jerusalemsexaddict wrote on 01 Oct 2009 21:37:

Hello friends,

I am here again. Certainly I already change my tactics a little bit.
I know myself, what I can do, what I can't what I did in the past, and what I did not.
Since honestly, I cannot say what I can't, I know at least what I can. And I know I can make 100 days approx. of cleanness.
This is something I did in the past, (60-100). 2 times 60, one 100.
So I will stick with what I know I can. Let's make a journey of 90 days.
Now what is it worth If I do not past 100 days?
Easy. I can tell for my experience, that once I passed the 100 days, I was not the same addicted any more. Yes, I went back to same old same old... but not. I certainly was more kadosh. Just believe me, my addiction got one step less severe.
And this is what I will aim right now, to keep debilitating my addiction, even if it is not once and for all (right now), yes make big strides that debilitate it even further, till finally I may marry, and regain a normal live.
And that is this journey.
You know, last weeks I saw a movie (note that if I want to quit, movies are a no-no forever), but well, everybody dressed kosher, since they were in space. "Life" was its name. Now. I never see terror movies, but I suddenly just watched this one. (confinement, sorry, I know, this has to end). And there was an alien form that kept killing everybody. It turns out that that alien could resist heat, was intelligent, fooled everybody, and well, spoiler alert, a baddas.
The point is that at the end of the movie I realized, that that alien was intelligent, did not talk, fooled everybody. And was virtually unkillable.
Now in the movie, every time they directly interacted with it, they lost. Mostly they sub estimated his cunny and resistance.
There was only two instances where the alien was dying, till stop moving, in hibernation. And that was precisely when they just not interacted with it, when they did not give it oxygen or their own atmosphere.
What I mean is that this alien form, the yetzer hara, feeds of our air, of our struggles, of our depressions, of our focus on him, of our little temptations that we fall, and keep giving him air. Like the alien, if he has air, we are lost. Nor burning, fight or confrontation, we lose.
We do not give him of our air, we do not supply him oxygen, we do not let go of little looking here and there, little misbehavior, overeating, skip Torah, etc. This is his oxygen.
When we live in an environment of (as much as possible) no gaps, no air, no looking (we may repent if accidental or just impulsive) internet squeezed, movies squeezed, prayer, Torah, good habits...
It just dies. Believe me guys. It. Just. Dies. He gets into coma, like the alien. I know, only Hashem will kill it when Mashiach comes, but in the meantime, we must knock him out. We must deprive him of oxygen, so that we do our normal lives.
So simply solution and yet so elusive to the movie characters. Please, do not try to guide the yetzer, deal with him, say... what yetzer? If I give you a little you leave me alone? No, he won't. You just have to starve it to coma situation. And never revive him with any grievous sin any more.
That's what worked for me always when I made big clean strides, mind in a very, very unkosher city, by all means, where young people come to sin. This is my struggle, but this is the cure. Just starve him, by being 100 percent kadosh in every little detail, and ask forgiveness if you miss one inch.

So I fell again. I don't know but every 3-4 days, I just feel bored / anxious that I slip to my bad habits over and over again. It's been a while since I got to 5, let alone 7 days. Really struggling here.

I think one factor is I rely on myself too much. I know I'm smart and organized in other areas of my life, but I just can't seem to bring any of that to this struggle. Maybe I should try having a sponsor?

I will be having the first of my 3 free sessions with a psychologist this week. I felt before that this could be a game-changer, but in my negative mood now post-fall, I doubt if it can help much. After all, I have had these ideas to stop on my own before that I thought were game-changers. But I seem to just be in a big hole addiction-wise.

The method I started last time, the dedicating a period of sobriety for someone sick or departed to Olam Haba, is not fool-proof. I just didn't think of the person I had intentions for when my lust hit. Maybe I could have chosen someone I had more feelings for than someone's departed father that I didn't even meet? I guess I'm not as big of a Jew as I thought. Not there yet, definitely.

But despite everything, I got back up for selichot. This still counts as a win in my book, because sometimes I don't get up for days after a fall. I just stop everything and do what I call "goy days". I just say Modeh Ani and after that, no Jewish rituals at all. I hated myself for doing that, but I just felt hopeless in those times, that Hashem didn't really want me anymore so I stop making the effort. I will try my best to get that goy day concept out of my system this Elul.

I hope everyone is safe and doing better than me. My lesson for today is this: even if we don't feel good about ourselves, we still serve Hashem no matter what. I hope I cling to that for the rest of this week.

Thank you to everyone who has posted here so far. You don't know how much it means to me to hear from fellow Jews who struggle with this nisayon of ours. 

Especially today, Motzae Shabbat. This day is usually the toughest of the week for me. It's like I compensate for the time I spent away from my mobile phone by indulging in porn right after Shabbat ends. Not proud of it and I kind of hated myself for doing so. I mean, what kind of Jew is "tired out" by Shabbat so as to jump right back in to doing averot?

But this day is different. As a convert in a Mizrachi / Sephardic community, today is the first day (after Rosh Chodesh and Shabbat) that we start saying Selichot for a month, every day until Rosh Hashanah. I don't want to start the process of teshuvah by indulging yet again in a forbidden pleasure.

Hence I am posting here. I believe that a big part of my addiction is not bringing it up to the light. As they say, the sun is the best disinfectant. I also prayed to Hashem humbly to guide me, as nothing succeeds without siyata dishmaya. 

I use an app called Quitzilla to track my hourly sobriety progress, and so far it's at 3 days and 15m. Counting days so far seems to jinx them, making me think that it's ok to have a slip because I kind of "deserve" it (obviously a BIG NO).

Right now, I'm trying a new tactic. I offer up my sobriety period daily, from Shkiya to Shacharit, and Shacharit to Shkiya, for someone's healing or bringing up of souls to Gan Eden. I read somewhere here in GYE that this nisayon of ours is a sign of a strong, spiritually-attuned neshamah. Not saying I am one, but on the off-chance that I am, I want to make my sobriety count.

I see it also as an "incentive" for nekiyut. I know that we are not supposed to do misvot like shmirat habrit for rewards, only because Hashem commanded us to do so. But I recognize that I am an addict and that I am not yet the tzadik that I hope to become.

If my love for other people can help me to fulfill this key mitzvah (because unfortunately, sometimes I just don't love myself enough to refrain from this averah), then why not? I read somewhere that even one who studies Torah lo lishma will eventually do so wholeheartedly. What more with guarding the brit that represents the wellspring of Torah?

Comments and suggestions are welcome. This is a learning process for me so I won't always get everything right, but as Pirkei Avot says, I can learn from everyone if I am humble enough to do so.

Shavua tov!

Grant400 wrote on 20 Aug 2020 13:07:

Thanks for the chizuk, Grant. There were so many times when I really wanted to give up, but even in my worst days of falling to my porn addiction, I tried to cling to two mitzvot with a passion: keeping kosher and keeping Shabbat. And so far, Hashem has helped me get back up. I hope you're doing well.

Captain wrote on 21 Aug 2020 17:41:

Nice post. But I think you left out a “not” in the second paragraph. 

I like this. My point was that we should seek to gain all the benefits that come when people label themselves as addicts without the negative consequences and misery that comes along with it, by saying it differently.

"I am a person who is challenged by this and must be cautious and put in work, but I am not defective and permanently broke and I am not an addict for life."

That sounds much better than "I am an addict," which is usually interpreted by the person's brain as "I am an addict and I do these things always, and if by some lucky miracle I manage to reach 90 days clean, I'm still an addict and a tainted person."

Captain, I 100% approve what you just said.

It's a problem of denomination. Nobody IS an addict. It's just some people HAVE bad habits and different ways to react to the lust feelings that are the same for the ones we call 'addicts' and the ones we call 'normal'.

Someone saying that he IS an addict is putting a limited definition on himself, putting himself into a conceptual jail from which he will never escape.

Why not say that you ARE more than anything a jew, a son of Hachem, with a Neshama. This is what you ARE.

Then, you HAVE this job, you HAVE this car, you HAVE those eyes, this face shape, and also, you HAVE some bad habits in the way you react to normal lust feelings.

I just posted something related to this on this subject : guardyoureyes.com/forum/4-On-the-Way-to-90-Days/353856-My-90-day-Journey?limit=15&start=15#354077

Wether it's addiction or simply excessive lusting, it's a gift from a Hachem, because in order to win this fight we have no other choice than surrendering and jumping into His arms.

At the end this can make us much much closer to Hachem than someone for who it's not even a struggle.

In fact, this is not a struggle, a malediction, an addiction or anything, it's just a tool among others to get closer to Hachem.

For some people, getting close to Hachem requires has vechalom health or parnassa issues, for us, it's the lust feelings.

And I think it's actually the best way to reach true connection with Hachem, because there is nothing for which we need Hachem more than this fight. It's a cheat code for true devekus. Either you surrender to Hachem, either your life will be messed up.

Also, I am not sure if it's the fact of having watched these movies which triggered those especially strong lust feelings, or if those feelings were already there, sleeping, just waiting for something to eat.

I personnaly think that the amount of lust feelings of a given person would be the same with or without exposition to p. films. It's just than the ones we call "addicts" got used to act and react to these lust feelings.

If p. films didn't exist, those "addicts" would have the same struggles with lust, but they wouldn't have the opportunity to act on it. So they would be forced to renounce and surrender and to give up on lust.

But in our modern world, we have a very easy way to act on lust, and so we don't surrender, because we think we can satisfy our lust appetite.

So to sum up, an addict has the same lust feeling as an non-addict. It's just that the one we call addict got used to act on these feelings, whereas the non-addict gave up on satisfying these feelings because there were simply no option for him to satisfy them.

It's much easier to give up on eating chocolate, if there is no chocolate.

So the key for us all on this website is to realize that what we call chocolate actually doesn't exist. Our brain chemicals think it's 100% real chocolate, we have to explain to them that it's not, it's empty.

I am not sure if I'm right, and if it makes sense but it seems conceivable to me

Hi,

This is so relevant to me at the moment.

I too have been falling. And I too have no real filter / accountability software. I use webchaver, but it doesn't really work for me. Super simple for me to get around the filter, and it barely ever spots anything other than flat out porn for me. I've only ever had it come up in my report once that I visited inappropriate sites. My parents could have seen this, but thank G-d, they didn't open the email that week. I'm just saying, make sure it works for you before you get it.

Hard as it is to admit, I think the above posts are right. We're lusters. And that means willpower won't cut it. It's like I saw in relation to the 12 steps - there's an idea we are powerless. Someone wrote in to this site screaming that is against Judaism, which believes we have free choice etc. But GYE responded it doesn't mean we have no power to change. It means we cannot change that we are addicts. We can now do what works for addicts, and stay clean. But we cannot just 'not be addicts.'

I bet you think like I do that we're not addicted. Just heavy lust. Could be, but the results speak for themselves. Quitting with willpower isn't working. My proof? 6 years of trying. That's the proof. I believe the yetzer tries to get us to believe we have more control then we do. But its an illusion. Addiction or now addiction. I can't beat this with will alone.

I'm writing this mainly to myself. I was even going to write it on my own thread. But it was so relevant here. You're going through exactly the same thing I am. We need to decide to change.

Hatzlocha

I love this! Keep up the good work!

This is something that I always found difficult to understand. There's so much focus on viewing ourselves as addicts, but that causes us to feel that we're going to lose the battle and then we do. And we surely lack the confidence needed to fight and win.

​I know that the 12 steps mentions the need to identify oneself as an addict, and many people say that supposedly Rabbanim seemed to be saying that the person should always think he's going to lose. But is that really what they are saying, at the expense of having any confidence in out ability to fight, and at the cost that we view ourselves as people who will surely give in at some point- which will be a self-fulfilling-prophecy? Or do they really mean that we should admit that there's vulnerability and there's a problem that needs work, and that we should also be cautious and not put ourselves situations where we can fall- but without actually identifying ourselves as broken people who will never get things right?

Does anyone else find it unhelpful to think of themselves as incapable in this struggle? Because I think that needing a higher power (Hashem) and being cautious and putting in time and work for this does not contradict the fact that one needs to feel capable with Hashem's help of winning when challenged.

spaced wrote on 20 Aug 2020 11:24:

Amazing. You are such a kidush HaShem and an inspiration.
We’re all cheering you on!!!

spaced wrote on 20 Aug 2020 11:24:

This is so beautiful, and really gives me hope! Thank you.

I'm a ger tzedek but not quite a tzadik. I have long struggled with porn addiction and same sex attraction. I thought that conversion will not only bring me closer to Hashem and Am Yisrael, but also lessen my tendencies for illicit pleasure. Alas, my yetzer hara has even grown stronger. I'm also single and stuck alone during this pandemic lockdown.

However, as I told the bet din during my giyyur, I accept all the mitzvot bar none. Hence I won't quit the fight. I have fallen thousands of times and gotten up the same number of times, but I am not contented. I have a dream, a tough one: that of becoming a tzaddik with kids and grandkids who will help bring about the geulah.

Hence I'm starting this journal. I have joined GYE a while back, joined a live SA group (we don't meet anymore due to the virus), read Torah and mussar, etc. But I know I should do more. I have even contemplated suicide before, but now I've kinda accepted that this is my avodah, to show the world that a convert can and will keep even the hardest mitzvot of shmirat habrit and einayim. 

I hope that people who read this know that not one of us is truly alone in this struggle. We are connected to all Jews past and present through the brit. I will try my best to honestly document my struggles in this journal so others could learn from my mistakes (and hopefully my successes). Let's do this.

Thanks Grant! I loved all of your posts on this thread, but this one really hit the nail on the head. 
I would just add that what you write regarding the need that list fills is true of all other self-destructive behaviors and addictions. It’s just that lust is uniquely accessible and built in to a person and is the easiest addiction to hide...