Yes I was an addict. I knew something was extremely wrong when I completely broke down to my therapist about my life. I didn't realize it was lust at the time and I was completely lost in life. I did admit when I joined GYE that I was an addict but that was after some time on my own trying to fight it and pull myself together, eventually realizing this fight was much bigger and stronger than me on my own. So I didn't admit I was an addict right away and I went through the same period of realization as everyone else here and eventually coming to the same conclusion. 

May we be zocheh to see Moshiach in our days...

mggsbms wrote on 24 Nov 2015 15:51:

Can one vote by mail ?

I’m very new to recovery and a real sexohalic and i need impotent more input on how to surrender, so i ask the older members to please add input.

according to what i understand the surrender is a shot gun for step 1-2-3
so i have to know that I’m really out of control and I’m powerless over the temptation and I’m totally unmanageable I’m totally lost and then i still believe Hashem can help me so i feel lost and in the same time like i cry to Hashem please help me because I’m lost but you can help me. 

Then if the temptation don’t calm down i call a fellow to say that I’m tempted and i can’t do anything so now you did suppress your ego a little bit and then it easier to cry Hashem help me and the fellow member can help me.

The same is with a meeting I say for everybody I’m lost and i say where I’m lost and i have no control of myself please Hashem help me.

When i say Hashem help me then I have to feel like connecting to Hashem from the bottom of my heart.

let’s say yesterday i woke up with the feeling of numbness and i felt I’m not afraid of what will happen to me today, i went to daven i was totally disconnected and start saying words but nothing worked for me i felt the addiction is taking me over but when i got to shomia tafilo i said Hashem put me in fire put me in water but please give me sobriety and i want sobriety in my head too i couldn’t take it i started to cry and i couldn’t hold it back but i tried to stop crying but this triggered me to cry much more, i know people are laughing from my crying but i couldn’t do any think, but afterword’s i felt that i got back my feeling of powerlessness and i hade a much easier day then of what i thought of.

Again if any older member can come in and explain this to me i would greatly appreciate 

sorry that English is not my first language

Unfortunately, i dont know any Rabaim in my area that understand to either addiction or mental health. 
I have seen a therapist a few times last year. Diudnt do anything. 
I have reached out to another one that does things a bit different called 'Coherence Therapy' and hopefully will be able to see him soon. 

So the inevitable happened, and I fell... after I had been doing really well guarding my eyes (I managed to stay clean for well over 90 days), I stumbled on an inappropriate website while using an unfiltered device.

This has taught me a few things:

• We cannot defeat the yetzer hara now. Forget it, it can't be done. B"H when Moshiach comes, he will remove it from the world, but until that time comes, we just have to learn not to engage with it. As we say each day when reciting the Shema, we must learn to not follow after our heart and after our eyes by which we go astray. If Hashem commanded us to do it, then we are capable of doing it.
• Filters do work. I installed some accountability software on my main computer and I found it did help me to stay on track.
• The environment is a huge source of temptation. I found it much easier to stay clean while I was working from home, though I did have some lustful thoughts as I am single and live alone. But because I had fewer distractions around me, I found I was less prone to entertain those thoughts.
• My biggest challenge has been reducing the time I spend on secular entertainment (music, TV, sport), as this can also lead to sin if allowed unchecked. I used to listen to music a lot to unwind, and I still do sometimes, but now I am trying to replace the time I used to spend on entertainment with Torah study (listening to kosher speakers only, like Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi, Rabbi Yaron Reuven, Rabbi Alon Anava) and davening. Strong mussar (for those who are not so addicted) is like an antibiotic for the yetzer hara.
• Being at home has actually helped me to daven with more intention, even if it is usually in my own language. Making time to talk to Hashem has helped me a lot, as has reciting tehillim.
• When I was trying to get to 90 days, I updated my count on GYE regularly, and the rewards for reaching each level really helped me to keep going. Each time I made it to a new level, I felt really great and it inspired me to continue. I did fall a few times trying to get to 90 days, and I donated $50 to GYE each time. This was another motivator for me to stay away from things that might lead me to sin.

In a way the experience of falling has given me a reality check as I now understand that I cannot defeat the yetzer hara on my own, but rather I must establish and maintain systems that reduce the risk that I will fall. This is the battle of our generation and we cannot win it unless we equip ourselves with the weapons that we know are proven to work in the fight against the yetzer hara. But it can be done.

Can you relate to any of these thoughts:

“I am a failure. The sin I just did makes me worthless. I am off the derech, exactly like those who have rejected everything. I am just as bad. I am a sinner.
    “I should have controlled myself. I could have done better. If I had just pushed myself harder, I would have won the battle. It would have been so simple for me to control myself had I tried harder, but I blew it again! I should have much more control over myself.
    “I am so ashamed. I’m embarrassed to even go near anybody. Anyone who would know what I did would look down on me. Nobody would empathize with me about my struggles, not that there is much to empathize with anyway. Everybody does much better than me. I am probably the only person who does these things. No one else sins in this area, and I give in left and right. I am messed up.
    “All the good I ever did is meaningless because I did this huge sin. I am horrible. How hard I fought and my effort to change myself is irrelevant; my sin is all that matters.
“Even though I labored and managed to control myself for the past two days, two weeks, or two months, that is worthless. I am the same out of control person I always was. All my effort was a waste; I’m just as horrible as I was before.
“Besides, any good I did doesn’t count because I was obligated to do it anyway. All that matters is falling short — which I just did when I violated my obligations.
    “I bet Hashem is furious with me. He hates me and has rejected me. It is hopeless! He will always look down on me. Even if I do teshuva, Hashem won’t accept it. It’s impossible to undo something this severe. I did it; how can I get rid of it?
    “Further, what happened is all my fault. I brought everything upon myself when I befriended those people and experimented with these sins. Had I controlled myself then, things would be so easy. If I didn’t watch those movies and hang out with those friends, I would still be pure. I activated my desires. 
    “And now that I have awakened my temptations, it is too late. I can’t stop myself. I am incapable, as I just proved. I do these things. I am an addict and I will never regain control, no matter what I do. I can’t even improve the situation. I’m doomed.”


They come from a book called The Battle of the Generation (download here:https://guardyoureyes.com/ebooks/item/the-battle-of-the-generation), in Appendix A near the end of the book. You might want to read that Appendix.

Having dealt with many episodes of depression while in yeshiva, I specialize in "Elul Management" lol. But seriously, if you can elaborate on what thoughts you think in Elul and how it makes you feel, maybe I or someone else here would have some ideas for you.

My main reason and constant bulwark against falling back into addiction is that i will feel even worse then i do now. and that stops me. 
So i guess in some way i do feel better that at least im doing something better that i was. 
But again, its all just about not feeling pain, used to be i would do shmutz not to feel pain, now, i DONT do that so as not to feel pain. 
You understand that its all the same thing down here? Im hoping in heaven im in a better position now. but here its just pain. 

Thank you for taking time to answer me....

I will get in to some specifics so you can have a clearer picture.
​1. Events to trigger me-I dont know why but the summer is always much worse for me. I love the outdoors and everything having to do with summer. but all summer i try to enjoy myself, i go biking, swimming, etc. but it seems that i never get the enjoyment or pleasure that i want or need. 
2. Examples of thoughts- Like im thinking too much into myself, like my brain is a inane maze that i cant figure out anymore, like im trying to do everything that i can/need. but its never enough and im exhausted both physically and mentally all the time. 
3. Of course!  My Dr jokes that i he knows that every Sept i come in feeling something or other....... Its Elul......
A few years ago, i found yiddishkeit to be the best and only real thing in this world. I have always learned a lot and from everything i learned i knew that i had to become a full on frum yid, (i dont mean shoimer torah, i always was....) i mean, stopping all the goyishe things in my life, all bad influance, all secular things, I slowly gave up movies, books, i put the strongest filters on my devices, i even gave up my smartphone, i started learning even more intensely, gave myself very high goals of learning, (for example, my current goal is around 3 hours per day,) keep in mind that i have a full time job and 6 kids KNH!. I have to finish a whole bunch of learning every week, i take tests every month and i usually score 99 on them. anyways, i took it very seriously with all the details. I was high on it. My davening was great. I felt things that the sfarim talk about but most yidden never experience...... 

But, it seems now that i might have just used ll of that for a high and to avoid pain. because like an addiction, it stopped feeling so good after a while and im back to pain. and now i have nowhere to go. I have asked Hashem and cry every day to Him to make me feel better, im sure he hears me and wants to help me, i believe this is all for my benefit. 

I just hope that i have enough strength to endour and keep on fighting. 

Sorry for the long post. but it does help to vent in public (so to speak)....

Thank you

wilnevergiveup wrote on 01 Sep 2020 06:30:

Obviously I didn’t mean that they aren’t very much connected. I just meant that if you begin to deal with your depression it will make your struggle with p&m easier because you will  be working from a healthier, more grounded place.
It has been my experience that when I was suffering from depression and self esteem issues I had no strength to fight to stay clean, but now BH I am a lot more strong and resilient in this fight because I have a healthy sense of self.
Obviously any success you have in life can help you come out of a rut. It’s just that pinning your mental and emotional health on your success in this area seems a bit risky. 

That being said, every person is different and I guess do what works best for you. The main thing is to deal with the issues head on and to keep trucking...

OivedElokim

wilnevergiveup wrote on 01 Sep 2020 06:30:

Beautifully written.  I think many of us here relates to what you wrote.  Btw, I typed up a fairly long response to your post deviating to a slightly different topic, but then deleted it when I realized I probably should not go there.....

OivedElokim wrote on 31 Aug 2020 21:10:

Not sure if I agree 100%, I think they are very much connected. Although it's true that p and m issues need to be dealt with on it's own too, it's almost always caused by some underlying issue. Unless you are a full blown addict, it can be much more effective to work on underlying issues as well (in my case, low self esteem and general lack of fulfillment in life). This will help prevent a significant percentage of triggers thereby making your struggle much more focused on just the struggle.  

I am no expert, just sharing my understanding, but usually we act out as a pleasure seeking activity. This is usually a result of a need to cover up some uncomfortable feeling we are experiencing. This is true regardless of if we started acting out before we had these issues because we still use them as our "feel good fix", now, just as many people start unhealthy eating habits in early childhood but only start using eating as a fix later on.

It's true that it can get overwhelming to work on too many things at the same time, so you have to take it slow. There is no quick fix, it takes time to grow, a lifetime in fact.
I was once told to think of it like a plant, there is only so much you can do, water it, prune it, etc. If you don't do these things it won't grow and will eventually die, but if you try do do more, thinking the more I do the better it will grow, then it will die for sure.

@klishavur your story sounds eerily familiar. I struggled a lot with the question of "who is the real me?"

I suffer from low self esteem and in my case, I believe, I became really "shtark" as a result. As I grew and worked on it, I kind of just lost the drive. I realized that a huge part of my drive was to prove "them" wrong. I wanted to prove my parents wrong, my Rabeim wrong my Menahel wrong, all the people who had written me off, I wanted to shove it in their face. I wanted to show them, you see, I can go to this Yeshiva (one of the top places in EY) and it's not even because of you. As I grew I kinda didn't really care about "them" anymore. The truth is the "them" didn't really exist anymore.
This made it very hard for me to find motivation and I went through a tekufa where I was really depressed (oh, and btw also one of the worst in acting out as well, coincidence?).

It took me a while to get back to somewhere stable and in the meantime I played the part of what I thought I was expected to be.

One takeaway is that no matter what drove me, no one can take away what I did accomplish, even if it wasn't with good intentions. I still grew by leaps and bounds, during my "flipout" stage.

Now I am just a regular guy in kollel with nothing to prove just doing what I realized I really want to spend my day doing.

It took a few years to inspire myself again to continue to learn full time because I had to build scratch. I learned all the classic sefarim a few times, got a better picture of what life is about, thought about it a lot, and in the end I now am in a much healthier place then I was back then, even if I am not as shtark. 

Then I was selfish, now I try to do things for others and my creator.

This is my story and I think it relates in some way to yours.

Once again, it takes time.

Feel free to reach out if you need, or disregard if I am totally off.

All the best,
Wilnevergiveup

chancy wrote on 31 Aug 2020 20:04:

Can relate and over time I’v learned to cope with most of the pain by getting involved in good areas however I haven’t fully healed yet (40% of pain resolved and still in a lot of pain but I’m definitely happier than when I was a hardcore addict)...time is the best medicine and it helps to look where you are hurting, also from your post it seems you’re thinking clearly, perhaps you are having a nutritional deficiency that is causing you to feel that way? (During the summer most people are nearly dehydrated without realizing, for example I get pretty bad chest pains when dehydrated) Hope this helps!

Hi Grant,

Wonderful posts!
I have been addicted to movies and Tv since i was 14. Watched every movie under the sun. I have cut down drastically years ago. Now i only watch a few movies in the summer when im home alone and bored. but i make sure its kosher, i usually just rewatch shows that i know they are kosher. 
what i found helpful its reading books. 
I would recommend Tom Clancies books. they are kosher and very exciting. Lots of military and politics. That can help you as well. 


Hope it helps. 

Hello GYE Heroes! 

I wanted to share an update with all of you on my progress. 

I've been going to therapy for a few weeks now working on dealing with anxiety, anger, communication, etc. All of those are really just different issues I'm working on that are related to my ultimate struggle - porn addiction. 

Over the. past month or so I've been struggling more and more. I tried to make a peshara, a compromise, and give in to the yetzer harah by "agreeing" to masturbate when I can't control the urge but to set a line not to watch porn. This ultimately resulted in an even worse situation. The added fuel to the fire of lust just exasperated the situation causing me to have even more urges. Besides that, I ended up discovering other forms of stimulation online that were even more shameful. Obviously I ended up back into porn and then just struggling. 

I couldn't take the shame and the sense of being a hypocrite. I found these feelings eating at my desire to do mitzvos. I was rarely showing up to Davening. My learning was decreasing more and more by the day. I missed putting on tefillin. My relationship with my family started to suffer. I was more anxious, more irritable and always feeling stressed out. 

​Granted, there were other issues in my life that were causing stress but because I felt like I was living this double life it has been a thousand times more stressful. I just couldn't take it anymore. 

I got into a huge argument with my wife over stupid stuff and told her I was considering a divorce. We reconciled and things were ok for a few days until ​erev shabbos​. We again had a huge argument. This time she left. We argued over WhatsApp for some time and I honestly felt hopeless. I had given up the will to fight. I found myself not only feeling like giving up on my marriage (which would entail potentially losing my kids and definitely losing at least part of the time with them) but I was giving up on myself. I started feeling like just not keeping Shabbos anymore. I was questioning whether I even still believe in Hashem. 

How could I say I believe in Hashem when every action I'm taking is in opposition to everything I know of Him?

My wife came home just before shabbos. We didn't argue. We agreed to put the kids down for bed and talk about it after. 

That evening, when we should have been saying kiddush, we instead sat on the couch to have a conversation. I sat there and just listened to her tell me everything she was upset about for what felt like hours. I literally shut my mouth the entire time. It was excruciating. Almost everything she said felt like an attack on me and it took a tremendous amount of self-control not to respond and to just listen. (Special thanks to my therapist for pointing out that you don't need to defend yourself, just listen and empathize). 

Finally I felt I had heard all she had to tell and I started to share with her about the frustrations I was facing and my fears - finances, employment, our marriage, raising our kids, my spiritual doubts - and she listened. It was weird but somewhere in our venting to each other and arguing it seems something clicked. I guess I didn't realize how much stress and frustration she was dealing with and vice versa. It probably has a lot to do with my inability to communicate and my fear of having another fight with her. 

This went on for some time until eventually we were at a breaking point. She could tell there was more I wanted to say but I was being reserved. The real problem I wanted so badly to share with her was my struggle with porn. There is nothing in my life I am more ashamed of. The shame of bearing this secret was weighing on me more that all of the problems I told her about. Finally I gave in. 

After asking her several times if she really would love me no matter what and all kinds of lines like that I told her. I told her I had been struggling with something that nobody knows about. That there is something I have been dealing with since I was roughly 8 years old. That I'm so ashamed. Before I could even get the words out her face changed from concern and worry to a kind puzzled look. She asked "What is it? Are you watching porn?" I couldn't believe it. I admitted to it and told her that it was an issue I've been dealing with my whole life and I didn't know how to get over it. Surprisingly she was so supportive and told me I don't need to apologize and she wasn't angry at all. She asked me if I was looking at porn of someone I knew. I haven't been so I was able to honestly tell her no. She said if that's the case she didn't care. She said she is upset that I kept it from her and was hiding it but that she understands why and is there for me. 

I poured my heart out and told her everything. I told her that I've been working with my therapist to deal with it and that I want to stop watching porn altogether. I spoke to her about filters and she agreed to look at filters with me and help me. She told me if I ever feel an urge to just tell her and she would help me through it. 

I am still in the shock of it all. I want to tell everyone here who is going through similar questions of whether to come clean or not about it that for me it has been the greatest thing ever. Following our conversation I have never felt so free. It is as if this deep dark secret has just floated away. The weight I've been carrying around of the real me is gone. The shame, guilt and everything else is gone. Now I'm just a guy with a yetzer harah and I'm working on shechting it. 

My relationship with my wife following this conversation has been incredible. I know it hasn't been long and it is possible this will all wear off but for now I find myself looking for things to make her happy all the time now. I'm not doing it because I want something from her it just because I'm in love with her (again). My Davening this Shabbos was the best Davening it has ever been. I'm not sure if I even remember how to say this with 100% honesty but for the first time I feel like I can say "I am happy". 

This addiction and the journey to overcome it may very well be the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Thank you Hashem for giving me this addition. Thank You Hashem for helping me through it. Thank you to the GYE Heroes who have encouraged, inspired and supported me. If not for you I would never have gone in to therapy. I would never have pushed myself more and more to deal with my real issues. I would never have told me wife and not just saved my marriage but made something so much more. I am grateful to everyone here. 

I am 4 days in now to my new 90 day challenge but this time I am not just saying that I will be clean. This time I really believe it. 

Hatzlacha! Hope to be back soon with another update in the near future!

Captain wrote on 21 Aug 2020 13:08:

I like to think that I'm an addict but not in a necessarily negative sense. I think I'm an addict as I think the AA describes it as "being hyper sensitive" to the desired "thing". Same goes to the "powerlessness" to it, namely, lust. What that means is, I can't expect to watch porn and not act out. I can't expect to indulge in fantasies and not act out. I'm an addict, I'm hyper sensitive to this stuff. So what this means is, for my whole life I should make great efforts to avoid exposure to these triggering elements.
I think it's kinda like saying you're a diabetic (C"V) and thus knowing that you can't eat that cake right in front of you and you would do well to stay well away from any cakes not to be tempted to eat them. So it's not a negative thing for someone to be a diabetic, it's just a fact of life. I can be sober for my whole life as well as I suppose a diabetic can be healthy and live a long life, as long as he takes his necessary precautions. I would do well to always take my precautions.

BTW: Starting, great thread as always, please keep us posted! Your willpower is amazing.