Guardian wrote on 24 Apr 2020 08:53:

Right, thank you for that.
For me it still seems depressing. But I believe my outlook on life is out of date. 
I am very outcomes-based and get very fidgety when I am sitting with a problem and don't make progress on it.
I guess that's one idea why I lust, it's all just so outcomes-based, a total spiritual experience in a few minutes or so. And no effort either!

I think that one of the biggest hindrances to success is the misunderstandings of how it happens. So often we look toward people we consider successful and we assume that it happened easily. That they put in a couple of days work and poof they turned into this or that. But that is simply an illusion. Nothing worth doing or worth becoming happens quickly. It happens slowly little by little. 
This might seem depressing but I think that is only the case if you value the outcomes more than the process. 
Overcoming our addictions is a huge and amazing achievement. But I don't think that it is as amazing as the journey we take to get there. Every day we are faced with hundreds of challenges. Hundreds of opportunities to grow. That is amazing. 
I am thankful that I have a Yetzer Hara, without it, I wouldn't have anything to fight against and grow. 

Trusting a Higher Power
From the Book, Hey What About Me. 

Faith holds together all the characteristics… Path of the Just

Trust is the number one-character trait where all others are intertwined.  When you have faith there is no need to get angry, scared or depressed. Accepting where you are in life is where you are supposed to be, is the path to serenity.  Living in the present moment, not reliving your past or worrying about your future, is the path to emotional sobriety, peace of mind and freedom. When you trust in a Higher Power, you will become independent, not needing to place hope in another person or in yourself.   You will not have to please other people to make them like you or have to flatter them to please you.   You will be free to express yourself because you don’t have to depend on them for your self-worth.

In the words of Duties of the Heart, if one trust in G-d, his soul is at rest, his heart tranquil, untroubled by decrees…. But one who does not trust in G-d, even when he is prosperous, he is always troubled and in a state of continual anxiety, mourning and grieving (because of his lust) to increase and multiply his possessions and hoard them. 

According to Abraham Amsel in Judaism and Psychology (84, Feldheim, NY, 1969), “trust presupposes the belief that G-d molds circumstances in accordance with His will, that He wills the good of man and that He is completely just in His reward and punishment, the latter attribute, presupposes the free will of man.”

People who openly deny the existence of G-d and therefore cannot put their trust in a Higher Power greater than themselves, cannot enjoy genuine peace of mind, tranquility and contentment.  They are enslaved by fears and anxiety because they have no real power to hold onto for security. They hold on to the belief that they can control themselves and don’t need anyone to give them help or a crutch to push forward.  They become the gods of their own understanding.

Imagine if you were given the task of forming a living planet with trees, fruits, vegetables, humans and animals. Use your imagination and figure out what new types of fruits and vegetables could you create.  What would they look like, smell like, taste like?  Then imagine you were the higher power and you could create and do whatever you wanted.  Of course, you would be an all loving god because that’s what we all want to envision.  Anything and everything is permitted in your society.  There are no laws, rules, decrees, customs, consequences or punishments.  No natural disasters, just everyone does as they please until someone gets upset at someone else and kills them, or runs a red light, wrecks a car, or someone falls from a three- story building and injures themselves. Now what are you going to do?  Just say, oh well, you can do whatever you want to whomever you want and there are no consequences?  What kind of world would that be?  Then make sure the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening and you’ll have to create seasons so the vegetables and fruit you create can grow.  Or, you could just go on perpetual vacation and let the chips fall where they may.  How long do you think this society would last?

Trust in G-d does not mean standing around in busy traffic and getting run over, or sitting on your porch all day, hoping someone will shower down money upon your household. No. You still have to put in the effort to work and put food on your table.  The extent of abundance is out of your control.  You have to put in the work and trust G-d with the results.  Otherwise, constant worry will never bring peace of mind and tranquility of spirit.  A person who trusts G-d does not get upset when his requests are not granted.  Do you ever tell your children NO?  Then why is it so difficult for you to accept no from a Higher Power who has your best interest at heart?

How am I supposed to have trust if I grew up with abuse and trauma?

People have free will to do as they please and therefore we cannot blame G-d for what people do to others.  We find people in society who are willing to suffer for the greater good of society, like firefighters, doctors, and soldiers. But sometimes people suffer against their will and it could be for the sake of keeping free will present in society. If every time someone decided to do evil and G-d prevented it, there would be no free choice.

A person might ask, why me? And that’s a question that cannot be answered with any form of certainty. G-d gives us many tests in life, some we understand and some we cannot. You are alive today, despite the abuse and trauma.  You are a survivor, not a victim any longer.  Your task in life from now on is to heal from past trauma and abuse and move forward in breaking the generational chain which has so captivated your mind.

According to Rabbi Shmuel Waldman in “Beyond A Reasonable Doubt,” Sorrow possesses great potential power to expand our lives, enlarge our vision, and deepen our understanding.  Grief can also help purge us of immature pettiness and selfishness.  It can build our strength back with patience and a new understanding of human nature.

A client writes, “Bankruptcy literally and emotionally has been a recurring theme in my life.  Addiction comes along and makes it worse, a roller coaster ride over and over the same bumps and hills.  I have no regrets.”

It would seem to me that it depends on the content of the prayer. I'm not familiar with it but do they mention the name of an avodah Zarah? If they simply say something along the lines of Heavenly Father it would seem you could have in mind that you're directing your tefilah to Hashem and I don't see that it would be a problem. 

On the other hand I would recommend reflecting on where your concern is coming from. Meaning to say if you're sincerely concerned because you want to be closer to Hashem or if this is a ploy of the yetzer harah to get you to avoid something that would help you get closer to Hashem (i.e. attending the meetings and recovering from the addiction). 

Just my $0.02

mamishagevald wrote on 22 Apr 2020 18:28:

Yo. Welcome! You know, I relate to a lot of the stuff you're going through. Frum women drive me crazy too (especially my wife!!)
In my bouts of insanity I am jealous of hearing how other people had "experiences" with other guys when they were younger. Like I had so many things I needed to try before I "got good".
Enjoy your journey! Keep posting. It's refreshing to hear and empathise.

The book "God of Our Understanding: Jewish Spirituality and Recovery from Addiction" by Rabbi Shais Taub might be helpful here

Ive been around here for some time but never got the gutts to say much and so the story goes i didn't get very far anyway here I am trying this again 
I grew up in a normal home or so I thought but I know my whole life i was a very fearful boy and I mean very I didn't play ball in yeshiva out of fear that i won't be good so to me there's no learning period for anything but thank hashem I was a smart boy and was able to doa lot without but learning recently that I was living a crazy life I started looking what's different about my life and I realized
I grew up in a home fine perents but thay treated us like crap basically like there subjects not that thay beat us but that we had to excel for tham and I could go on forever but the point is that i never felt like a person that can succeed like all others and only felt secure when I was better then all the others but no learning for me i was afraid
As a young boy I was having erections all the time and I mean before I knew what sex was and I was already looking for naked girls just simply being amused by naked girls then came the day someboy told me about sex and i couldn't stop thinking about it then sometime later i went to highschool and the boys spoke sex and I'd go crazy always being the frum Guy getting upset but looking back it probably had more to do with that regular boys just spoke about it but me it just took me over because i was so addicted and overtakin by sex
Anyway some of the boys were busy with the phone sex services but I wasn't because I never asked any one for the numbers because i didn't do these things but the time came when a friend told me some of the numbers while saying everyone  knows them and  I called that night and couldn't get myself away from them anymore calling them and listening to the opening massage but again and again until I almost got caught but I was addicted to sex 
I also didn't ever think of myself as gay because I always craved girls but I did also sometimes get a craving for certain boys even in my younger years and I've even gotten in to bed with a boy  naked as we touched and masturbate together and enjoy touching and carresing each other   so I don't know maybe someone can help with that 
got older and it aint goin nowere im just getting more addicted waching porn fantasizing every frum girl i see and masturbating my brains off 
I came here some time ago trying a lot of the program but not getting very far a good week here and there that's about it so then I tried the ultimate telling a close friend about it all now let me tell you that was hard but I did it anyway to try to helpmyself but that even though lasting much longer didn't do the job and here I am all addicted begging for help

Hey everyone, 

So I didn't really put any effort or thought into changing my behaviors until high school. In high school I realized that what I was doing was inappropriate but sadly it is so prevalent in the high schools that I didn't view myself as having a "problem" or and "addiction" that needed to be addressed. I thought of my struggle as normal behavior for a teenage boy. During this time I got deeper into my addiction to pornography and started to act out not only with masturbation but with relationships. 

I would go through this roller coaster of ups and downs where I would go from  excelling in my Torah studies and becoming ​shomer negiah and then these lows where I would be involving myself in activities that would pull me down and destroy my kedusha. It was at this stage in my life that I started to really struggle with the feeling of this developing "secret side of me" that nobody else would know about. 

Fast forward to now for a moment. I've signed up to GYE (as can be seen) and I'm just starting out on my journey. I jumped right into a 90 day challenge and made it 5 days before stumbling. I didn't let the fall drag see down and just brushed myself off and restarted (today is day 1) but I realized that signing up to this website and saying "I'm going to be clean from now on" isn't going to cut it. This will take real work, planning, strategizing and commitment. 

I just received my Quick Guide To Stopping from the GYE team. I read through it and the handbook and I'm committing to a new strategy "90 Minutes to 90 Days". I'm going to b'ezras Hashem spend 90 minutes a day for the first 90 days working on this. I'm not sure yet what those 90 minutes will look like but I need to spend some serious time working on this. Here's to the next 90 days clean! 

Thank you, I think that is great advice.

My goal would be able to stay clean for the rest of my life. And being clean now is also really important, and more difficult, because I am single and I want to be clean for my marriage, so I know that it is important to really fix it up now.  

However, I think your advice is really great. I think part of the issue for me is that I went so many days clean, and since my goal is "forever" there is, according to my yetzer hara, no difference between the rest of my life starting 301 days ago and the rest of my life starting now- both would be extremely long times of being clean. However, when I think rationally, I still know this logic is flawed, because it is so hard to get back up to this point and can take months, years, or potentially a whole lifetime, to get out of a really bad phase of addiction. I know this because I once had a streak in similar length to this one, but fell, and it took about year of bad addiction to get back and really be serious about stopping. 

Thank you so much. 

Can you explain why you are sure you must disclose?
Also, what exactly are you disclosing? addiction? or just "regular" porn use?

I have not been here since my father passed away 

Since then my uncle and mother also passed away 

I have become far more understanding of my reasons for struggling in viewing addiction 

At the same time I am still struggling 

Its difficult in these times of difficulty 

Imagine if you live near the Niagara Falls, would you be interested in looking at a two inch high waterfall? It would not be hard to look away from that. The physical beauty of woman is just a two inch waterfall compared to the beauty of the soul. Why would we want to focus on this insignificant thing and miss the true beauty instead? Perhaps this is what Lust addiction is after all, just a fantasy that some insignificant thing will make us happy, when of course it can't, because we are missing the true beauty and the things that will really make us happy.


Sometimes when we're out there in the big world surrounded by all the temptations, with beautiful women wherever we seem to look, we cry out in our hearts "Dear G-d, where are you? I can't see you, I can't feel you! All I see is a beauty of a different kind, wherever I look!"... But then the answer comes to our hearts from G-d, "my son, does there exist any beauty besides me? I am in the beauty you see as well!". For G-d is indeed everywhere, and he is the source of all beauty. The beauty that we see and crave here on this world is truly only a mere shadow of a manifestation of G-d's beauty. We need to train our minds to realize that there are no two types of beauty. There is only one source of beauty in the world. What we see in women is also the beauty of G-d. But G-d has decreed that in order to merit perceiving his true beauty, we must first learn to turn our eyes away from the physical beauty that is also his creation and manifestation. In his great wisdom, G-d determined that only one who is ready to give up the physical manifestations of G-d's beauty, will be worthy of experiencing the true beauty of G-d, in a much more sublime way.

I hope everyone had a nice Yom Tov! 
Still ok, next post wanted to discuss Sundays. Or more specifically Mozei Shabbos to Sunday Lunchtime. That is the hardest time in my opinion.
For this time: hitting rock bottom. (As always, PLEASE ARGUE)
I am not an expert on addiction nor do I necessarily think I have or had an addiction. But a basic is that people usually don't make changes until "they hit rock bottom". This is beyond addiction. If anyone has ever cut back the food or gone on a diet after experiencing something that signaled - you have a weight problem very acutely. Or when you wait and 10 minutes before the latest zman (the b'dieved one), you see a clock and you go 'wow, I have to daven Mincha now!.'
The problem I have found is we really have an issue admitting we are in a bad place, or more to the point - convincing ourselves that despite us B'H not being homeless on the street or in deep trouble of some physical kind (like when the debtors come for the gambling addicts r'l) that we need to change. It's a must. And let me clarify, we want to change and know we have to ... but when you hit rock bottom, you know this is it. There's no way to continue on this path or bad news. That type of clarity is hard to come by in my experience. The biggest issue is we have a unique paradox. We think too highly of ourselves, and we get depressed about how low we are. When we should recognize how low and weak we are, and how great it is what we do considering!
So what do you do? Really consider how unbelievably pathetic you are in a positive way! [Author's Note: you are not actually pathetic but I mean pathetic in the following mashal if a child who just learned to walk a year ago is attempting basketball shots on a regulation-sized hoop, they are bad - horrific, not stam bad, but unable to play. If they start crying, you go what are you doing? You are 2 and 1/2 feet tall. The basket is 10 feet tall. It is absolutely absurd to consider you can make it. The fact once you flung it 6 feet in the air is pretty impressive. So too we need to stop with this notion that we are some huge person who should be making spiritual jump shots with ease - that isn't true and thinking that is well absurd. This is not the same thing as thinking oneself is bad - that happens usually for opposite, you consider yourself a solid roleplayer on the basketball team, yet you haven't made two shots in a row in weeks.]
Let me mention two points. 1. We should consider how great inappropriate material is, and much we truly enjoy it. How it brings us a tremendous dose of whatever that is hard to duplicate. 2. We likely don't have a great alternative at the moment. 
This point came in one of Dov's Shovavim talks and hit me like a very nice, well-designed wall of bricks. He's right. In my words, we have some issues, be it stam stress, inner demons, personal life stuff, and a plane full of baggage. We have a quick resource that supplies a tremendous amount of dopamine and ability to focus on something fantastical. Sure, it is bad, an aveira, ruins this and that, makes us feel yucky and guilty. But that doesn't take away that it is quite enjoyable! Think if you had a meth or heroin addict, and you see they are curled up, disgusting clothes, haven't showered in weeks, live in the street, might have not eaten normally for days, obviously very unhealthy. Now you expert, what's the diagnosis? Should you say this stuff is bad. THEY KNOW THAT! What do you not know - HOW AMAZING IT MUST BE! Why else (even if they have issues) would someone who has seen these results get involved? It must be quite good. 
The second point do we really have such power in our learning, our tefilla, or playing with our kids, shmoozing with our spouse. Does opening the siddur really give the rush of a Google Search. No, it likely does not.
So what's the point? If we really eternalize our situation, we can see wow we need help! And two, we are on the bottom, so when we start crawling out of it, we don't have this hanging expectation of the child who thinks they can score 3 pointers like their favorite player. We recognize we need a child hoop, a good coach, and some time to get to the level we need. That doesn't take away from what we do, but it puts it in perspective and if done healthily helps us appreciate real, slow and steady progress.

Hello, fellow Guard Your Eyes members,

I'm not going to reveal my name, but I'm 23 years old and tired of the life that I've lived. Every day I'm saddened at where I am in life and where I potentially can be. Most of my existence (starting in 6th grade) I've been addicted to pornography and recently I've been obsessed with asking girls inappropriate things over chat. I've realized that I want to marry a girl that is looking at connecting with Hashem (our creator) and someone that has had there struggles in life. Well, I'm using this website to help me get out of my addiction and enjoy my life devoted to Hashem. Now, I was wondering if there's anyone that can help me with my addiction and set me free of porn. 
Thank you for whoever is reading this post. B'ezrat Hashem I will remove these inclinations before I study at Yeshiva. 

Hello fellow sufferers. 

Im TomatoJew, for years Ive suffered with this awful addiction without knowing I had a serious problem. Much like many other i told myself that this is a teenage problem, it will pass as i get older and for sure this issue will not effect me by the time i am married. Now I am 19 years old, and my addiction is as strong as it has ever been. I am worried. I am worried because now i am aware that this is not an issue which goes with time, it is an issue which needs action. I have a serious girlfriend, and how can I even think about marriage when this addiction is also on my mind. It disgusts me, and i feel ashamed to still be suffering because of it. I decided I need to make a change. Whilst success seems a long long way away, this is at least a start in attempting to make a difference. So here goes.
05/04/2020