and that's the reason our parents don't love us--,  we start confirming to our young innocent brains, that its understanding of its predicament is correct -that we deserve no love.

Once its confirmed that we deserve no love, every single time someone rejects us, bothers us, doesn't include us, jokes about us, looks at us bad etc etc etc..... the message gets repeated over and over and over and over and over and over in the Childs brain that "I am getting this because I'm "no good", "unattractive", "bad", "unlovable", "worthy of rejection".   

By the time we are older and start dealing with our "feeling gross" feelings,  --of being unlovable, unattractive, worthy of rejection, bad, add in your own---  our brains have already had many years of messaging, which created strong as steel belief from 1000s of interactions, that we are fundamentally no good.  Not only that, but usually, we all have had a few specific events that are we think makes us "really really bad" "like actually bad". Like we are an inherent pervert, or an inherent psychopath. This may be something we felt or did wrong, that most people wouldn't or don't consider "normal". And therefor we "know" that if we tell people about our feeling/s we had or our action/s we did, they would "know" that we "really really are crazy".  

So how does healing happen?

By utilizing a wonderful characteristic our brain has, called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of our brain to form new neural-pathways.  But hay Human Being what is neural-pathways? Neural pathways are the biological items in our brains that are formed by our various memories, associations and connections/learned experiences we have had in our life. They become actual physical items in the structure of our brain. They connect different cells in our brain. We have our learnt feelings, experiences, associations and beliefs, physically-in our actual biological brain. (as apposed to just in our "mind"). In our scenario- our neural pathways {the facts about our experience} are very strong that we are "unlovable, bad, unattractive etc.)

Now how do we utilize nueroplasticity? By crating new neural-pathways. How do we do that? By gaining new experiences, new connections and new memories. By experiencing new experiences and creating new neural-pathways that are different from the previous neural pathways that were formed.  

Ok now we know the scientific process. But now does this process look in real life?

It looks complicating, hard, and looooooong. Its a process.  If I have 1000s of strong neural-pathways that experience myself as "bad" "unattractive" or "dumb" (or anything else for that matter) its going to take an equal amount of new neural-pathways that experience myself as "good" "attractive" and "smart" to start actually feeling that I am good, attractive and smart. Until then, its going to be up and down, depending on how many "I'm good" neural-pathways" I have, vs how many "I'm bad" neural pathways I have.    Once we can experience enough new strong neural-pathways for the positive, we can then actually start feeling that "I'm good" or "I'm attractive" or "I'm smart" .

​So its a process. Depending on how strong our neural pathways are for the negative, It will take that many more positive experiences to build up new positive neural-pathways to be louder and stronger then the negative neural pathways.

Now that we understand how the healing process works, we can understand a few facts. We can also come to a few conclusions.

 Facts,

-Neuroplasticity is in regards to any learned experience. For example, addiction. If my brains neural-pathways are strong as steel that if I'm on a open computer then I must watch porn, enough experiences of using an open computer and not falling, can quite literally change our brain. (our neural-pathways.) to start believing that even if we are on a computer that's open, we don't have to watch porn and well be ok.

​-In regards to life, SSA   --(not everybody with SSA. that's what I was told- and i respect that)--, anxiety, depression, relationships, beliefs etc etc etc In every area, we can heal. And develop safety, connection, kedusha, and happiness.


Think of neuroplasticity as lemonade.   If we have a cup with just lemon juice, it will taste really sour. The more water we put in to dilute the lemon juice, the less sour the lemonade will be. Think of the lemon juice as SSA, as angriness, as anxiety, as depression, as hurt and pain in relationships, in danger, in addiction, in our enjoyment of life. In our beliefs.   The more water (when I say water I'm referring to the good/desired experiences) we pour into our cup of lemon juice (our bad/unwanted experiences), the less and less the lemon juice tastes in our life.

And that's what therapy is all about. Its about learning how to open up and explore our various lemon juices. Because if we cant assess our bad feelings and experiences (our cups of lemon juice) then we can't know where to put water in. We sometimes don't even know we have cups and cups of lemon juice inside of us. That's how therapy helps us. It creates a safe place to access our "lemon juice". In general we are embarrassed and ashamed to confront our lemon juice's, therapy gives us the safe space to get to know them, understand them, and ultimately heal them by sharing, expressing them and helping them. Only once we can access and face our lemon juice, can we begin the process of pouring in a little water drip by drip.


    Conclusions,

-Our logic can't change our neural pathways because logic can't change experiences that are literally physically imbedded in the structure of our brains. Therefore, 
-Anyone who tells you to "just stop" or to just "understand", doesn't understand the way the brain works. even if we "understand" that what we are doing wrong is bad or not wanted, our brains structure still tells us a different story.

-Working to "mussur out" our addictions doesn't work. And the reason is the same. No matter how many times we "come to understand" what we are doing is wrong or not wanted, --we still want it. it is still imbedded in our brain that we still want it.

-Understanding or trying to explain to someone why "he's really not bad" or actually pretty attractive" wont change anything suddenly. Hehas 10000000s of strong neural-pathways in his brain telling him "I'm not attractive" "I'm bad" I'm dumb" etc etc etc. So telling him he's attractive is a great step. BUT he's going to need many may more of those to start beginning to actually FEEL that he's attractive.

-There's a reason why there's a 90 day chart on gye. scientifically, that's the amount of days that it takes to begin changing the neural-pathways of an addiction. and when we start feeling that we don't really don't have to watch porn/smoke/drink.


If anyone has anything to had to the things we can learn from this and take out of this please add!!! Thank for reading!!

iLoveHashem247 wrote on 11 Nov 2022 01:10:

Here's someone putting in the work and make a real difference in his life. Yasher Koach!

iLoveHashem247 wrote on 11 Nov 2022 01:10:

The real hard work you put into getting better and better is a real inspiration. Thanks!

A Win & A Lesson

Today was a very stressful day - family and work related stuff as well as community affairs stuff. BH I flowed with the pressure and came out on top. last few days have been really hard - I think I graduated from the "infatuation stage" of recovery, and now need to work hard on self motivating and consistently winning. Shmirat einayim has been a struggle on the street past few days as well. Caught myself slipping more than once, and I know that it's a very slippery slope. 

The Lesson:
Had a phone call with HHM and the consensus was that I shouldn't dig up skeletons from the closet and dwell/obsess over the incident and subsequent desires, especially as it was a few years past. Move on, and focus on my "Shlom Bayit Project." He also said that if it was shayach to mention to the parents that their daughter was innocently behaving in a way that was not so appropriate, to do so. I don't think I will mention it to them because: 
1. I am terrified that she will talk about what happened and it will come out that I acted like a pedophile - although I wouldn't quite call myself that. I am not sexually attracted to little kids and do not want to be with a child c"v. An unfortunate and confusing thing happened, but I've moved on & don't intend to ever attempt be in such a situation again.
2. Since this incident, her parents have taught her to be shomer negiah and she's pretty good at adhering to that. So I don;t know what my comments would necessarily add, although I'm open to opinions on this as I am quite biased and would be very embarrassed to have this talk with her parents (who i am very close with)

The Win: 
I stayed very late at work today and left during rush hour - I'm usually am on my way home 3:30 the latest. I put on navigation to see which way is fastest, and it took me through a residential area and toward a different highway than usual. I realized that I was passing directly by the shop I used to buy weed from. I called HHM and he advised me to still drive by without another detour and look at it and be verbally disgusted by it. I did that and also passed by the park nearby where I used to roll up and smoke joints after work while strolling on the boardwalk. the memories bubbled up, and i let the bubbles pop and their contents float away into the night sky. 

Another thing HHM told me re. more powerful and dangerous addiction

I saw this someplace, and as it is a perspective I have never seen before in print and it is beautifully written, I felt it necessary to share. It is not relevant to all porn watchers, but to quite a few of them/us; enjoy (or not).

My sponsor had me write a thank you letter to porn. I tantrumed first, but now that I did it, it's cool to see what came out. I dunno why I'm feeling so shy to share it, but I am. And I'm gonna do it anyway. 

Dear Porn,
I gotta say that this is the weirdest thing for me to be doing right now, but I actually do wanna say thank you to you for lotsa stuff. Y’know, we haven’t been in contact now for 39 days, and I’m not gonna lie - I DO miss you. A whole lot. See? I even count the days. That’s how important you were in my life!! And although I know that I don’t want you in my life anymore, there was a time that our relationship was once crucial for my survival. We’ve been through a lot together and although it’s time for me to say goodbye, I really must say thank you first. I want you to know how much good you did for me.

If not for you, Porn, I would no longer be alive. You see, I for sure would’ve blown my brains out, no question about it. There’s no way I would have been able to withstand the craziness of my life growing up. My surroundings were so chaotic, I felt so out of control, and you were the only one I was able to rely on. You never lied to me. You, Porn, have always shown up for me time after time again without fail. When I needed you as a crutch, you never let me down. You were my anchor in the storm - the storm raging inside of me, the storm raging inside my home, and through any uncalm weather that would ever come my way. You numbed all my uncomfortable feelings; you brought me to a high. If not for you, I for sure would’ve died. Otherwise, it just would have been too much. Plain and simple. You were so trustworthy. You made me feel good. You made me feel loved. You made me feel safe. You made me feel secure and in control. You made me feel like I belong. You helped me to escape from the chaotic life I was dealing with. You eased the intensity of the horror. You helped block out my past. You gave me a real good sex ed. You really helped me soothe and cope. You introduced me to a whole new world of excitement and fantasy. You helped me to escape when I so badly needed it. You helped me deal with all my negative emotions. For the time being, you took away the pain. The fear. The memories. The flashbacks. The nightmares. The depression. The anxiety. The boredom. The void. The emptiness. The worry. The guilt. The shame. The burden. The stress. The anger. The loneliness. The sadness. The jealousy. The resentments. The abandonment. The bitterness. The confusion. The hurt. The frustration. The hopelessness. The helplessness. The vulnerability. The hatred. The insecurities.

I really want to thank you for all the time you gave me. And for the role you played in my life. And for the growth. Thank you for teaching me how messed up I am. Thank you for helping me to get the help that I need. I was the slave and you were my master. Thank you for showing me how sweet freedom can be. Thank you for showing me what brokenness feels like, so I can hope and pray for wholeness. Thank you for showing me that there’s a fake world out there, so I can actively choose to remain more sheltered. Thank you for making me so miserable, so I can beg God to grant me serenity. Thank you for making me so sad and depressed, so that I can truly yearn for happiness. Thank you for messing up my life, so I can grow instead of stagnating. Thank you for showing me that I can go through hell, and still create a healthy and meaningful life for myself. Thank you for showing me that when there is a will, there is a way. Thank you for triggering me into being a sex addict, so I can meet incredible people at GYE and in SA. Thank you for teaching me what persistence and self control are and are not. Thank you for making all my relationships in shambles, so that I can rebuild them in a much stronger and firmer way. Thank you for making me go through all this, so I can kinda start putting some meaning to my pain.

Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your warmth. Thank you for your unwavering patience. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for being so dedicated. Thank you for being so loyal. Thank you for being so perseverant. Thank you for being so helpful when I needed you.

But now, I’m done with your help. You played a role. You served your purposes and you did a great job. At this point, I’ve become way too dependent. You’ve been too pushy and you’ve been interfering with my life. 

So thank you. Thank you again for saving my life when I needed you most. Thank you for showing up for me. Thank you for teaching me what it means to be willing.

Porn, You really changed my life and for that I am forever grateful. 

And now, I would like to wish you farewell. It’s time for me to face the music. Time for me to walk on my own. Time for me to learn how to cope. Time for me to learn to express myself. Time for me to grow up. Time for me to work on myself. Time for me to live. Time for me to give. Time for me to be responsible. Time for me to be strong. Time for me to be happy. Time for me to be joyous. Time to be free. Time for me to be independent. Time for me to be healthy. Time for me to be connected. Time for me to be honest. Time for me to be authentic. Time for me to come clean. Time for me to recover. Time for me to heal. Time for me to face all the stuff I’ve been dodging all along.

Bh I see since I post abt helping more guys get in to gye I started to look at the number of members and I see it growing every day today it’s holding by 13,936!! Chaverah let’s get it to 14,000- let’s send out emails to people we know are struggling in this area ( you can give gye a email address and they send good adds to get people on) or if you know a friend or bucher that can use chizuk on this topic… don’t be shy tell him I heard of nice organization calls gye I checked it out it’s cool or don’t need to say u checked out you can ask did you hear of it? Is it good? Etc. 
in other words if u know someone that needs the help… HELP him!!  let’s not be selfish we know abt this amazing site so many don’t or know but aren’t on it… let’s  showH’ we care!! And if it’s hard to for you to go over or do what you could to help someone become a member then  just think of the zichus ull have forever if he changes he’s bad addiction to lust he will be a different person beruchnis and bgashmies… you helped him he’s ( future) wife and kids grandkids and so on… can’t wait for the day to post that I see gye is up to 14,000 members!!

yud909 wrote on 10 Nov 2022 01:18:

You can Try reading a chapter of the battle of the generation every single day no matter how you feel.   It works for me. 

BH I've been clean and in good spirits since last post.
I knew yesterday would be a really slow day at work and I was putting myself in a vulnerable position. So I went ahead and found a nice long hike that kept me busy for most of the day.  Now my  struggle is, growing complacent. Unfortunately I've experienced this many times, I fall, feel terrible, am extremally cognizant of my addiction etc. But after a few days I forget about it and get in great spirits and feel as if I'm completely healed. Which is great for the next few days (sometimes weeks) but then... one bad day, one day with too much time on my hands etc. and it's all down hill.
How do I keep myself from growing complacent? 

chancy wrote on 08 Nov 2022 18:42:

Thank you, Chancy. This is amazing!!! 

On Rosh Chodesh Av of year 5144 in the morning, i dreamt and it was revealed to me the following, if a person sinned his whole life, or he was totally immersed with sins, or he was addicted to one specific sin with a strong connection, and afterwards he regrets and cries terribly and he accepts upon himself to not sin anymore, even if he transgressed on all Krisos or Misos Beis Din, he is FORGIVEN! and he doesn't need to do Tshuvas Hamishkol (Tshuva that is weighted, meaning the opposite end of the spectrum of what you sinned in, e,g, a very hard form of tshuva),
Because the pain that he has leaving behind the connection and addiction that he has to that sin, is considered a cleansing as would Tshuvas Hamishkol.
Everything that the Rishonim and the Arizal ZT"L gave out to do these difficult tshuva's is only for someone that wasn't addicted in that sin, then he should fast to atone for the forbidden pleasures that he partook in, however, when someone is addicted to a sin, a whole time his YH is pushing his to do what hes used to be doing, and he refuses and leaves that path of sin over and over with all of his might, he has immense pain to slaughter his YH time and again, and there is no greater tshuva then that!
Blessed is Hashem who wants only good. 

I hope this will motivate all of us suffering with this pain to continue down this path of tshuva, seeing that all of the pain is actually the best medicine on this world. DO NOT DESPAIR! It will get better. 

DavidT wrote on 07 Nov 2022 19:18:

noamhillel11 wrote on 19 Aug 2022 05:35:

I just read this and I am wondering how you are now? I’m so sorry for the losses of your mom and grandfather. You speak of things that don’t define you but are part of how Hashem made you. I also have parts of me sexually that are how Hashem made me but do not define me. If I can, I want to help you. I find that helping others helps me. Please let me know how you are doing now. Let’s see if we can help each other. Hashem loves you. He knows your efforts despite the failures.