What's missing from your post is motivation.
You would like to stop, but there is nothing pressing.
Sometimes an addict needs to hit bottom before he is truly ready to grow.
I suppose if your wife came back from the doctor with a diagnosis of a sexually transmitted disease, things would shift in a big way.
But so far, so good.

I agree with frank.lee.  We think we're all so smart and can fool everyone; make it seem like everything is OK.  We're all great husbands, fathers and lovers.
Until we find out our wives are crying and dying inside from lack of connection with the man they committed their lives to.

For me, my motivation was that the dual life became intolerable.
And the struggle was miserable.  You know the cycle -- sneaking hits of lust here and there, fighting the urge to go further, ultimately giving in, feeling duped and guilty, or just numb.  Repeat.

It's much easier to fight this battle from outside the ring.  I just need to stay out of the ring.
Once I'm dabbling in lust, I'm in the ring, it's exhausting and I'm going to get clobbered.

I was tired of being out of control.  Of having a base desire control my life and my actions.
I wanted to be whole, to be real.
Fantasies are sweet.  Like candy.  But real food is so much better.

You did write:
"On the other hand my entire internal world is in decay. I feel disconnected, shameful, frustrated and depressed. I put on a happy face for my kids but inside I am dying slowly."

Real life isn't candy, but it can be very sweet.

None of us can give you motivation.  I'm just sharing my own.
Maybe others can share also.
Maybe something will click for you.
Before something snaps.

Thank you for reading, first of all.  It helps to be able to share and to overcome.

The turning point for me in this struggle was realizing that the Noahide mitzvah prohibiting "sexual immorality" includes premarital sex, not just for Jewish people but for ALL people.  For a very long time I have not been able to defend my attempts to behave piously.  My attempts failed partially because they were attached to non-Jewish lust-addiction 12-step support groups.  Another reason that they failed was because I saw so many people, including non-Torah-observant Jews, participating in this behavior and even encouraging it, G-D FORBID, that seemed to otherwise lead prosperous, happy, successful, "normal" lives.

I used to take comfort in thinking that if I can't be Jewish, I can at least be Noahide.  But then, is this what being Noahide looks like???

Once I realized that this is completely unacceptable behavior, I was strengthened in my desire to stop.  So, now I am here, B''H.  Now I can defend myself from the scorn of the scoffers, accusing me of retreating into "orthodoxy" as a way to hide my shame.  I'm hoping that the ideological hurdle is the biggest one.  The mind controls the heart and leads it to the right path.  Now I just have to change my habits, and also clean up my life.  I have very severe consequences of many decades of this bad behavior and general neglect.

I have no children, but perhaps this is a blessing.  If I had attempted to raise them while I was struggling with this addiction, they might have grown to be as morally warped as I was.  I might never raise children now, and I fear that this is the consequence of this bad behavior, and perhaps this can never be repaired.  It makes me very sad, but I have no choice: I want to never go back to the behavior that has ultimately brought me nothing but sorrow.

I thought that I was doing the world a favor.  I thought that this behavior was an "outlet" for lust, anger, greed and unhealthy ambitions.  I thought that this was what self-control was in the modern era.  Now I see that it is just idolatry in a new form.  I cannot fix the world.  I cannot be envious of people that appear to be successful despite their decadence.  I cannot be resentful of other people that learned to control themselves sooner, or that never fell into this addiction in the first place.  I can only fix myself, here and now.

Over the decades, I've seen people stumble and fall.  Then the ones who looked happy were actually not, and they could not pick themselves up again and move on.  Then I saw people who had committed very serious errors, but they survived, recovered and thrived.  What was the difference?  TESHUVA, repentance.  They admitted that they had erredand resolved to change their behavior.  They didn't make excuses or rationalize.  They did the work to change.

I am grateful to you all for contributing and participating, and I encourage you to learn from my example and not make my mistakes.  Even if I never do get to do certain mitzvahs in my life, I am grateful for the peace of mind that sobriety has brought me so far.  I am also grateful to the many rabbis along the way that knew that something was wrong but didn't know exactly what.  They didn't have the words and the tools to help at that time.  Better late than never.

FTC!
You are the most real person there is! You feel your pain and you can express it! 
YOu know what you want and where you are! Of course you have changed. There are a lot of 40 year olds that have no idea what they want in life and you are way ahead of most bucherim. So get your ego in check. this is not personal.... We are in this fight for Hashem and you were in the most fierce battle there is and you lasted 120 days in the front lines! You know what that means? We cant even begin to comprehend what this does in the upper realms of the world, Hashem is having such joy its unimaginable. So you now know that you have what it takes, you just keep on going. 
Regarding getting triggered from everything that you keep mentioning- I feel you, im the same sometimes. However the thing to remember is that nothing happens when you get triggered or nothing should/needs to happen, stop fighting it. its normal to get triggered, the mind is so used to getting those hits its addictive. so the mind will try to push for you to keep on thinking about it so it will feel those highs again and again. So you make peace with it and say to yourself " I understand whats happening to me now, of course my mind wants to think that way, its used to getting such pleasure in the past, so thank you mind for trying to give me pleasure, but I know now that this is not what i ultimately want in life and this is not good for me really, so im just going to move on and ignore this, and there is nothing you can do to force me! I can think what i want and im choosing freely to just let it go".
The more you work on this and let youself be ok with having triggers, meaning you understnad why and where is coming from and you stop fighting it, it will get less and less. 

Good Luck and please dont give up now for all of our sakes. We are in this together and you are one of our best soldiers!

sorry to hear what you are going through; it does seem that yesterday's call might have been productive for you in some way. i hope some of the fellows on the call chime in here. 

perhaps they'll mention what we said re: multi-dimensional intimacy vs. one-dimensional focus (where one wife explained: “When my husband is so focused on us doing a specific sexual act than he is on connecting with me that’s when I feel like it’s his addiction talking.” Being interested in exploring new or enhanced ways of being intimate can be healthy and fun, but a focus on a technique or position to the point of ignoring or disregarding connection with one’s spouse is not healthy. It’s the repeated focus or over-focus on the physical or a new sexual novelty that causes the problem.)

or: agency vs. entitlement where we spoke about healthy sexuality, and that it requires that both spouses feel like they have a voice in the bedroom and an ability to freely discuss their desires and choose which desires to act upon. 

and lots of beeps

Hello Hopeful2022,

From the way you describe this past weekend "it was a fall after fall after fall. I gave away the entire weekend. I was using the computer on Shabbos, I didn't fast Sunday, It was a lost weekend of disgusting behavior" sounds like your not just falling whenever your wife is away, but you get pulled in on an extremely obsessive level, falling when the wife is away is one thing, falling again and again and again all thru out 3 days sounds like a whole new level of simply never getting enough and needing more and more.

I might have totally misread your post, but if there is some truth to what I'm pointing out, you might be dealing with addiction, part of the recipe of addiction is an abnormal craving that never gets satisfied, perhaps you want to take a look at the 12 steps of SA or another S related 12 steps fellowship that deal with sex/lust addiction.

wishing you all the best  

Thank God I have been clean now for 90 days, and hopefully He will allow me to be clean for many more. I first got on GYE 5 years ago and in that time I had many ups and downs (more downs than ups.) I always wondered am I an addict, and I still don't know that's the truth. But to admit powerlessness and to give lust and life over to God you don't have to be an addict. You just can't be in control. It was the scariest thing I ever did and now I wish I did it 5 years ago. I have "allowed" God to run my life and let go of trying to feel good, and in exchange He has given me everything, בַּכֹּל, מִכֹּל, כֹּל.
Thank you to everyone who has given me kind words over the years you all have a chelek in my growth and my journey. Thank you

Welcome !
Wow !  That is a very intense cycle you are in.

I've been on this website for 13 years now.  The general feeling is that if a person keeps relapsing, then more needs to be done.
I can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.

Lust is an addiction just like any other substance.
Recognizing this, and our powerlessness over it is the first step to true recovery.
I know that my life has become unmanageable due to this thing.

Powerlessness means my only hope is to stay out of the ring.  Not to dabble or mess with it in any way.
This includes shmiras eynayim everywhere, and deflecting fantasies and images from my brain.

In the classic recovery process, there are 12 steps to recovery.  Consider learning about them.
There are many ways to access them, including live groups.
For me, I studied them and worked them in my own way.

Bringing Hashem into the equation is also key.
Try this tefilla, especially when you are thinking lustful thoughts (this might be dozens of times per day):

Ribono Shel Olam,
I am powerless over lust and my life has become unmanageable.
Only You can restore me to sanity.
I turn my life and my lust over to Your care and I ask You to please heal me from this illness of lust.
I don't want to lust.
I only want You and a relationship with You and your Torah and with the wife you have given me.
I surrender my lust to You.
Please take my lust.

Much Hatzlocha,
Alex

Sunday, August 7 (fast of Tisha B’Av)

Morning: I’m lying on my bed after a fast paced shachris (starting at 10:30) in my room biyichidus in which I basically skipped all of davening… Last night I fell right back into my old habits. It was a few hours of watching and then climaxed. This was after being clean for about 120 days. It makes me question myself. Am I really changing or do I just not have ‎the opportunity to act out when I’m in yeshiva the same way I do when I’m home. I don’t even feel that guilty which is a pretty bad feeling seeing that this is one of the worst aveiros and if I keep it up then it will impact me extremely negatively now and if and when I get married…
Last week was the first week of bein hazmanim. The schedule that i had made kind of fell through. I ended up not having a chavrusa in the morning, so i was learning by myself until about 1:00 in the afternoon. Almost none of my friends are home, so I don’t have anyone to hang out with in the afternoon. And one of the plans that I had for the afternoons was to do exercise (i.e. long bike rides) but i found that i just kept getting triggered by all the other women exercising. 
I was bored throughout the day and didn’t have much of a social life. My resolve for not looking at women on the street was greatly weakened. Throughout the week I looked to long to many times and my desire started to take hold of me. I went on a hike and ended up in a spot next to a lake and lo and behold right there in front of me were two guys and a girl going off a Tarzan rope. The girl was dressed as most goyish girls dress when swimming which is basically nothing and I know for certain that I looked back way to many times… I slipped on Thursday night by looking at non tznius women. It wasn’t porn, but it was getting close. I stopped looking after about two minutes but my taavah was so strong then. It was a few hours of fighting but I managed to go to the beis medrash to learn and fight off the yetzer hara. That was really hard but I felt accomplished after I was done.
Friday was pretty regular, but I kept going on to gye for to long and reading about things that I shouldn’t be. In short I was using gye as an unhealthy outlet. This was definitely a big part in my resolve getting weakened and im going to figure out a way to have a healthy balance of when to go on to gye and when not to. I was definitely trading in one addiction for another. (Not to say that a gye addiction is as bad as a porn addiction, but any addiction is not healthy…)
Shabbos came around, I remembered a video I saw a long time ago and I spent many hours trying to recreate the scene in my head even though that’s totally asur and i knew it was wrong. I should have gone to the beis medrash but I had no desire to get out of bed. I fell in my bed in the afternoon. Wasn’t as bad as my other falls but a fall nonetheless. Motzei shabbat came along and went to shul to hear eicha. Wasn’t really paying attention to any of it and was totally emotionally cut off. Came back home, took the phone that I knew we had in  a drawer in the kitchen up to my room which I knew meant I was gonna fall, but that didn’t stop me. I started with watching some Tisha B’Av inspiration videos but quickly started searching for that video that I had remembered seeing so many years ago. In short I found it, and then I found many other videos that I wanted to watch. All of that leading to a big fall. Damn it. It’s Tisha B’Av fast and I’m still in the narishkeit that I used to be. What is my life going to turn out like. I was able to go 120 days very clean but there’s zero outlet for our urges. What’s a guy to do when every girl he sees is gonna trigger him especially because they all wear basically nothing. At least someone married has an outlet with his wife. But I know that everyone says it doesn’t change when you get married so I have to figure myself out better… I’m committing to reading a chapter of the battle of the generation every night for the foreseeable future (at least through next bein hazmanim) and I’m starting another round of 90 days beginning today. I also got rid of the unfiltered phone, hopefully no one will find out or ask any questions. Tomorrow I’m signing up to a private exercise area so that i will be able to go there in the afternoons and do as i want without fear of getting triggered. If anyone has any further advice, I welcome all of it.  This is going to be a tough time for the next few weeks but I’m gonna try and do my best.

Ps. It was really hard for me to post this. I would much rather not tell everyone about my failures but I’ve seen other people post about their falls and gain a lot of chizuk from it, plus it can give chizuk to others… if anyone gets chizuk from this to not fall in the future, then it’s well worth it and i appreciate all chizuk that people give.
-ftc

My friend, you are a mevakesh Hashem and I feel honored to be able to converse with you here.

For myself, I can't say that I've experienced exactly what you're describing but I do know for myself that in hand-to-hand combat with the yetzer hara the yetzer hara always wins. It might be right away or might be days, weeks etc. but it will happen.

There are many opinions and approaches on this site (addicts, non-addicts, filters, finding the right motivation, mentors etc.) but I think they all boil down to having the right tools for the fight. So do your research, gear up and keep on trucking!

Mental health is a difficult subject for many. Just like addiction it can lead to feelings of shame and confusion particularly if you're not being supported by people who understand. But I want everyone to know that as someone who is in treatment and recovering-- there is hope, there is upward movement and there is a means of breaking the cycle.

So why do I bring this up here? Well, I just want to throw out there that many of us ought to consider the ways this struggle may effect our mental health and the way our mental health effects this struggle. This does not mean, G-d forbid, that one should say "ah, this is taking a tole on my mental health-- I ought to give into my urges..." NO! Never is this a justification. Stay strong!

We want to consider, though, that ultimately through refining ourselves we should see our mental state improving. If this is not happening it does not mean giving up or slowing the process of refinement--- it means doubling down by seeing our work on our mental health as an act of refinement. Indeed, every aspect of our lives can be a service; and when our minds are healthier, we will be better able to resist our urges. This is comparable to a finely tuned machine. When it is clean and well oiled, it will perform the task better than one which is rusted and clogged.

Working on one's mental health does not mean weakness. In fact-- the willingness to go where things are uncertain and confront danger-- to face head on the factors that lead our lives astray-- this shows an incredible amount of strength. This is true both for work in addiction and in mental health.

Do not be afraid if you find that many of the things that brought you to this forum are a part of a broader mental health paradigm. Working on one does not mean negating the other. They fit together seamlessly. Indeed, two of my diagnoses are connected to challenges that brought me to this website. That doesn't mean that I can now neglect refining and disciplining myself-- it means that I now have a better understanding of how to do that.

Finally, being humble doesn't mean putting yourself down always. There is a deep humility in embracing the fact that you aren't the supreme judge of your own life-- Hashem is. It doesn't matter how many times you have hit bottom-- you admit your iniquity, ask for forgiveness and resolve to do better. You move upward with greater strength. Its hard to find that strength when you are ruminating over the fact that you've hit bottom. Unfortunately, it can lead a person to stay at bottom even longer.

I am not saying that its easy. In fact that is exactly what I'm not saying. Because I'm saying its a challenge, its a daily challenge and one that requires an incredible amount of determination. Because of that very challenge, however, we are obligated to be humble enough to find support and ask for help when we need it. Showing your soul the compassion of not stewing in how low you've gotten is an act of strength and discipline. Sometimes those of us with mental health challenges can think the opposite and feel that we need to put ourselves down even lower than we already are. Instead, through the humility that I've already explained, and the ability to admit one's wrongs in a directed, specific and healthy manner; one can return-- and that is the return that awakens abundant compassion from Hashem.

Keep it up everyone: keep up the strength and good work. And don't forget to say thank you.

PS. I left a message of sorts in the bold text.

Sapy wrote on 03 Aug 2022 15:59:

Challenging but why is it inevitable? Many great people have strict schedules.

Larry Bird wrote on 03 Aug 2022 14:21:

Mmmm... That must be hard to do, do you think that is a lasting solution? Isnt free time sometimes inevitable? Maybe try to think what's so scary for you to have a quiet moment with yourself? 

Larry Bird wrote on 03 Aug 2022 14:19:

Not sure what happened to that post. Here is what I meant for it to look like:)

This is exactly me. Productive working.. nothing really going on then all of the sudden BAM. It’s very common.. addiction isn’t this maniacal state of mind. It’s regular day to day life that has this small obstacle in the way. For me, my big issue is if there’s a lull in my work. I’m working diligently, but then there seems to be down time or a lack of tasks to take care of. That is my weakest time. I’ve tried different things. For right now I’m trying to schedule my day to the minute. So I don’t have a free minute unaccounted for. Obviously, this is super challenging, but hopefully it’ll help a little. Be”h.

I am still very new around here and learning the ropes. I started off strong with a five-day streak but then fell, got up, lasted one day, and fell again. The two falls were like a sucker punch that came out of nowhere. One moment I am fine, and the next moment BAM. I am back into the cesspool. I am trying to figure out what happened to make this 180-degree change in an instant. Yesterday, I did not see anything on the street or TV, or computer.



Something in my head is triggering me. I was alone, working, and having a somewhat productive day. I was not upset, angry, or sad. It was just a NORMAL day. How can I deal with something I don't even see or feel? I would say that I went from working to falling in the span of 30 seconds. 



What do all of you do in that instance? I didn't have time to make a call or daven. What should one do in this situation? 



Hope this makes sense This is exactly me. Productive working.. nothing really going on then all of the sudden BAM. It’s very common.. addiction isn’t this maniacal state of mind. It’s regular day to day life that has this small obstacle in the way. For me, my big issue is if there’s a lull in my work. I’m working diligently, but then there seems to be down time or a lack of tasks to take care of. That is my weakest time. I’ve tried different things. For right now I’m trying to schedule my day to the minute. So I don’t have a free minute unaccounted for. Obviously, this is super challenging, but hopefully it’ll help a little. Be”h.

I can relate to your journey in more than one way! It is concerning and poignant how many develop this addiction at such a young age (may G-d help us!) but the fact that you are here shows that you have already taken an important step. So, you should feel validated and motivated by that and continue to grow on this journey. After all, we don't always choose the journey, but with G-d's help we can set it toward the right destination. How do set our journey on the proper path? By choosing life. Over and over again if necessary. With the strength of a warrior! Keep up the good work!