ieeyc wrote on 14 Dec 2017 15:57:

I'm sure dms learns Torah and mussar

As I understand from dov - bro if this is a religious problem, fix it with some more religion

But an addiction problem (on whatever level) needs to be dealt with the appropriate tools that Hashem created e.g. 12 steps
Many of us didn't act out in Yeshiva with Torah, but torah wasn't the cure it was an escape from life. When life smacks you in the face how do you deal with it to gain serenity?? If opening a Gemara helps you cool - let us know. Most of us resorted to ********* because that was real serenity in our limited world prior to gye
If you do not get my point I maybe read some dov quotes  ;-)

dms1234 wrote on 19 Jul 2017 20:26:

i dont mean to challenge you and i want you to know that i really have benefitted from your posts ,but according to your statement that derech eretz is before Torah therefore you dont learn musar , do you not learn Torah too ,just like Torah is required of everyone wether they have derech eretz or not AND can have a positive  effect on every yid no matter where they are holding , so too learning musar ,what do you think learning musar is ,a cherry on top? something you can do without? my freind learn musar , dont get crushed by the demands of musar , but learn it IN ADDITION to what ever a person needs in recovery,youll be a fortunate man .

  Stopping porn: Actually I can't really remember exactly how it happened as it happened about a year ago but I will try my best to recall.
  My problem is too shameful to tell anyone and I think that external intervention from any person is unable to solve my issue permanently. Some rather trivial things: I did seek help from my mother (who caught me red handed) but I have always tried to keep it a secret for all other people. My mother agreed to not tell my father in exchange for me behaving well from that point onward (she understood that it is a shameful topic but overestimated the impact of revealing my secret to others on my self-esteem... ). She didn't really take any action except for calling me out of my room when I have been using the computer for too long ( I think it is because she had too strong an image of me being a good boy able to take care of myself.... and thought that the porn was accidentally opened). I have always been quick enough to close whatever inappropriate content I was looking at the moment she opens the door of my room.
  I think one of the biggest reason why I stopped porn is that I found greater meaning in things. I became more busy than ever when I entered high school. The busier schedule made me feel that there is something better to pursue in life than being content with the pleasure of porn. It was like someone knocked me awake. I realised that there are so many things in life and porn shouldn't be one of the most important things (It was still important to me but I wanted to get rid of it not viewing it for as long as possible). It was also the time when I started to think that masturbation and watching porn is wrong. There wasn't an instinctive sense of guilt but to me it was too off the path. I didn't feel that I was a normal person. I didn't feel insecure about my behaviour but I wanted to change for the better even though I felt that I couldn't qualify as normal anymore.
  Many people have the cold turkey syndrome because porn gives them unparalleled pleasure. After some time I got a little tired of porn (because to me they are repetitive). When I watched porn, I felt that it is a little "too much", too vulgar, not what the type of people I want to be in the future will appreciate.
  When I reached this part of the post I realised I didn't actually say what exactly I did, but it did explain my thoughts and motivation..... So these are the things I did that I think helped me to stop porn (After I wrote those things I realised that they are extremely ambiguous options. Those are the thing that I did that stopped porn for me. I am still struggling with masturbation):
  1 I found milder substitute for porn, such as pictures. Although it is still wrong, it provided a transition for me. Looking back I think having a transition is one of the most important things to do because it is simply too difficult (and unrealistic for most people) to suddenly become completely clean. The transition is from still porn (which I do not look at anymore) to fashion magazine style pictures to newspaper style pictures... ( I'm not sure if it's healthy but I think it's better than watching porn...) One thing to note is that I always had the tendency to search for more explicit things. I tried to overwhelm myself with milder content and use imagination to replace graphics...

  2  Stop at masturbation. I will try my best to take a rest after I masturbate. It's better than watching porn continuously. ( Few other things could stop me from watching )

  3I try to make my inappropriate behaviours less impulsive.  I try to insert more rules and conditions into my inappropriate behaviour to make it less primeval, more complicated and closer to what I think is real life . Porn is addicting because it is so simple and primeval. It pleases your instincts and triggers your impulses. I tried to make my instincts play a smaller role in my inappropriate behaviours. This makes it easier for reason to take control.  When I am lusting a women I saw on the internet, I will think of her as a person in real life who deserves respect. Commercial inappropriate contents eliminates the complexities of real relationships when selling imaginary sex to facilitate quick consumption. I lust less women on the internet when I think of them as real people. Also, when I think of pictures I saw as real people, their attractiveness is greatly discounted by the fact that they act in an untzneius way.

4 When I look at inappropriate content, I try to question myself why I am doing so, to call in my rational side and hopefully Yetzer Tov will take over.

JF2 wrote on 11 Dec 2017 21:30:

hatzlacha ,i also when i felt that i wanted to start shiduchim  tried stopping mast******* and BH was successful for a year and a half before my chasuna  and stayed clean for aother 9 years ,you could  do it too ,bezras Hashem!

ColinColin wrote on 14 Dec 2017 01:20:

I'm sure you've read the SA book - this is from the 1st story pg 18

"After the divorce I had gone to a psychoanalyst, only to be reassured that my new career with prostitutes was merely relieving a natural urge. Boy, did I want to hear that!"

Markz

I am not married.

I did not state that getting married will end looking at porn for all men.
But it can work for others, because they are aware of the loneliness of being single and desire for a soul mate, and are numbing those by using porn.
It can also be that normal and natural sexual urges have no outlet other than porn.

But for other men looking at porn has other causes, and is not connected to being single or married.

I am adding perspective.
I have noticed that there are a growing number of men on here who are late teens early twenties, and live in the Yeshiva world or a world of a lot of learning, and are single and about to go into a period of matchmaking.

These men are fretting about porn and masturbation, and want to end their non-Kosher behaviour, which is a sign of a desire to have kedusha and comply with halacha.
These men write on here as if they believe themselves to be awful and terrible sinners.
It seems they are getting depressed and so on, and putting themselves down.

But they are only doing what comes naturally.
It does not make it right them looking at porn, halachically or spiritually.
But it is hardly a surprise!

Some or many of these younger men seem to me to be putting hideous pressure on themselves and believing they are somehow ill or addicted to porn, yet are at an age where testosterone is flowing freely and their non religious and non Jewish peers are dating girls and have an outlet for their desires.

I hate to see these men who otherwise are likely fine scholars and decent people feel so bad about themselves unnecesarily.

Dear Friends, 
I am a struggling sex addict who lives a perfectly normal frum life with a wife and children. 52 days ago I started attending SA meetings in order to get more help with recovering from my sex addiction that has plagued me since my early teenage years. My forms of acting out used to be masturbation and porn, but in recent years I graduated to visiting massage parlors. Before SA, I came on this site occasionally and it has helped me stay clean for small periods of time, once for 87 days! The SA meetings are helpful, I am learning a lot about what it will take to recover and the human interaction is very encouraging and gives me a new sense of accountability. I recently found a sponsor who has been really helpful in guiding me towards the 1st steps of recovery. I committed myself to going to a meeting at least once a week for 90 days even though it is very hard for me to make the time to go to the meetings. I always have to make up an excuse to my wife who I love dearly and has no idea about my sex addiction that something came up, or I had to work late in the office, etc.
Last week, I felt very tempted to act out, I told my wife I was going to hang out with some friends, I left my friends early and I went out bar hopping by myself with some secret hopes in mind, I got very drunk and thankfully I was very unsuccessful. I felt like garbage the next day. I spoke to my sponsor the next day, and he told me that this is considered "cruising" and I should add this to my middle circle. He said I shouldn't consider this a relapse but if I did it again we would have to consider moving this to my inner circle. It's really strange to me, since I never hung out in bars before and I was never interested in flirting with women in that way, yet I feel like this is my new obsession. I am worried that perhaps hearing other goyim's forms of acting out has stirred up some new creativity in me. I am worried that I am tempted to act out in even worse ways than I would have acted out before. I don't find myself struggling with porn or masturbation or wanting to visit massage parlors, but today when I was driving somewhere with my wife, my mind kept wandering as to when I might be able to sneak out at night again to hang out at a wild bar. I am having a stressful week at work and I am working overtime and I haven't even been able to attend a meeting this week. I hope to attend a meeting this motzei shabbes. It really helps me when I can share my struggles at the meeting, so I am glad I had GYE to share it with tonight. 

Thanks for listening. 

Makes sense to me.
You have stated it clearly.

Your affair was a fantasy...you did not need to financially support the woman or hear all her problems or live with her day-to-day and discuss household bills and how much chicken to buy and the state of the driveway.
You only had to deal with romance and sex.
It was a quick fix, a way to feel great for a short amount of time, to enter into a psychological zone where all is hearts and flowers.

But this is not real life.
It was a stress relief and a physical attraction, not deep love.
It was a way to escape from the realities of life.

It is why some people get really absorbed by video games or roleplaying games and dressing up as super heroes.
There is a whole industry based on romantic films, and music and novels.
It is escapism.

It becomes obsession because when you think about the affair, it temporarily removes the stress and pain of what your daily life can be.
So it is addictive, an addictive "opioid."
A heady mix of adrenaline and dopamine and day dreaming.

But it does not solve your real life problems nor does it build something constructive in the way real love does.

I would not share this with a shidduch.

It is possible that the reason you use pornography is because you lack any other outlet for natural sexual desires.
In which case your use of pornography could well stop once married.
No point ruining what could be a great marriage by being overly harsh on yourself.
You probably have many great qualities which will make you a very good husband.

It might be possible that your use of pornography is caused by something else, which needs attention, and your use of pornography does not stop once married.
Firstly make sure you understand why you use pornography, then work on this to stay clean...is it stress, or loneliness, or just sheer addiction?
Or lack of sexual outlet?

It might even be different causes at different times.

youcan wrote on 12 Dec 2017 06:47:

Here is my take and what I hear from many others: it (the recovery tools) might not remove the problem, but it helps you deal with life, and that is the problem. Many think that the addiction is the problem; they are very often wrong. Life is the problem; the addiction is the solution. So, when we learn how to live life (which many of us were not taught), there is no necessity for the addiction, and guess what? We will not be fightin' at all. Does that mean to say that we will not be stirred when the objects of our lust present themselves to us? No.

The tools here don't work like antibiotics - you take them twice a day & it does the work for you, joining meeting & all other tools will not take the problem out of you, all it does it helping you fighting the addiction. You should be devoted stay focused & don't give up. You have nothing to lose by doing so.

So I recently joined gye and I have been trying to work on myself a lot. From what I have been told I don't think I am necessarily addicted I just have a really bad habit. I am not constantly thinking about acting out I just find myself acting out when I get bored and have nothing else to think about. I find that if I really put my mind to it I can stay clean for 7 days consecutively however I find myself regressing back to acting out again a few times a week usually a little bit afterwards and onwards on a consistent basis. If anybody has any advice on how to find consistency in staying clean I would greatly appreciate it. I really want to accomplish the 90 day challenge so badly.

Hey guys here's my story: 
I am 21 years old and about to enter shiduchim and I realize that when I get married I want to have a meaningful and trust based marriage. I don't want to have to lie to my wife, therefore I decided to join gye.
I struggle with watching inappropriate things on the internet and  masturbation. People that I have spoken to have told me that I am not particularly addicted its just a bad habit that I have gotten into. I am usually pretty good at focusing on the important things in life l I just find that I end up watching inappropriate things when I get bored at home. I am trying to focus on becoming more consistent in my cleanliness.

I never thought I would come back here but i failed today and have no one to talk to about my issues. I need to vent. (if you know a good therapist in NY pm me)

I was not really happy with this site because I found the type of people here to be very different than me.
Im modernish, so I didnt really fit and I dont know yiddish at all. I was unhappy when I was told that "Mussar and our torah won't work, instead read this christian book on the 12 steps."
The 12 steps is literally the mesilas Yeshorim watered down.

I have struggled on and off with porn since late high school when other students introduced it to me. I fell in with the wrong crowd I guess. I watched it randomly here and there. Otherwise I was a very good guy. great grades, never did anything wrong…
It was when i turned 20 that i even heard that porn can be an addiction and I suddenly became nervous. I went cold turkey for 4 or 5 months and installed a filter called k9 and gave the password to a family member. it took guts to do that and I was very proud.

But I am a web developer. A very very good one. No filter has stopped me yet. :D
When I wanted to watch porn again I simply hacked right through k9. I told k9 about the breach but they have never fixed their stupid program so… I moved on to netnanny. Cracked that one. And the next one…
I finally found one that wont crack easily. 
But I break through every so often. but it was like every 2 or 3 months.

then I started dating and it wasn't working out. I watched every friend and family member get married. Even those bad kids from high school all married. My younger siblings all married. Im almost 30 and still not married. I began to think it wont happen for me. I even was sitting with some people one day who made fun that at the age of 30 i was still a virgin. That was hurtful so I felt somehow justified in watching porn.
Over the past few years it has gotten worse. Usually I'll watch in bouts. Like 3 days in one week and than i will go cold turkey for a few weeks to a month.
On this site I was also told marriage wont fix the issue, but i feel marriage is the reason I am doing this. I feel i have no outlet and am somehow justified. Once I do it I feel pretty bad. 

I'm looking for a therapist in my area who is helpful with this stuff. Please pm me if you know one.

Hi all,
Fairly new here so not sure if this is the correct place for this but anyway here goes...so I'm single and I have been struggling with Porn/Masturbation for quite a few years now. I wanted to quit for a while and after a few failed attempts I'm finally at 18 days after finding GYE. One of the motivating factors that pushed me to quit was the fact that I am getting older and will hopefully soon start Shidduchim - I couldn't bear the thought of someone else, especially a partner/fiancé/wife, knowing about this disgusting addiction. It's one thing to let your brain play games and tell you its fine what you're doing but it's much harder to justify someone else in that situation.
I write for that exact reason: even though I'm early in on this journey, I can't help but worry about the future when I'll hopefully be clean for an extended period of time and able to control myself, having to face Shidduchim prospects. Obviously, this is something that one has to share with their partner/fiancé/wife but how? I would love to hear from anyone in a similar situation how you went about this issue in Shidduchim? how did you explain the addiction? what was the reaction etc?
Any response is appreciated.
Kol Tuv.