I had a fall.
What happened?
These 10 days aprox. I decided to go protected.
Pray with kavanot, no tv, no music, not looking to women and torah. Deep torah study.

It is interesting, because it is true, I was not tempted almost. Since nothing came throw my eyes. Ah, and no pictures on internet. Blocked. Only when I need something in a site, I say, put on the pictures on this site.
Of course, when looking for them, I can do the same with wrong sites, but the point is not to get tempted. Any mild nudity in a news site is strength for yatzer hara. No pictures. That's it. It is incredible the amount of provocative pictures we see everyday! Provocative yes, for a soap ad also. Everything is sensual on the pictures. No woman will appear fully dressed and not trying to look attractive. Crazy world we live in.

Anyway, that part was covered. But what happened?
I do not understand, why life changing things come on this moments?
So yes, news here and there that affect directly my immediate future. I could not sleep. I was hurting. And well, I resorted to the scape. And I know I did not needed it for the sensuality. I was not tempted for that really. I just simply wanted to fix all was happening to me.

So now I know I am in the phase where temptation is covered somehow protecting eyes and ears of lewd content. (Which is all mostly).
Pray and torah are the tools. And acting as holy as I can.
But I have to learn how to cope with social issues. So many years of falling has made me not have skills for difficult situations.
Once I read from joinfortify.com videos, that the brain on addicted people has a very small part dedicated for dealing with punish and rewards compared to healthy people, which is bigger.
That is, we do not know how to deal with life. At the smallest problem, we resort to the same mechanism, that it turns out needs very little part of the brain, since it is fundamentally as simple as it gets.
We resort to drugs. Better said, addictions, scape... And we all know, that in the long run, they are just worst.

May be the day that we grow that part, and learn rewards and coping with life with the marvellous world and marvellous instructions of the Torah that teaches us how to cope with it.
And we can only grow it, by passing through the storm of these moments.
Now I wonder. I learned how to avoid being tempted, and now may be only used as an scape of a "depression" or stressing moments. Can I learn how not to be depressed? Maybe I can avoid those phases too?. I read that one has to learn to cope with it in a healthy way they say. Ok. So at least I can make a plan how to do it. I maybe able to trigger a set of things. Sleep, go walking. I don't know. An icecream?
And I think it will start with a simple technique. Just sleep. Take a tila and sleep. That is all I needed. I just did not made it. But I can make it next time.
B'H'

What an inspirational fall

Ok, Ok, Let me explain, Give me a few minutes and I think you will agree with the title.

I just had my first real fall since joining GYE, and I have a few truly inspiring points to make.

I think it will benefit greatly for all those that are in the first couple of hundred days of staying clean and have falls here and there, likewise, It will be a tremendous chizuk and help, if you could comment, what you think is true, false, ideas tips and so on.

I apologize if it’s a little long, but a couple of minutes of your time, will perhaps change my life, so let’s give it a shot.

I would want to write about two topics, #1 what is the meaning of the title? Why am I so positive of this past day although I fell? An interesting gedank, that I had!

#2 A very interesting thought I had about why I fell (although life is good, and I was clean for 104 days) and How I think I can improve to decrease my chances of falling, connecting it to last week’s parsha!

In regards to the fall!

This is the first time I fell since I found GYE for the first time, In the past when I used to fall, I used to feel terrible, I felt like I deserve to be destroyed, I was scared hashem will take “revenge” on me (c”v), I was sure that I will never ever be able to get out of this and grow, because I had just recently promised myself “Never Again” and here I just fell again etc.

It’s a tremendous bad and lost feeling like many of you relate to, and even more than that, it always felt like I am starting from scratch! Although I knew in my head that every time we don’t fall, we become stronger and even with a fall, we still grew, it was very hard to actually feel it, I did not have any actionable data, to prove it and simply by thinking about it did not to much.

But this time around was different, VERY different, let me first explain the hours leading up to my fall.

When I joined GYE, the first thing I did (and highly recommend it), is I did the Taphsic Method, I made a shevua, the shevua was as follows, - If I don’t do anything before my fall, I need to give $1200 to GYE, Go to a certain place and say the entire tehilim & be out of my office for 6 hours (It’s a hard one!) – however If I do the following things, 1) I spend a few minutes on GYE 2) I talk to my wife for a couple of minutes 3) I listen to dovi shiurim for 15 minutes outside of the office 4) I go to a certain shul, and spend 45 minutes there, while learning gemoro for 15 minutes, - If I do all of those than I need to only pay $200 for GYE (It hurts my pockets!!), spend 2 hours out of the office, and go for a walk for an hour.

Ok, so that’s my shveua, it was and is a real-life saver, every time I had a hard day or some strong urges came up, this is what stopped me!

Leading up to my fall, obviously I had to implement all of these things, likewise I also did some thinking, and realized that the main reason I have such strong urges is because I am not feeling fulfilled, and having heard on one of dovi’s shiurim a great point, that setting small and achievable goals, will results in more fulfillment and more simcha, while setting large goals will result in depression and lack of fulfillment, and after hearing it, I immediately realized that this is my problem, I am a “large” person and set huge goals, in ruchniyos, learning, davening, shalom bayis, simcha and in business, and that is one of my main reason I felt a lack of fulfillment {More on this soon! Very important! So keep on reading}

So, Here is the event leading up to my fall at around 10:00pm at night, I first started with a series of small goals that I set for myself, to be able to feel more fulfilled, and I set a new one as I finished the last one, first was about doing something big for my shalom bayis, I told myself, you could do whatever you want after it, all I ask you is to say this and that to your wife and do this and that, it will take 3 minutes, THAT’S IT! – I did it! And felt fulfilled, then I decided I am going to learn for 10 minutes, THAT’S IT!, I did it and felt good and fulfilled, Then I told my wife I have 10 Minutes to help her, what should I do!, I did it! And Felt good, Then I Went to the office and set myself two small goals to get done, and I did it!

Point is, by the time an hour and a half went by, my desire to fall decreased dramatically!!! Because I felt much more fulfilled simply from the few small things I did and those tasks were set in advance to fulfill me once done!

But, I still had a desire to fall, but I had to apply my shevua, There was no way I am going to be pay $1200, it will break my bank! – So I started the process. I went out of the office and listened to 2 shiurim of Dovi’s recordings, WOW!! Is all I can say, Everyone MUST be on those, I am literally addicted to them for the last 18 hours! Truly inspiring, positive, pleasant, to the point and who knows what.

Then I spoke to my wife, and had a nice conversation, which made me feel even better – Lastly I sat down to learn for 20+ minutes gemoro rashi! Isn’t that ironic! I was learning as a hachana to sin… - but this is exactly my point!

By the time the 4 hours of “preparation were over” my desire had decreased so much that I was nearly sure I will not fall! {In the back of my mind I was worried that If I don’t fall, I wont renew my shevua that expires tomorrow, but If I will then I will renew it…. It’s a twisted thought…}

And then I fell!!

But here is what my point is – Unlike falling in the past, now I fell with a tremendous hachana! It sounds ironic, but I think its true and important, Falling is part of the cycle, שבע יפול צדיק וקם"  “ However a fall that has no impact, that leaves us with no lessons and no plans is a shame, a fall that makes us grow is something else!

I had a very interesting thought and I am truly interested to hear feedback on this – I once heard from one of the Ruzhiner rebbes, why is hachana to a mitzvah so important, we see by chasidim we make a big trusk about it, so far that we know “ the hachana to the mitzvah is even bigger then the mitzvah alone” why is that so.

So he explained, that is a mashal to someone that wants to light a fire to warm up his body, he knows that even with a fire he wont get warmed up unless the fire burns for a longer period, and he can get warm over time, that’s why before lighting the fire he prepares some thick and strong pieces of wood, that will burn for a long time once lit, however if he only prepares a few thin twigs the fire will be out in no time.

The nimshal is, the mitzvah is the fire itself, when a person does a mitzvah he starts a fire, however the thickness of the wood, will depend on his hachana, if he will prepare himself well, במחשבה דיבור ומעשה then once the fire hits when he performs the mitzvah the fire will stay on for a long time and keep him warm at all time, however without a hachana its like a few little twigs that caught fire, and after some time it will be gone. – It’s a strong and thoughtful point.

As I was “preparing” myself last night I had this thought, that by an averia it’s the opposite, when someone just does an averia without thinking anything before hand, with out at least trying to stop it, then his body which is a big chunk of chomriyos, will catch fire of the averia and keep burning with all of its after effects, like depression, averia gorreres averia etc. – however if we work on ourselves before an averia, we try to stay strong and not fall for it, the חומריות  of the body will decrease, with every effort we make to stop, the thick piece of wood, becomes smaller and smaller, our חומריות  becomes like twigs that even if c”v they catch fire, they will quickly diminish, and turn off, so the hachana helps on both ways.

And this is exactly what I felt, Although I had strong urges and I fell for them, the fire only lit up some small twigs, by the time I fell, I was pretty much uninterested at least in comparison to a couple of hours ago.

So, What do I want to say about all of this – First, It’s a tremendous zechus to be part of GYE, It does not guarantee that you wont fall, but if you implement and use the tools, what will happen is that the fire wont light up much in you.

Second, I want to point out, that this time around my fall was 104 floors higher then last time – last time I felt I am at ground zero, now I feel I fell but I am still on floor #104 – in the past I could never feel it, now I truly feel it!

Therefore I encourage to use and implement as much tools as possible, simply because your fall will have such a smaller impact and with each “הכנה דרבה” before a fall, the חומריות שבגוף  will become smaller, thinner and eventually be easily defeat able!

Now I want to quickly move on to the next point – Why I think I fell, and What I am going to do to prevent it.

To keep it short as possible, After some thought, I think that in order to continue this fight well, we need to focus on 3 different fronts:

1)    Create a shield, gedroim, we need fences in place to stay clean in hard times
2)    We need to work to prevent the urges taking us over, have the kochos to fight it when it comes up
3)    Continuously proactive inner growth to connect to higher spirits and increase our level of connection to hashem to have a proactive defense system.

Thinking about it, before going in to detail, I realized that it connects with last weeks parsha, parshas vayishlach, yakov was afraid of eisov, we all know that eisov is the mekor hatuma and all the “good deeds” he did, and us yakov which is yisroal need to fight this.

So yakov fought with 3 fronts
1)    He prepared a war, he sharpened his knifes, he built shields to protect himself from the incoming missiles, he built fences and and different gedroim to make sure that he wins
2)    He then worked on preventing the enemy, how can he prevent the enemy of attacking, he sent presents, but the core point is the prevention, he did things to prevent the enemy from attacking,
3)    Lastly, he davened, he grew his inner soul and strength and became closer to hashem, and that’s what calmed him down and he no longer feared שמא יגרום החטא

I think these 3 points are exactly how we need to fight our own eisov, and in a little more detail.

#1 : First thing we must have gedorim, we must build our shield and do what we can to stay safe, in my case doing the taphsic method, counting to 90 days etc was one of my most powerful tools, but everyone should find the things that work for them.

#2 : Next, we must prevent the eisov from attacking, yakov did this through sending matonos, in my case I know that the main reason why I fell is because the last week or so, I had little success in many areas in life, and the main reason being, because I set my goals to high, I had to little satisfaction, My simcha level was low, and I was not fulfilled, but there will always be ups and downs, however just through simply setting smaller goals and more achievable goals, I can easily feel fulfilled once I have done it, I proved it last night and I know that this will help me prevent the eisov from coming again.

#3 : Daven more, connect more to hashem and grow internally, - The last few weeks, although I updated the chart, I still did not spend enough time daily on growing and staying clean, Joining the call of dovi is something I will be doing moving forward, Spending more time, listening to divrei chizuk on a daily basis, and davening on these things will def improve the probability for staying strong.

So, to conclude, I think I did very well with #1 – not so with #2 and #3, therefore moving forward I will continue to work on preventing the urges, mainly through feeling more besimcha with setting smaller goals in everything in life and feeling more positive, and also spend more time daily on growing, listening and being a more connected person.

If you made it till here, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and would LOVE to hear anything you have to say

Thank you and may you have a great day!!

ManWhoStumbles wrote:

I know people said only to worry about the big stuff. But is there anything about those football games and online games that trigger you? Like maybe the people cheering on the sideline...

As much as you want to avoid the porn at all cost. You also really want to watch your triggers...

ChizukSC wrote on 18 Nov 2018 21:23:

This post is a GYE masterpiece. Our chaver ChizukSC has honestly gone through the "stages of a fall" successfully. Complete honesty of what occurred, followed by allowing himself to feel his emotions and therefore eventually regulate them and come to terms with what happened, followed by practical perspective and plans for the future, followed by optimism - the product of all the other steps. ChizukSC you are way
ahead of where you were a few months ago. You are in a real recovery stage - heading for true menuchas hanefesh. And yes, get on the phone again - its a great tool. May Hashem help you to continue inspiring others with your journey.

So, I fell again today. I had some time to kill before my Sunday morning chavrusa and I was thinking about how much I missed this young woman I once went out with and ended up causing shichvat zera livatala.

My first thought to myself was, “do not let the fall get you down”. But the emotions of frustration with myself came to the forefront. The thoughts flooded in: Will I ever have complete control on this? Am I lying to myself that I think I can reach total abstinence from masturbation with self-control and basic GYE tools (forum, chat, filter and strong gaderim) alone? Am I really an “addict” in the Dov way of defining it? Will I have to go as far as to be part a twelve-step program to finally kick this habit? Those questions and more besieged my mind .

At moment, I knew I could not avoid those feelings and had to give them a chance to blow over. Though I pushed myself to do four important things.
1. Admit to myself that I fell by resetting my 90-day count. I did not have the strength to post about my fall right then, but by resetting my count I knew I force myself to post about it at some point
2. I PM’d a GYE buddy that I have been corresponding with on a daily basis to tell him I fell.
3. Donated some money to GGYE based on a commitment I made, so I would not forget about it.
4. Planted the reframe in my head this is not a failure, but still a marking point of how far I have come. I only masturbated twice in five weeks which is really much better than where I was a few months ago!

This last point was soon overtaken by the despair of having fallen once again and with a shorter streak then my last time. But the reframe was importantly planted there.

I went to my scheduled chavrusa and the day went on. I “caved out” a little on my setback, but soon was able to shift my focus to the positive. Besides the above point about only two times in five weeks being a sign of great success, I know that this time around things were substantively better. The urges this time were easier to beat. The withdrawal was less intense. I felt less of a “need” to masturbate whenever I felt a little triggered. I more consistently reached out more to GYE chevra in tougher times. There is real progress to celebrate!

As I write this post my attitude as has completely changed. I now this fall is nothing but a blimp on a great journey to being completely clean and with G-d help and the tools on GYE I will make it. I want to stress I do not think this reframe is my lying to myself and trying to put a positive light on a dreadful situation. I know this to be true. I am fighting the good fight and winning. I am have reached new heights and gained new skills and will continue to do better.

With that in mind, the question I of course need to ask myself is what can I do better to avoid this in the future?

In the past, I have spoken with a therapist regarding my lingering emotions regarding this young woman with mixed results. I think I am going to give it another shot and see if this underlining issue can be tackled. I think I will try a different therapist and see if a different approach will be more helpful.

After my last fall, I made my first phone call to a GYE member and found it helpful and felt like I would try to make more consistent. Somehow, I kept finding excuses not to make those calls. Either, “there were too many people around and would be awkward if they overheard the topic of conversation”, or “I bet he is asleep or busy right now better not to call”. This time around I will try to make more of an effort call on a consistent basis and not give in to my excuse making.

I will continue to think of additional things, but the above is start.

Ending this post knowing I am still on the upwards journey to being a healthier stronger yid and hoping that it still gets better from here!

Hashem Help Me wrote on 18 Nov 2018 04:37:

You took the words right out of my mouth.

The dreams are to be expected - just ignore them. Its subconscious withdrawal. You obviously appear focused on recovery and will iyh get there. Regarding your question - At some future time it would be worthwhile to examine the general screen addiction issue, but for right now let's deal with habits that involve issurim. I know some will disagree with me, its just my opinion.

Day 5: I was slightly sad Motzei Shabbos, and then I learned a bit of Parsha,  ran and felt better. I was racked by some pretty strong sexual dreams last night, so I sort of feel scared for the next couple of days. I know I can continue so I will.  I will keep you guys updated.
     On a side note, I have a problem with online games and professional football, which shows my old problem watching inappropriate things might be part of greater screen addiction.  Any thoughts?

Kay guys, really appreciated your insight! I just wanted to expound on my view. When a person feels he is “not normal” the effects can be devastating. Think of it this way, if you magnify a problem it becomes a bigger problem, which in turn leads to despair, which leads to a bigger problem etc. The chasidim are big on “yiush” stressing that it is worse than the actual sin, and you gotta admit, their onto something.
There is another point in all this as well. When a person views himself or his urges abnormal, he is waging war, so to speak, on his desires. Now I’ll admit I haven’t been clean very long, but I can tell you that from my personal experience this just doesn’t work. Now I’m not saying that you should live in denial. If you have a problem admit it, but also accept the fact that you’re a normal person with desires and demons like many others. Many might call this “acceptance” or “forgiving oneself” , either way it’s a good first step. After realizing that this “addiction” or “habit”- depending on what you believe or who you are- is not you, and it’s just one of your many manly (or womanly) urges you can try to substitute other pursuits. Music works for me. More on that a different time as that’s a topic onto itself.
anyways you know the drill.
cheers!!

Killjoy wrote on 15 Nov 2018 01:40:

Some labels are dead on though. What really matters is being objective. That will give the best results at the end of the day.

I hear your opinion and totally respect it. But I just feel that some people give too much credit to there desires. Nowadays it always seems that we label people: he’s an addict he’s depressed etc. In my humble opinion if we were to stop labeling ourselves we could realize that we are people who deserve happiness just like everyone else. By labeling I feel we’re giving more power to our desires. Again that’s just my feelings.
would love to hear back. Thank you!

Hakolhevel wrote on 13 Nov 2018 19:15:

I think you may be onto something. Some people may refer to this "wanting" as commitment. If you lose your job and your family due to addiction, commitment is easily found. For average people though it's not. This is because the decision to sincerely use recovery tools is not black and white. A good way to resolve the issue is to list the pros and cons of acting out vs using the tools. Take a look at the section on "pros and cons" in my thread below, then write your own. By the time you get done writing them down you should have a tremendous wind behind your back.

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 13 Nov 2018 16:31:

Nice to see you back!

Great question for a website that caters to Addicts and Drunks, woodford and all...

Theres good reason why it says
ולא זכר שר המשקים את יוסף...

Rashi is brutal with Lavan regarding hugging and kissing Yakov avinu. He says he hugged him to search him for valuables, and even kissed him to search for pearls in his mouth. And he put up with him for a month because he took the sheep to pasture.

The implication might sound as if Lavan was bad because he had no "natural" love for his kin. However when we talk about frum people we say that one should love Hashem more than his kids, and that one should do mitzvos (like hachnasas orchim) because they are are orders and not because they feel good. So basically we like people who really don't particularly love others but want olam haba for themselves.

So maybe what Rashi is really saying is that Lavan was foolish because he accepted rewards from olam haba instead of olam haze.

I don't buy it though. I think in ancient times a lot more Jews actually loved others because it made them feel good. You didn't have to wave olam haba in front of them.

The others are the kind of people that develop addictions because they are burning with self-hatred. I was once guilty of this myself unfortunately.

Shnitzel and kugel wrote on 11 Nov 2018 02:09:

Appreciate the feedback. And you know me by now I think honesty is super important . I think in this case you may have misunderstood me. I am not in general lonely and sad. I am sad that I don't have someone to share a life with i.e. that is the core issue.
ChizukSC wrote on 09 Nov 2018 03:12:


​I am also in no way saying that getting married will solve addiction issues. Just that finding the correct person to share a life with usually solves feeling lonley about not having someone to share a life with.

Keep it up!