Fell without visuals (aka no porn). I have come to the difficult realization that a part of me really doesn't want to let this addiction go, and I have to overcome that thinking if I want to make it out.

 Though porn may be an addiction it is also a crutch. Almost like so called comfort food. We tend to use it as a way to remove us from our circumstances. Though, just as comfort food, you feel like crap after partaking in it because you know it is going to hurt you.
 I am at this moment working on changing my eating habits and am realizing that, although we must have the help of Hashem, it is less of resistance and more of self discipline. We must be diligent in pursuit of our goals and focus upon the good that will result. It is a training of the mind and replacing, through disciplined study, the desire with the humbling fear of the Creator. Ever keeping Him before us and walking in a deep love and gratitude for all of His goodness and long-suffering.

chaim424 wrote on 27 Feb 2022 17:31:

Hi & welcome to GYE!
Please tell us more about your struggles and achievements so we can try to relate to you and share in the journey. 

As a general piece of advice in this topic, it's very important to CONNECT with someone. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety - it's CONNECTION. Addiction thrives on isolation! Find someone that you can share your pain and struggles with. And finally, have someone who can cheer you on and celebrate your both big and small wins with you!

I agree with joetyh, even if you yourself don't have an instragram account or the app on your phone, so long as you have access to it you will end up falling again. The platform sort of by nature is filled with such pictures and it's really built around that. Not to mention that because it's a free service, although this may sound a little weird at first, they want you to stay on their platform for as long as possible by using various tactics to make their service as addictive as possible. They are well aware of men's desires in general so this is just one of the avenues they employ to get that goal of their's accomplished, so by going on that platform itself you set yourself up for eventual failure. And this is one of the tactics of the yetzer hara, to bring you closer to sin little by little, with your consent, so you won't even notice when you're going off the cliff. You don't have to restart your count though, some here start the 90 days challenge from just m at first, but the I think the responsible thing to so is to distance yourself from that platform and any other similar platforms like youtube or facebook or snapchat and this is what I did. Because they really only exist to make addicts to their service because that's how they can make more money and they therefore will tempt you with this as one of the tactics, as weird as this may seem.

Hi everyone.
I am a bochur who has been struggling with motzi zera l'vatala for roughly the past 8 years.

In the beginning I barely knew what I was doing, and I would do it once or twice a day. I didn't realize that it was destroying me. My drive and enjoyment in life. My energy. It would take them all. My thinking became cloudy and I couldn't focus on life or learning properly. I would always be tired and sleep till late in the day.

Back then I would be m"zl while thinking about any women that I saw in the street. In fact there were many times I would just sit by the window waiting for a women to pass by so that I can fantasize about her. Eventually I came across pornography, and even though I've never had more than occasional access to it, I got pretty hooked on it when it was available, and would crave it when it wasn't. I would also be m"zl while thinking about what I've seen online even when I didn't have any access.

Over the past 8 years, I feel like I've given the fight to stop all that I've got. I've spoken to many of my Rebbeim about it asking them for help. I made charts for myself. I made one of my Rebbeim my accountability partner. I tried exercise and cold shower. I gave tzedakah. I davened. I cried. I tried my hardest to throw myself into learning. But still nothing seemed to work.

At this point, I still have occasional access to unfiltered internet and it's just as hard to resist the urge to watch "just one video". But I've b"h been having a much easier time looking away from improper sights. I'm "only" being m"zl on average once a week which is also b"h a big improvement from what I used to be doing.

Even though Hashem has given me tremendous siyata d'yishmaya to improve a lot over the years, I still can't completely shake the yetzer off. I feel like I've tried everything I could but for some unknown reason it was only enough to get me till this, hopefully, last stage. I very very often cry myself to sleep begging Hashem to help me kick this addiction away once and for all. I simply can't take this anymore! There are times where I feel like I would rather die than continue to be struggling with this. I had to leave my yeshiva because I was so depressed about this that I stopped showing up to davening and sedorim. Now I'm in a yeshiva where b"h I started showing up again but I have a very hard time fitting in for many reasons.

I see no possible end in sight, and don't know where to turn. B"h I just found out about GYE and was able to get a modified version of the app to work on my flipphone. I just signed up for the 90 day challenge and I really feel that if y'all here can give me some chizuk, with Hashems' help, it can give me the final boost that I need in order to win over this yetzer hara.

Please, if anyone has any sorta chizuk that they think would be beneficial for me to hear at my stage, please share.

Thank you GYE and y'all who are out there to help!
Yosefhamevakesh

Welcome to the club!

I think what the Rabbi said sounds reasonable, if this works, great! If it stops working, you will need to look at SA again. 

Therapy doesn't cure addictions, it can, if worked on, help with some of the underlying issues, and in some cases teach you tools for urge management.

For me personally filters don't work, Once you get to a certain stage of addiction a filter won't help, for me personally it backfires. Obviously a filter is what most people should be using on their phones like all Rabbanim say. I have been using filters for years and always found a way around them. My mom for a few years controlled the filter, even then I would constantly work on getting around it partly because I felt locked. I am speaking as an addict, so for non addicts this is not relevant, but some addicts out there might relate to me that they do better not having a filter but rather an accountability software like webchaver witch is what i use. 

Bilaam Harasha to Yosef Hatzaddik wrote on 17 Feb 2022 16:48:

I have access to a family account that I don't pay for anyways. I always can access it and always have the urge to and have to constantly remind myself that it's destroying my family life and it's not worth the short term pleasure. 
In the past I tried blocking it through my filter but I felt restricted and it made me want it even more, and then I  just opened it, I don't do well when I use the filter,  i do a lot better when I don't have it restricted and work on myself to understand that it's not good for me. Thats what I have now, I don't have it restricted but don't go on it because of my own will. I also have webchaver to keep me off porn and shmutz.

Just one question, don't you have to pay for netflix? Maybe your wife uses it I don't know but I wouldn't want to pay for netflix if I'm not watching it at all. Maybe I read your post wrong sorry but you are right about both of them. They are literally made in order to get your attention as much as they can, especially youtube because it's free. Netflix only needs to do it to a certain extent to get you to pay and to make your next payments and that's that for them. But they really do exist to make "addicts" to their services. On top of the fact that they take so much of your personal data also for advertising, it would only make sense to use them if they paid you because in essence they treat you like a lab rat in order to make their services more addictive and to make more money. 

I bh have not been on YouTube and Netflix since the beginning of my current steak. As hard as it is to stay off them, trust me it's so hard for me, my day to day life has become more enjoyable, as well as my relationship with my wife and Hashem.
it was worth the sacrifice, 100 percent!!

I want to take the opportunity if I may, to suggest to anyone reading this post that uses YouTube for entertainment and to feel good, to take a 10 day challenge. Try to not use it for 10 days and see what happens. It won't be easy but I promise you won't regret it and you will feel so much better physically, spiritually and emotionally. 
trust me on this one, speaking as an addict to, YouTube, life is a lot better and happier with out it.

I can give you some ideas but just as a heads up, if you have access to how to turn off your filter you're essentially making it useless. I actually did this myself a while ago and now I let my mom have the control over them and how to edit the settings. This is because I fell a lot because as soon as an urge would come, I would turn it off so the responsible thing for me was to get my mom to be in charge of the filters. This is sort of similar to someone who is addicted to a drug and is trying to quit, and as a part of the process to quit he puts an unlimited amount of his drug of choice in a safe to which he knows the password to. Obviously this person sets himself up for failure. 

Anyway look into webchaver, you can get it for free through venishmartem.com check my signature below for the link. The accountability software is free but you'll still have to pay I think 2 dollars for filtering if you want to, it's optional so you don't have to pay anything if you don't want filtering. This'll discourage you from watching porn because even though it's free you still have to agree to pay a certain amount of money if they do get any screenshots of you watching any explicit material and the stuff gets reviewed by actual people and things that pop up by accident are disregarded. You can also add people that you know to receive the screen shot reports and that'll add more accountability because they'll also be notified if you fall.

And there's other filtering options for you that are pretty good and should work in conjunction with webchaver. One is Microsoft family safety and this is for free. For this filter to effectively work though you do have to set someone as a guardian that is someone other than you. You also should utilize their allowed website list to be the most safe and it's really not restrictive at all because you can send your guardian notifications that he'll receive immediately to access websites that get blocked. There's an app for both android and iphone and it's very convenient for me despite the "restrictive" features. But this really depends on if your guardian is quick to respond to such notifications.

I use both of these for my devices and things are going great for me so I recommend this for you and go check out there features more in detail on there websites. But again in order to really utilize them to the fullest you'll have to involve someone else with the filters and you'll have to use the "only allowed websites list" option. Or you can simply get webchaver and use microsoft family safety to block just porn websites (this is just safesearch that you can't turn off) and to block some other websites you wish to block like youtube because at the end of the day you'll be held accountable by the screenshots, but using the allowed websites only function is the best option in conjunction with webchaver. This is how I've been safe online and it's the best thing you can do for yourself. Just as another heads up you will likely have to also play around with any android family features that they offer in order to get rid of loopholes on your device, I'm not familiar with android so I can't really help you do this but I can tell you that you'll have to get the covenant eyes browser which you can get for free with webchaver and also microsoft edge and you have to make them the only browsers you have on your phone although you can use one or the other. So you'll have to get rid of the google play store or at least put that in control of someone who will then with supervision allow you to download certain apps that you may need but that won't allow you to get apps that are browsers.

Trouble wrote on 15 Feb 2022 19:47:

And here I thought the punchline would be that a mistake one makes when he's young can haunt him his entire lifetime.

so, as i was watching the superbowl, i saw a pretty funny commercial with a tremendous "mussar haschil." a kid reached his hand into the pringles can for those last few chips, but lo and behold, his arm got stuck, and although he tried, he couldn't pull it out. went to sleep that night with the cannister on his arm. he got married with the can on his arm - for the rest of his life, he wore it like a sling. for all you porn addicts, yes the commercial showed that he was intimate with his wife, and although birthday suits were worn, his arm was covered by the pringle can. years later, he needed a walker to get around, and the hand with the pringles can was guiding him along. eventually, he died, and with a big smile on his face in the coffin, the pringles cannister is still there.

moral of the story: ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ stick to jays!

I remember a while ago the question of davening for the amud while going through these challenges. This thread discusses for yomim noraim specifically. The halachic conclusion seemed to be as a Rav anonymously (and anyway you arent talking mussaf yom kippur), but it might give you some chizuk. 
They know you are trying, it's the world of emes and that is the real emes.

TheYoungerTwin wrote on 14 Feb 2022 16:23:

Do you have anybody that you can call in such situations? 
It's simple math...
Connection = Recovery 
Isolation = Addiction