Mevakesh ,
i've just read these older posts.i respect your ability to walk away from these things .your story has been mechazek me .
i would like to bring up an observation .After going as far as you did i was at first puzzled at how you just walked away from it .you didn't seem to mention outside help, therapy ,support etc.this would be and is completely impossible for me.its only through people being aware of my struggles and being in contact w/ them on  a constant basis that i feel i can finally break this sickness of over 22 years. i know you mentioned that therapy works for some ect.
i know what i'm about to say is not true for everyone.but is it possible that sprecisely because you went so far it was in someway easier to break away? Now i'm not CH'V advocating going further with ones addiction until he's sick of it, b/c it might not ever happen . that's the way of the yetzer .He always finds a way to make it look new and exciting no matter how much you've seen and done.
  but for others that havent gone as far there might be a different battle going on as well as the regular one.that is,whatever levels of tuma i haven't reached and sins i haven't done are really all the same emptyness as this or even worse.many peoplelike myself have for some reason held back from going beyond a certain point in sin .for some it's busha ,family pressure or deeply ingrained beliefs (like "me" who watched porn and never  masturbated which i don't even understand,).but they have to convince themselves that more is not more or better it's less and worse.and that the fantasies they may have of really doing something are horrible nghtmares that they would never ever want .that's why it's so vital for people like that to hear the destruction it causes and where their own behavior can eventually lead .if i could hear some of the down side part as well it would help me a lot.maybe you could post me privately copies of some of what you sent "me".
i want to say again how much i appreciate you sharing this w/ us .it strengthens us and makes us feel understood and hopeful for success. 

Dear Niceguy,

I indeed sent you to the feature story because I noticed a few parallels

When did your wife get upset and put you on a white list? Was it recently? Sometimes, these type of things are precisely the incentives we need to make serious changes in our lives. It is a Bracha, and putting you on a white-list was a very important step for your recovery.

You are definitely a candidate for group therapy. The forum is one type of group therapy, but I would suggest possibly joining SLA as well. If you have a problem with that, you may have to get up in middle of the night and join the "Jewish Healing Group" on the phone, 9 PM, U.S hours, every Tuesday I think. Contact yidvre@gmail.com for more info, and see this page. I also think you may be a candidate for psychotherapy, and I sent you some contact info yesterday.

I don't think you are a candidate yet for the shots unless you are not seeing progress in any of the other ways and feel that you may end up doing something that may harm someone else or land you in jail. The problem with the shots is that you don't end up working on yourself and leave the bad stuff there, only closed up. As soon as you're off the shots, the bad stuff comes back. Also, it will reduce intimacy and sex with your wife to zero (although after a half a year or so they can try to reach a "balance" to allow you to still be with your wife).

Before considering the shots, I would try group therapy, psychotherapy, and even possibly SSRI medication, as you saw in the story, especially if anxiety brings about the addictive behaviours. And if you take your recovery seriously, I would go through our "tips" section carefully, trying to implement the tips, slowly but surely, until you are healed. And for chizuk, browse through the hundreds of previous chizuk e-mails we sent out, starting from the first page here.

You have read stories similar to yours, people who have been there and gotten out. You have learned that it's an addiction and that there are clear-cut ways to deal with it. You are a frum Jew, a holy Jew. The time of excuses is over. We are all here for you, to help you and give you support. It's time to make the jump.

thanks for listening, Elya,
yeah, i think i have some things to think about.i never saw my life as lying and hiding so much but thats exactly what it was.maybe thats why i've been wanting to get all this out for so long. i never thought about how the hiding  would affect me.i'm considered by people and have always considered myself a very honest and ethical person.i've thought about the contradiction in myself b/f but never it's effect on me.

that was a fantastic insight ,thank you.
i've also fealt that the pleasure fantasy seeking and masturbation was much more emotional than physical.but i really need to pin down why i feel i need this so much.i consider myself to be a generally happy person,but i do have a lot of anxiety.about making paople happy and them making me happy.2 main times i've noticed i look for this outlet(aside from pure lust drive) are when i feel i have failed in pleasing somone or they've failed in pleasing me.

the hooking up w/ live people thing really worries me.i've recently started trying to make myself look uglier to discourage those thoughts.i read the post about the guy who got his babysitter pregnant and destroyed his life and it really sobered me up.

you're right , i gotta get connected to a group counseling program. but the opening up like i did in the post is going to be murder.i could only do it here b/c its anonymous.
can't this forum be enough?i don't look like the kind of person who would have these problems.i look more like a rebbe than a sex addict.
i've been clean for about a week now but i started officially counting on this past friday. just being connected to the site and forum has given me more strength. i hope the partner and posts will make me even stronger. this is the first time i've thought i can actually kick it for good - with help.

shabbos was good.....but you know sometimes i think there are just too many women in the world. where do they all come from?! : ;D

Dear niceguy,

Hi. I am the webmaster of guardureyes. Before I say anything, I want to thank Elya K for his great answer and say that he is right on target.

Unfortunately, I do not meet with people in person to preserve my anonymity, but you can write me directly at eyes.guard@gmail.com.

For religious therapists in Israel that are trained in addictions, see this page. (Scroll down to the bottom for the Israeli therapists).

For group therapy in Jerusalem, SLAA can be reached at 02-676-9583. Rabbi Avraham J Twerski, expert in addictions, holds highly of such groups - even for religious people.

The first thing you need to know is that the phenomenon you are dealing with is not because you have huge desires and can't seem to be able to deal with them. Rather, you are simply dealing with a strong "addiction". It is important to understand this because, as an addiction, it can be dealt with in many tried and proven ways and methods. Your story parallels so many people's stories as you can see on the story section of our site (you might even find your own story there :-).

There are two prerequisites to being helped.
1) You must truly believe you can be helped (reading the recovery stories on our site can help you with this)
2) You must truly want to be helped (The fact you posted your struggles means you are on the way).

For starters, I want you to do just one thing for me. I want you to read carefully through the feature story on our site. It's a bit long, but I think it's vital - especially for you. After you have done that, write back here on the forum preferably, or by e-mail, and tell me your thoughts. Then we'll see how we can work with you further.

Haba Le'taher, Mesayin Lo. Be ready to give your addiction and disease over to the care of G-d. Be ready to trust G-d that he will care for you as you heal! (See this page for more on getting started).

Hi, nice guy.  Thanks for sharing. It takes a lot of guts to expose yourself like that, but it's actually
the first step to getting better.  I relate to everything you've said. I've been addicted all my life and
it got MUCH worse since he Internet about 9 years ago.  Since then, I have been sober for at least 3 years,
slipping occasionally. 

This is not going to go away by itself.  It will never go away.  You have an addiction which is a disease and you
must treat it as such.  It gets progressively worse so its best to stop it now, before you end up doing worse things with live people or even illegal things and end up in prison.  I'm just giving you the facts and experiences of people
I know with this illness.  Eventually the magazines will not be enough and the internet wont be enough, you'll have to have more and more excitement.

The Guard Ur Eyes site has everything you need to educate yourself.  Awareness is the first step to recovery.
This is a spiritual disease of intimacy.. Once I stopped, my relationship with my wife improved 100 fold.  This is not
about sex.  You're just masturbating to cover up and ease the hurt and low self esteem you feel inside.  Am I right or wrong?   Once you stop you begin to explore the root of what is causing this.  Most of the time there is childhood trauma involved.  Finding your parents are looking at this stuff is not exactly normal at 10 years old.
And you've been keeping it a secret from them and your wife for 24 years.  Lots of secrets, hiding, lying doesn't make for a very calm life, does it?

The Guard Ur Eyes moderator also lives in Israel.  Get in touch with him and meet with him.  He has years of sobriety and can help you.  He can tell you if there are groups in Israel.  I know there are counselors in Israel
that specialize in sex addiction.  Find one today. Put a block on your computer, today, if you're really serious about stopping.  This will help tremendously.    Pray to Hashem to help you stop but ALSO thank HIM for all the goodness he has given you.  Children, wife, life itself, no matter how miserable , you're still alive.  Ask yourself before you want to masturbate, "Who Am I?" How Will I feel after I do this? What are the consequences of my actions?

Start here and let me know how you've doing each day.  You can email me privately also.

Dear Chasdei Avos,

You did not offend me.  I know very well both sides of the story.  I live in a small
city out of town and my wife and I raised 3 beautiful kids who are all Tznua, married
themselves and are teaching their kids the same. I guess the point goes back to
'Intention" on Baruch's part.  The problem is for me is that sometimes I don't know
if its the Yetzer Horah (my addiction) or the real me. But I'm workin' on that.

Good to have you here.

A

Menachem,

First of all, by virtue of the fact that you came here to tell us all that you are having a low week, it means you are not having as bad a week as the Yetzer Hara is telling you!

I remember, when I used to fall and succumb to my sex addictions, the last thing I would do is admit it!  Not only do you have the courage to admit it, you are doing so in a public forum! 

The Yetzer Hara is mad at you! Do you know why? because before Tisha B'Av you threw him to the dogs, and took control of yourself and became a better yid.

When he is mad, he goes into high gear, and tries to pursuade you that you have fallen, and that there is no  light at the end of the tunnel, and all sorts of bad things. He did such a good job, that you fell for it, and succumbed to his evil convincing.

All that shows is that you are human!

All humans fall. Our job is to remain strong, not to get depressed, and to get up again and continue clibming the ladder to Hashem.

You will fall again, and you will continue getting right back up and thumbing your nose at the lousy Yetzer Hara!

As time goes on, you will find that although you may fall, you will not fall as low as the time before, and thus when you get up and climb, you will climb a little higher than the previous time.

The battle with the yetzer Hara is one we will always be involved in until the day we die.

The key to surviving is NOT to get depressed! NOT  to let the guilt convince you thatyou failed beyond repair!

In fact, the light at the end of the tunnel is there for each and every yid, especially those that are embattled with this horrible addiction to sex/porn/masturbation  yet eventually overcome it!

Menachem, your name  means "Comfort". We are now in the month of comfort, and YOU  will end off this month as a better jew than you started, and be better equipped for the upcoming Elul season.

Your faliures are there for one reason: to learn and grow from them!

We have faith in you Menachem. NEVER give up. Ask hashem for help constatntly and he is right there to hold your hand!

Good luck Frum Thinker. You are correct that therapy may be overboard.  How about
a twelve step program?  There is a questionairre you can take in confidence that will
let you know if you are indeed addicted. www.slaafws.org/pamphlets/questions40.pdf

There is also great information on this site to get you on the road to recovery, if you ever need that.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

me: If I came across as elitist, I apologize. I personally immediately tune out if something is poorly written, and I know that's not fair. I guess it comes from me feeling more in line with "modern orthodox" than "yeshiva". I know even that is a generalization, and I hope I didn't' offend anyone. For me personally, mussar is much more effective when its professionally delivered.

The truth is that this is a tough battle, and I often don't even feel it's wrong in moderation. I'm sure that's also Yetzer Horah speaking, but when you do something since your teens, it eventually feels relatively okay. (I.e. Nasaa lo k'heter and even k'mitzvah!) I try my best, and I'm taking baby steps (like being on this forum instead of other places!) I'm not quite ready to accept that this is such a horrible addiction as alcoholism or gambling. Just as a little bit of those doesn't indicate a problem, I feel the same about this. Of course, there is certainly an element of deceit, both with myself, and with my spouse (but I still don't consider this really cheating).

Elya K: I think therapy and counseling is way overboard for me personally, but I guess it depends on exactly how addicted one is. At the moment, I don't think I'm a candidate for such intervention.

Thanks for your support -

-FT

Yes, the times when the Yetzer Hara realizes that you are ready for real to give up the evil addiction, that's when he tightens the screws, and convinces you with all sorts of rationalizations that you "simply cannot" give it up. He makes you feel helpless and as if you are a slave to your addiction.

Dont let him win you over again!!

Think about it objectively. Try looking at yourself from an outsider's perspective.

Imagine you were peeking in the window of your room and watching yourself!

What do you see?

You see an otherwise intelligent, caring, mature man sitting staring at a screen at images that arent even real, and were produced by the lowest people alive today.

You see people on the screen doing disgusting things that if your wife would do, you would never respect her ever again, and perhaps even divorce her.


You see yourself getting aroused by this garbage. You see yourself doing things to yourself that will cause you endless pain and suffering in the next world.

You see yourself spilling seed in vain, and creating countless angels of wrath that will haunt you for all eternity.

You see yourself having "imagined pleasure" for 30 seconds, followed by "real guilt" for a lot longer afterwards.

It's pretty horrible and despicable, dont you agree?

But it gets worse...

Now, imagine......

Instead of you at the window watching yourself, it was your wife watching this whole horrible scene unfolding.....or your rebbe...or your best friend....or your children (G-d forbid).....

You would do anything in the world to un-do the fact that these loved ones ever saw you in such a state of evil weakness, and wish you never ever had done it even once!!

The shame of that happening would be unbearable.....

Well, hopefully your loved ones never saw you in a state of masturbation, and hopefully you will never do it again....

BUT....remember....Hashem is ALWAYS at the window (It says about Hashem that he is a "Mashgiach Min Hachalonos"). He saw everything you did. He sees you now. He will see you if you ever do such a vile thing again!

The shame of Hashem seeing you like this, is the most unbearable shame imaginable. The judgement for living in sin like this is indescribable.....

But, Hashem also loves you (more than any of your "loved ones") and has brought you here to this website, amongst people who have struggled with the same issues as you. Hashem is telling you that he is willing to forgive the past, if you repent, and willing togive you the strength to overcome in the future, if you really want to!

THE YETZER HARA WILL DO EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO MAKE IT ALL SEEM OK. HE WILL MAKE THE GIRLS ON THE SCREEN SEEM REAL AND PLEASURABLE. HE WILL MAKE THE FEELING OF MASATURBATION FEEL LIKE THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD. HE WILL MAKE IT SEEM AS IF YOU ARE ALONE IN THE PRIVACY OF YOUR ROOM. HE WILL MAKE IT SEEM AS IF YOU WERE BORN WITH THIS INADEQUACY AND HASHEM UNDERSTANDS THAT AS A HUMAN YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO MASTURBATE.

DO NOT LISTEN TO THE YETZER HARA!!! HE HAS ONLY ONE THING IN MIND: BRINGING YOU DOWN FOR ETERNITY!

ONLY HASHEM HAS YOUR BEST INTERESTS IN MIND, AND WANTS YOU TO RUN BACK TO HIM FAST!!!

CHAZAK V'EMATZ!!!!

Baruch, there is an axiom in nature which says, "What you resist, persists."  If you keep trying to push
her out of your mind, she will persist. I know because I have a love addiction and thought about a business
acquaintance for over 2 years.  Finally, I accepted the fact that these thoughts came into my mind as natural, let
them pass and went about my business, until now they don't rear their ugly head.  Well, maybe once or twice a year.

In the frum world, especially today, we are separated from girls at an early age, as if they are EVIL or something.
Don't talk to them, don't look at them.  I grew up in a mixed Jewish High School in a small town (outside of NY) and
we all managed to get married, raise frum kids and lead fruitful lives. So you may have grown up with this stigma against girls.  Our high school is not mixed anymore and the boys and girls somehow manage to talk to each other.

Girls are not the enemy, the yetzer harah is the enemy.  Please remember that.  Accept it as the Yetzer Harah attempting to trick you.  I firmly disagree with "me" about telling your wife.  You haven't done anything wrong, if that's all you've done is looked or even talked.  But you can tell your wife, that this girl is too "triggering" for you, that you think about her too much and PLEASE help you by getting another babysitter, or like "me" said, leave when she's home.  You have to set boundaries, just like we set boundaries in Yiddishkeit so we don't do aveiros.

My good man!

Filters can be tricky to trick, but they can also be tricky to fully help.
See this page that I wrote once, to help someone like you who wanted the filter to REALLY be fool-proof.

As far as wanting to be helped yet not wanting to, this is the very real battle of the Yetzer Tov and yetzer Hara that you are experiencing! See the "Battle Cry" that I just sent out to the members of the chizuk list. Read it and get yourself worked up to finally TAKE A STAND, like a soldier being rallied in the heat of the battle against the enemy!

ok i'll try to read the success stories.there is a part of me that wants very badly to be helped . but there is also a part that doesn't at all.right now i got my wife to password block the whole net except for a few white listed sites that only she can allow. but my mind is constantly trying to figure out ways to sabotage it.i've been this close to bringing in the whole computer to the shop to unlock the password behind her back.its crazy , even blocking it isn't stopping me .my wife is on my side and trying to help me but i'm also secretly fighting her at the same time.

I came across this site today, and I felt compelled to make some comments here. I won't say that I am very far along with controlling my own addiction - far from it. I just want to share some thoughts that help me with this challenge, and hopefully will help someone else too. I'm a worldly, college educated professional, and the average poorly written, grammatically incorrect posting does nothing to convince me to change my behavior - in fact it often has the opposite effect. This is especially true when someone just spouts the fire-and-brimstone punishment message - as my Rebbes did through school - which obviously just made me feel guilty but that's all. The "Meah Shaarim" approach just doesn't work on me - no offense to Meah Shaarim - and I'm sure it doesn't work on a lot of people.

I was raised in a conventional frum environment - right wing yeshiva, top-level high school, night college with learning half a day. I *never* was able to control myself in this area, and this was well before the advent of Internet porn. I won't go through the details of my cycles of guilt before Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur, and the inevitable slipping immediately after. We've all been there. As I got older, the opportunities got more varied - up to (thankfully not all the way) actual sexual activity with others (not my wife, obviously).

When I am tempted (which I am every day - even today), I try to think of several things -

1) How do you feel after wasting *countless* hours masturbating to Internet porn? How well will you do you job the next day? Just recently, I was on a business trip. I was exhausted when I arrived, but I still spent 3-4 hours online in my hotel room. Imagine how it was to wake up the next morning! This has happened to me many times!
2) Try adding up all the hours you spent, and think about something you could have learnt or done in that time. Not even talking about Torah learning, although that would be great. You could have learnt to play the guitar, a new language, some area of your work that you could study in more detail. Read something on a totally different field that might make you a more interesting person. Just do something more useful!
3) If you are married, how will Internet porn affect your sexual relationship with your spouse? At the *very* least, you won't have much energy or interest in the other person when you are "done". If you keep ignoring a spouse physically, your relationship will  :-[get progressively worse, until it goes away (My first marriage ended, not necessarily for this reason, but it absolutely was a factor). If you really don't find your spouse attractive, I don't know what to say other than try to visualize the person as someone you do find attractive. I can't suggest pretending you're with someone else (I doubt that will work), but I found that my interest in my spouse actually increases the more time I spend with her physically.

I welcome your feedback!

FT

the sefer Cheshbon hanefesh is an excellent resource and good program to work on your middos.  Again, the Taiva is only our reaction to some underlying spiritual flaw that we still have.  Once you work on that midda, whether it be anger, being scared, loneliness, arrogance, sadness, it gets better.  Just the act of writing it out or speaking about it cleanses us, as if it leaves the body. 

many group therapy sessions that deal with this, use a technique called psycho-drama.  Each person plays a role like in a play.  One person does his "work". Another is your higher power (Hashem), another is usually a parent or someone who you have resentments towards. Another might be someone playing your addiction.  Each person plays his/her role to bring up the emotions of the person "working"  When this happens floods of emotions are released - crying, anger, screaming, etc.  Things that are not proper to do to the person who may have abused us, but nevertheless, doing it privately or with people you trust is very healing. 

In fact, I've been in therapy for over 25 years, on and off and this form is the quickest.  I've broken through so many barriers just within one year, using this method. 

Most certified sex addiction counselors are trained in some of these methods.

In fact, on September 2nd the Jewish Healing Group will be presenting one of these experts live
on the call for questions, chizuk and healing.