Many people who made it to 90 days found that the scientific study was right, it takes about that amount of time (for some people a little more, for some less) to change your addictive thinking patterns just enough to be called "your first major step" in your journey to recovery. However, the journey continues on... For some people, the addiction lingers on for years. But 90 days takes off "one layer" of the addiction cake for most people. But like Ano said, the goal must be to let go of "lust".

Dear Momo, welcome back! Major changes have happened in the GYE community since you were away. I would almost go as far to say as there are two distinct periods of GYE. One BEFORE the handbooks, and one AFTER the handbooks came out :-) Now that you have these handbooks, I truly believe you will be able to take your struggle to a whole new level of success.

The Handbooks aren't just "another" feature of our network, but rather, they lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work hopefully for years to come, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented. Particularly you, Momo, would benefit the most from the attitude handbook, because I believe you have the strength in you, you just need a little more determination, and G-d willing the Attitude handbook can help with that!

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Make sure to read them, they contain a wealth of information on beating this addiction! And I'd love to hear your feedback on them...

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

rashkebehag wrote on 15 May 2009 12:15:


The 90 days is just a leap of faith. It really does get SO much easier. I'm 20 years old now. I'd never gone a whole week clean since age 12. I went pretty much cold turkey with the help of GUE and a Rebbi at my yeshiva (2 weeks, one fall, and clean since then for almost half a year now). The 90 days is just to help give you something to look forward to, because that makes is so much easier. Once you get there, it is much easier if only because you are in the habit of NOT acting out. However, by the time you reach 90 days (it took me a while, but I got there) you should not be allowing lust to take hold of you at all. If you are at 90 days "clean" but you are constantly clicking links which you are driven to by lust, you will not be able to hold out. The lust is a poison, and once you have 90 days without it, it is much easier to see that. With the clear realization that it is pure POISON, how COULD you click on it? That is how I see it. All the filters in the world won't help if you aren't sincere, and if you are sincere and you break the lust part of the addiction, a filter won't even be needed (eventually). However, if the thought of using the internet without a filter gives you that rush of excitement, you are committing spiritual suicide by allowing yourself open access (because that rush of excitement means that the lust is taking control of you). You really need to evaluate yourself honestly, and if you don't feel capable of that, have someone else who knows you well help you. Lastly, this is all from my perspective. For a more hardcore addict, some of this may not be true. For example, a hardcore addict should probably NEVER use an unfiltered connection. I'm just giving you my point of view. Anyone else who has gotten to 90 days want to chime in?

Hey ezra,
I just thought I'd pop in and say how amazing it is to see someone as young as yourself taking the steps to break this addiction. I don't know if you've read my thread on the forum, but it's been almost half a year for me. If I can do it, I'm sure you can too. When I first stopped, I got wet dreams EXTREMELY frequently. Now I seem to only get them when I say to myself "wow it's been a while since I had one". This Shabbos I had two of them (Friday night and during a Shabbos day nap). Don't let them bother you, because you don't have that much control over it. Once you've totally conquered the more important area (what you do while you are conscious) you can begin to work on this area. By the way, the way you write reminds me of myself. I only wish I would have started as early as you did. I could have gotten so much more done in the years between 17 and 20. I'm rambling a bit now, so I'll stop. If you want to get in touch with me, feel free to PM me here. We can message back and forth or chat privately if you'd like. Good luck and take care!
Ano

Dear mom

Your son is doing the exact same this I was doing as a teenager, I remember my Dad finding one of my mags and burning it on the stove, I was not really too interested in what he had to say to me either and his preaching fell on deaf ears.

However from my own experiance and that of meeting many other people in recovery for addiction, there is a common denominator of sexual abuse at a young age.  I was sexually abused by an older boy at school when I was 8, I only realised when I was 15 what had happened to me and that's when my acting out deteriorated further from masturbation.  I was so angry and disgusted with my self and full of rage and hatred towards the person who abused  me but felt I could not tell anyone.  Further your son is suffering as well as you, and is in a cycle of distruction that he does not know how to get out of.  When he first found his "friend" called "lust" it provided him some relief from the inner turmoil in him, however as with all addictions 2 things start to happen. Firstly the need to get more of the drug and the same effect will propel him to look for greater hits. Secondly every time he acts out he will be filled with guilt, shame and self hatred towards himself, and at the moment the only way he knows how to get rid of this pain is to act out again and again.........  And you as a mother (and in most cases wifes) are powerless to stop him.

My wife has been to S-Anon meetings and learned some very important lessons in helping her cope with my - the 3C's she did not Cause my addiction, neither can she control it, and she certainly cannot cure it.  Further looking for your son's stash is very simmilar to the stories in the Alcoholics Annonymous Big Book of wives looking for their husbands hidden bottles.
It would be very helpful for you to read the AA Big Book which has many chapters devoted to the suffering family and how they should cope, what they should and should not do.  Further you may find support and identification from S-Anon.

I would be only to happy to talk to your son on the telephone and tell him my story how my addiction progressed and almost ruined my life to try and encourage him to seek help, you can contact me via email binyomin25@hotmail.com

Be strong and do not blame yourself.
Hatzlocho
London

That's very normal... It takes a while for our subconscious to catch up with the new reality :-)

Don't let it get you down... As a matter of fact, it should make you happy! Why? Because it shows that although your subconcious is still an "addict", you don't act on it. (It can only catch you when you are asleep!)

I would dance if I was you  :D

See also this page: www.guardureyes.com/GUE/FAQ/FAQ5.asp

Boys mom - I have "different" teenagers, too, and I have a lot of sympathy for you. Please consider these ideas. Appealing to Torah values, as you said, isn't working. Which means it won't and is a bad idea to do at all. Based on the way it was for me, he is probably deeply and privately struggling religiously with his problem already. For everyone I know in "this business" that is how it was. A constant quiet struggle with yiddishkeit, or just the conscience. And it hurts terribly. People attracted to this and all addictions are often spiritually sensitive people who feel a misconnection or a whole in them that they simply cannot tolerate. They fill it with whatever works for them. He found something that works and you cannot convince him it doesn't. he knows that it does. For now. One day it won't, though. He probably is a tortured soul in that respect. Nonetheless, having pity on him and giving him more space is clearly not the answer to any of his problems.  You are right that S-Anon is primarily for spouses, but have you looked into it and talked w/other moms in SA? They may have something helpful 4u.
To close:
When we had a problem with our son, the greatest gift that grew out of it yet, was my wife and I growing closer from it. The therapist we went to advised us that the most important thing we can do to help the problem was making sure my wife and I are on the exact same page. Many tzadikim (the Steipler, ZT"L etc.) say that sholom bayis is the pivotal aspect of childraising.
We never understood it quite this way before, though. It sounds as though you and your husband do not have any problems and are doing this together well. However, are you sure the two of you see eye to eye on the way to approach your boy? Do you share a similar attitude on the degree of guilt you bear/do not bear? Can you talk together about just this point and be sure you are not sending mixed messages between you, one parent implying one thing and the other something very different? Please consider this. If it makes no difference to him, it'll certainly inprove your relationship and the sholom bayis for the other children and everyone else. It rubs off, eventually.

After you have your son read the stories of the shattered lives, both from the view of the family, and of the addict, this may help him...at least on some level. He must understand that this is not just "some fun", but something very very dangerous where he will lose all control over his life. You may wish to point out that he is already at this stage...having lost control, and he is now an Eved. Point out that the people in these "true" horrific stories are people who are older than, him. more mature than him. more learned, and capable than him, and we see what has happened.This proves that this is an uncontrolable disease.  Ask your son, "if you see someone jump off of the bridge, and drown...will you believe that this is not for you, and to be avoided at all costs?" Wouldn't you want to learn from other's mistakes, and misfortunes."  Well, just reflect on these very true horror stories of destroyed lives.
   Ask your son point blank...after he reads these stories, "Tell the truth...does it sound like these people who did exactly what you are doing...are happy with their lives?

The most important thing though is....do not lose your connection with your son. You can't completely control him, and this will not help. It will only make things worse, and possibly cause distance between you and him. You must make sure that you do NOT lose his trust, and while being strong concerning the damage he is causing himslef, at the same time continue to show that this stems from you "motherly love".
  In the end, he will have to make the choice. If you continue to daven, and keep the lines of communication open with him, there is a good chance that he WILL come back.

As one who began his addiction when he was 12 or 13 and has spent nearly 30 years struggling with it, I have to agree with the others.  You son, sadly, is in very deep.  When I began my addiction, pornography was not easily available.  I shudder to think where I would have ended up if it were so accessible when I was a teen.  Unfortunately, I also have to agree with Aaron; for real, lasting change to take hold in your son's life, he must be fully persuaded of the need to change and be willing to take whatever steps necessary to effect that change.  I agree that someone professional is needed, if for no other reason than he should hear the dangers of what he is doing from someone "outside" the conflict that seems to exist between him and you.

Dear rashekebehag -
Yes, you got me right. Please read my very first post on this site where I describe a little bit of what it was like to GUE and what R'Twerski told me and how I reacted. This was a few years before I got bad enough in my own mind to have to join a program.
The way I look at it, either you are an addict or not. Yes, it gets worse, like all illness, but if you do whatever it takes NOW to get the help you need from Hashem, SA, who/whatever, then you'll be OK. Maybe even without any group. I don't know. I alos tried hard to do the steps on my own, from books, in the late 80's. It failed misearably. But on the other hand, I had NO support at all from anyone and was all alone and in secret. You have this site and may cultivate phone friends to call when there is trouble, or maybe even before you have trouble. There is also great literature on this site and that you can get from SA, (though the AA big book is the best for me). Hashem loves you and will help you, as he helps everyone who gets out of his way, and if chas vesholom that isn't enough, the programs will be here for you.
BTW, I have met many guys in the meetings who are very light addicts, too. They can get better, but interestingly, they often don't - I think it is because they simply don't take their disease seriously enough. So when they see a little improvement they leave, figuring they are "cured." Only ham gets cured. ( ;Da little joke). Bye!

Dear Mom, we truly feel your pain. Like Jack said above, professional help is advisable. Possibly Rabbi Horowitz, at www.rabbihorowitz.com/. (There are times when you can speak to him by phone)..

See this link on his site: www.rabbihorowitz.com/PYes/MGFiles/CPQ.cfm?id=1081
And perhaps this one too: www.rabbihorowitz.com/PYes/MGFiles/CPQ.cfm?id=1138

You might find that this thread on our forum may talk to your son.

Just recently, someone posted on the forum the following to a Bochur:

When I was your age, I too struggled with this addiction, and I sought help from my Rabbonim / Masgiach and was given completely misguided advice.

I am now married in my early 30's with children, my wife has been through pure hell as a result of my acting out, and if I do not stop I will loose my children too.

Whenever I see or hear of Bochurim struggling with this issue, I want to shake them and scream at them to get into recovery at an early age.  When I was 17 my m/o was masturbating and porn mags, but as you know, this illness is progressive and by the time I was in my mid 20's I was doing things that in my wildest dreams I never thought I would do.  If you still think that you are not so bad and that you have not done a certain behavior yet, you should know that "yet" stands for "you're eligible too".  Please, please, I beg you to take recovery seriously leave no stone unturned in finding a solution that works for you. Spare yourself and your future wife & kids, years of hell and recovery.

May G-d be with you.
London

On our website and forum, we generally try to help those who WANT to be helped. Dealing with a teenage son who doesn't want to be helped is a whole different ball game, and we truly feel your pain and frustration.

Perhaps if your son reads our latest Handbooks he will understand what he is up against, and how this is a disease which only gets worse and worse, and leads to endless pain and suffering down the line...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

Print out these handbooks for him and ask him to read them. Maybe even make a deal with him, that if he reads the handbooks from beginning to end, you will stop playing cat and mouse with him, and let him make his own choices.

Dear bardichev - These are the things I do, sometimes one and at other times another, sometimes more than one:

* I always mutter "Hashem/Tatty help" He knows what I need and how to help me; then I ask Him to help me move on to whatever it is I was supposed to be doing when I got distracted by the goofy idea

*immediately daven for the person involved in a direct and clear way, for their benefit, not mine (then move on)

*ask Hashem ASAP, that whatever it is that I am truly seeking from that person/act, let me find it in You (then move on)

*get out of dodge - sometimes that is all I need to do - a change of venue

*make a phone call to any of the 15 people I can call and tell them exactly what it is I feel like doing (get the secret out)

*think through what the end result of what I am wanting would be, ie. what would I do after it'd be over? usually that's quite sobering and helps me let go for a minute - long enough to get back to whatever it is that I should have been doing in the first place

* in general, work the steps honestly and humbly, so my life is less painful, maybe even pleasant, and taavah is then less attractive to me on a gut level (not intellectually, this isn't about intellect)

For me, the most important thing is to never take credit for "beating" the Yetzer Hora. It is always Hashem deflecting it from me. I am not here to fight the YH, proff of that is my dismal failure in the endeavor x 15 years+, as I say every day in Os Yashir: "Hashem Ish Milchama" - only Hashem.

PS. I also remember that no matter how sick, weird, or extreme the taava is, I never feel bad about it, as I know I am an addict and that is what adicts do - they have these hardwired problems, but I have not had to act out on them in 11 years as the result of Hashems 100% help. BH, I have been helped by program/program peolpe, to take off the boxing gloves and get out of his way.

Hello and forgive me for intruding as I am only a teen's mother and this isn't really my "space" but I dont' know where else to turn and I need help and advice to help my son with this terrible addiction.

He is almost 16 and has been having trouble with this on and off for several years but lately it is getting worse.  sometimes he admits it's a "problem" that he wants to try to get over and sometimes he laughs it off and says he's just like any other kid, that 85% of boys his age watch this stuff.  At one point I got him to look at this site and this forum and that seemed to sober him up for a few weeks but then I started finding the videos again.  He says he can't go cold turkey and the videos are like a nicotine patch.  I said there's no acceptable level of this.  He also blamed me for his relapse saying I hadn't loosened up any of my restrictions on him when he was sober so why should he bother.  I feel I am living with an addict and can't "loosen up" for a second.

We are locked in a daily game of cat and mouse.  When he is at school or asleep I ransack his room and look at flash drives, memory sticks, and anything else he can save data on.  My husband's office serves as the storage facility for all his confiscated things.  Today I found video files on his non-video ipod stashed away in the "Calendar" file.  They had been downloaded a few weeks ago.  When I said I thought he had given up that stuff he said "Oh, those were just in case...".  (huh?!?) To me, his need to have a flashdrive full of videos at any time indicates this is a pretty serious addiction.  Other kids might look at this stuff when opportunity arises but he goes out of his way to hoard them.  We have pretty good filters on our home computers (I think) but it seems every other kid in school has a laptop and there's wifi everywhere.  His PSP internet browser is locked and he doesn't have the password, so he bought himself a new PSP which we had to confiscate.  I end up taking away a lot of his electronics but I'm afraid if he has no way to amuse and distract himself he'll get worse.  The compromise is to let him have it but to be constantly vigilant.  This is exhausting physically and emotionally.  We have considered and continue to consider finding him another place to live but don't know what institution or family would put up with this behavior.

This is not his only problem by far.  He has been receiving mental health and educational interventions since he was a little kid.  I'm not looking for advice and help for all of his issues, just to explain where things stand.  He can be very chutzpahdik and his connection to yiddishkeit is very tentative right now.  So trying to appeal to his sense of yiras shamayim or kibbud av v'em is difficult.  I've tried. I"ve even tried to explain for a purely secular viewpoint how pernicious this addiction is but he laughs it off, "Oh, everybody does it."  From his perspective all the restrictions of Torah and his family's rules are keeping him from living a "normal" life which includes watching whatever he feels like.  I'd like to think his neshama still hears me deep down but I don't know...I guess on the bright side he's not living a "double life" or acting like a hypocrite.

We are thinking about finding him another school.  Right now he is in a Modern Orthodox day school type place where there is a lot of internet access.  I'm afraid that switching him to a more black hat type of place with less emphasis on internet will lead him to rebel even more because he really won't fit in there and will miss his friends.  And he'll find this stuff, somehow, maybe.  Also, I'm not sure whether to give him back his PSP which I took away last week after finding the memory stick with bad videos on it.  The PSP's  ability to display video makes it very attractive as a private viewing booth.  On the other hand he uses it to just have fun playing games and letting off steam after a long day at school.  He has ADD and without something to distract himself he gets bored which leads to more problematic behavior, eg on the school bus.  Does anyone know of a way to jigger a PSP so he can't use a memory stick?

I'm also not sure how much of this information to share with his friends' families.  I know of least two occasions when he watched videos with friends, once in my very own house when he invited a friend for a sleepover.  I feel like he has a sickness and it's contagious and I'm afraid for the other kids.  On the other hand I don't want him to lose all his friends and become a social outcast.  I know at least one of his friends has tried to encourage him away from this shtuss.

Would like some advice on these issues and just general chizuk.  If you can remember to your own adolescence and what your parents did or didn't do that worked or didn't work would be appreciated.    I don't know how much he can really help it and I shouldn't get angry but I still do.  Also if you know of any groups or therapists in the NYC area, specifically Queens, Manhattan or the Five Towns, please let me know.  I know about SA but I think that's really geared more for spouses.

Thanks again.

I clicked on the links and read the tips and chizuk  (some of which I'd read many times already) and I'm beginning to understand a little of the mind purification process that begins once you stop acting out and re-sensitize your mind so that you're disgusted by filth and are not numb to it.  Over time, as the addiction takes hold, you begin to view women in a new way - completely out of proportion to reality.  Every little thing is invested with tremendous meaning so that you get a high from it.  It's like looking at an ant and seeing an elephant, and tricking your mind into thinking it really is an elephant so that you can be awed by it's size and might.  Going back to the nimshal, the more you work on staying clean and keeping your thoughts pure, the more the elephant begins to shrink.  Soon it's a moose - still important and large but not quite as impressive.  I don't know enough about the animal kingdom to find perfect examples of next few stages, but I think the point has been made.  Eventually it becomes a dog, then a rabbit, then a mouse, and eventually (I'm not there yet but I'm encouraged by the trend!), eventually it becomes what it really is...an ant!  And you can ignore it and walk on by!

rashkebehag wrote on 13 May 2009 20:53:


I relate to what you wrote about stress and Dov's reply, I use my a/o as means of escaping, I do not like facing difficult / painful situations and use addictive behaviours to medicate - this shows me that my addiction is not the problem, but there is something underneath that I am runnig away from. You write that " am genuinely keeping away the stressfull situation is not letting up, only getting worse" From my experiance sobriety is the foundation, once I am sober I can begin to deal with whatever I have been running from.  As Dov so rightly states the first step is the only step that mentions the addiction by name.  On a practical level though, I did in therapy stress management, I used to get into work in the morning and within a few minutes become so overwhelemed with what I needed to do (the same in my personal life) that I would go into addict mode.  The steps and therapy have shown me to do the next right thing, how to prioritise. The Serenity prayer has helped me "Hashem grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference"

One of the most helpful readings for me when I am in stresful situations is the passage from Acceptance from the Big Book - "acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation--some fact of my life--unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes"

Reading your post and reminding myself of the tools is a powerful message for myself how to live life on lives terms without acting out.

London