Hi!
I believe you were not around 'way back then' when I was so nice to meet you

I want to relate to what you said purely through my experience without implying that your experience is/was/ or will be the same:

I spent many years going through the cycle I described, from early teenage years. I would struggle to be clean for a few days. After 3 or 4 days and ever so occasionally after a week I would collapse. I would go on a binge that would last till the early hours of the morning, sometimes continuing the next day.

As an addict I was almost never the type who could watch porn for 5 minutes, masturbate and get on with my day. I can't remember this ever happening. For me each time I gave into lust (and as I would later learn it's a power greater than me) I would be swallowed into a obsessive pursuit that would take me further than I wanted. This is not to say everyone is like that.

At first it was as you described, easy to rebound from these falls, pull myself together, get inspired, get some chizuk and be on my merry way back to day 1.

However, as time goes on it got harder to 'keep on trucking' (do they still say that here even???) after a fall. Things got darker and the inspiration and wishful thinking that once worked no longer were helping me.

Things got alot worse along the way and that's for another time to elaborate on.

So yes, every day of sobriety is precious. But looking back, and having built up longer periods of sobriety I can say one thing with certainty: in that ongoing binge, remorse, inspire, absolve, retry once again cycle my growth as a human being was stunted. My ability to develop at many levels was almost non existent because I was stuck in a constant cycle of withdrawal, flooding my psyche with the drug of lust and fogging my brain, numbing out whatever little emotional capacity I did have. The few days after the binge were not truly living. Living in constant inspiration, withdrawal and struggle is not life.

I don't mean to detract from the value of any day amount of sober days. My point is that eventually the cycle became for me very painful and things became more unmanageable.

AlexEliezer wrote on 28 Apr 2020 18:17:

Now that I think about it I see how true that is unfortunately. I can't just say OK I'm feeling low etc which is just a general term, there is some feeling which has to be pinpointed here. Why was I in a good mood a few minutes ago while I was occupied? Evidently it's just boredom creeping in here or something.
So I've got what to think about 
Thanks

starting wrote on 28 Apr 2020 15:58:

When I was acting out, and I know this is true for many addicts of all sorts, any excuse would do.  Being tired, bored, stressed, angry, frustrated, feeling sorry for myself, lonely, unappreciated, etc.  As an addict, these feelings are welcome, because they provide an excuse to take my drug.

Welcome!
What's the plan?

You mentioned feeling aroused (you used a different word).
For me, this is the core of sobriety -- not getting aroused.
This is the thing we are addicted to.
Not P or M. 
Arousal. 
P is a way to obtain high doses of the drug.
M is the inevitable release of the illicit tension.

For me, avoiding arousal means not looking at women or indulging in the thoughts.  While not at all easy, it makes the rest of the struggle much more do-able.

Have a great, clean day!
Alex

Hi all

I was wondering if anyone else has issues with eating too much, emotional eating etc. I am aware there is a whole fellowship for this but my wife's uneasy about going to actual meetings, sharing and interacting with (mostly) women there if I don't really need to, it's not making my life unmanageable I believe, however it does kickstart a progression to lust. I eat too much then feel bad etc we all know this.

So maybe let's have this topic for specifically this issue, hints, tips, help and experience, strength, hope. I'd love to hear from you.

For me, a bad bout was on Shabbos where I opened the fridge and a glass jug came crashing onto the floor and I was so angry I proceeded to eat a whole slab of chocolate (I didn't even taste it) and five biscuits in one bite, sorta. I did act out lustly the day before and the two kinda play on each other. No serenity in active addiction that's for sure!

I don't really have any tips myself on how to curb eating, but when I'm working I don't feel hungry, but when I'm with the wife and kids I suddenly get very hungry and the whole day feels like a pain.
Then I feel bad because I wish I loved my family as much as I did my work.
Oh man, there are a lot more issues it seems!!!!

Hi everyone,

I'm no newcomer to GYE. In fact I was a very active member here a few years ago (under a very different username) and I used to spend many many many hours on the forum. I have fond memories of digging up ancient GYE posts at 3am and reading fascinating forum topics stretching for 100+ pages....

​I was also active on the chat and met really great people who I eventually went on to be on contact with on WhatsApp (before it was popular) and eventually spoke to some on the phone.

I was zoiche to be in touch with truly old timer GYEs who were around from when the website was still called GUE. I believe some are still on here today.

A few years ago I dropped off GYE. (Ok, probably less drastic than I think )

So why am I back tonight? I hear you ask

Or, maybe you are asking why did I leave?

Let's answer that one first. Eventually after years of trying here I realised that I am going to need more real help because I was not having success with GYE alone. Things just weren't working out despite really really trying. I was rarely if ever 'clean' for a week and those few days of fighting were followed by binges. The time when I was clean was a torturous time of whiteknuckling and fighting. I was also deteriorating in other areas of my life and generally things were getting worse, not better. This is not to say I believe GYE is to blame or GYE does not work etc etc - for the non addict there are an abundance of tools here and alot of people here are having clear success, staying sober, improving their marriages, growing religiously, spiritually etc. For me crucially, GYE got the wheels of recovery slowly turning. However, I personally needed a stronger dose of recovery beyond the virtual world here.

I went to live meetings of a 12 step fellowship that deals with addiction to lust. Alas, I am not sober from the day I walked in there and have had multiple relapses but I am experiencing inner growth that I never realised before and my periods of sobriety grew from an average of a few days to a few months plus. The sobriety itself has also been much progressively of much higher quality and generally the obsession has been relatively less present. I'm undoubtedly a different (for the good mostly) person than I was a few years ago. Today at least I am feeling generally hopeful about the future. And thank God there is a long way to go as well.

So now to answer the first question. Why am I back on GYE?

Recently I completed the 12 steps for the first time and today, just over a month sober I need YOUR help:

A crucial part of me working the steps (and thus standing a chance of sobriety and recovery) is carrying the message by sharing my story. Trust me, that is not at all in my nature but....basically, I'm looking for anyone, literally anyone on this forum - Jew, non jew, sober, not sober, single/married, young, old, chassidish,litvish, whatever, religious, irelligous, conservative, democrat, black, white, other, newcomer, oldtimer. Literally anyone who may be interested to lend me your ear and let me share - what happened to me and what things are like today. Maybe you will relate or maybe you won't. Maybe it will help you or maybe it won't. Either way I'll try be honest and by letting me share maybe I will stay sober just one more day

If you would like to speak, send me a private message and we"ll be in touch (I hope that doesn't sound too creepy lol)

Chaim2009 wrote on 03 Dec 2017 18:35:

So glad i came upon this post!
I can identify with alot thats written here. 

I find that most things I do in my addiction are ironic. Not saying you're an addict, just that there's a lot of irony going around. For me, it's sickening yes, it's insane yes, and in a healthy state all I can really do is laugh at it. 

Keep on truckin'!

PS, if you try falling harder on those unfiltered devices eventually you'll break them!

I just watched an amazing video called Urge Surfing. It does a fantastic job of explaining the reason the Yetzer Hara uses. The Yetzer Hara tells you to act out the craving so that it will go away. But this is just reinforcing the craving. The way to get rid of the craving is to decrease its strength. This is done by noticing that there is a craving, acknowledging that it is normal and comes from the body (not from you), and then letting it pass. Doing this repeatedly will slowly decrease the strength of the craving.The long nature of this can feel grueling and frustrating. But that is because our brains are tuned to desire quick results. I think the trick is to find the cravings pleasant instead of annoying. This might sound crazy but I am going to do my best to see each wave of craving as a positive occurrence. An opportunity to grow and to slowly chip away at this addiction.

Thank you for the share. It definitely reminds me of my own insanity, eloquently laid out in front of me. You think being aroused by a video of addiction is bad? One (or maybe a few) time(s) I was turned on by lifting the little wick on a tealight candle to a straight upward position while preparing my wife's shabbos candles!!!

Mazel tov on that long streak and the long resistance. You seem to have a good attitude for this and can really beat this.

Yeah, getting into autopilot downhill spiral isn't good. Pretty brutal at that point, you just have to stay off of all devices whatsoever for the day. It's especially brutal if you've been relying on an external circumstance such as someone else in the room.
Were you watching the
Ultimately though, slugging it out with the Yetzer Hara isn't great, which is why very strong filters are really nice (they ain't cheating). Let me know if you want any help with filters, I have over the last month helped a couple of college kids at my school on different devices with free filters especially android.  kornjaca55@zoho.com .

Today I finally fell.

Im not surprised. Its happened to me lots of times before. But today I fell in such a way that I feel like I have to share just so I can get my frustration off my chest (don't worry. For anyone who is reading this, I will not be going into any gross details, just the situation that caused them).

I share a room with my brother, who has an ipad with almost no filter. I have 3 devices myself, but most of them have at least some sort of a filtering thing. My brother always uses his ipad when he's home but today my parents went shopping so he came along and left his ipad behind. Soon enough, I decided to use it.

At first I didn't do anything bad on there. I'm an explorer, so I love looking up new places and how to get to those places, so thats what I was doing for awhile. But eventually the dark part of my brain took over and reminded me of what device I was on and what horrible things I could see. To speed things up a bit, I lost a little control and I saw some bad stuff but at least I stopped myself before I could do anything bad. 

Once I gained that control I was determined to not let go of it. I went away from that Ipad, to my side of the room, and davened Mincha. After I was done I decided to watch a video on Youtube on the problem we all have. I found a very interesting video that explained the science of this addiction, it was extremely interesting (if anyone wants, I can give you the name of the video). But my streak of good took a terrible turn when he started talking about the mind, and what this addiction does to it. He said something along the lines of "it affects what you do" and "it makes you sick" plus he went through some examples of the kinds of things someone with this addiction might do. There was a lot more to it than that which I don't remember, but I remember what it did to me.

After I stopped watching the video I began to question every part of my life. Was I really doing so and so all this time because I was sick? If I wasn't sick, would I have done something else? I was so upset by this that I even began questioning my love for girl members of my family (ex: cousins) because, what if I only loved them because they were girls and my diseased mind was trying to get me to come closer to them just because of that?

This shook me so much that the dark part of my brain gained new life, even as I tried to convince myself that this couldn't be true. I love them because we're family and because of all the memories that we share together. Not because I was sick. But it was no use. From that point on, it became much harder to chase away the darkness. I just felt too tired, too emotionally drained to do anything to stop it.

But I still held on.

My self-control was so poor at that point that I kept picking up one of my devices with a filter and searching for bad stuff. When I realized that I couldn't find anything I put it down. Then almost immediately I felt like searching again, with still no luck, so I put it down again. This went on a few times until I picked up my cell phone, which I found out today that it does not have a very good filter, and searched for bad stuff.

I found it, along with the end of a terrible battle that lasted about 5 hours that ended in defeat for me. The most frustrating part was that my defenses were broken by a video designed to teach people more about this addiction but instead allowed mine to get stronger. Not that I'm complaining about the video. It was a great video that taught me a lot about how the addiction works, and how it doesn't matter how many filters you have. If your mind isn't filtered it doesn't mean anything. That's why its so important to guide our eyes from things that can trigger our addictions. The video was about an hour long but I only watched about 30 minutes, but I hope to continue it when I fully convince myself that I'm not "sick in the head."

But there are some things that I am proud of from today. 1) It took 5 hours for my defenses to fall. That means what I have learned is starting to really help me. 2) Usually the yetzer hara gets me in ways that are predictable (ex: laziness, boredom, etc.) but I never would have been able to predict what happened today. Hopefully that means the Y'H is running out of ways to beat me and that now he's starting to scrape the bottom of his disgusting barrel.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully next time if something like this happens again I'll know what to do about it. But for now, I wish you luck on destroying your own addictions too!!

All I hear and know is lust lust lust, who cares if it's from the louvre or some other seedy establishment!!

I enjoy nude art, but not porn per se & that’s  all I have to say for masturbating symptoms!

Special Webinar this Sunday: Are the 12 Steps Compatible with Judaism?

You're invited to join a special webinar this Sunday Rav Doniel Katz and Eli Nash that will discuss whether the 12 step program is compatible with Judaism.

Rav Doniel Katz is the founder of The Elevation Project. A visionary educator and internationally sought-after lecturer, Rav Katz’s open and compassionate teachings have transformed the lives of thousands around the world.

Eli Nash is an entrepreneur who has invited the world into his journey of recovery from addiction and has inspired many to look more carefully at their own story as a source of meaning and purpose.

In what promises to be an insightful and riveting conversation, Eli and Rav Katz will explore how Eli’s personal recovery story matches up to what is found in the ancient Jewish texts. If you are a seeker of spiritual wisdom, knowledge and personal development, this conversation is for you. Those who are in recovery from addiction may be very interested in hearing the Kabbalistic perspective on this aspect of the human condition.

Come find out. Live.

When: THIS SUNDAY Apr 26, 2020 02:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Click here to register in advance for this webinar

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.