MAZAL TOV!  That is a VERY difficult step, but a very POSITIVE one. KEEP IT UP.  Who did you speak to?  How did it go?

i poshut don't believe what I just did, I spoke for the first time to a person about my struggles, I thought its beyond me (and it will never happen in my lifetime) but I just did it:) 
it's just a little too much for my feeling, it's like they don't know how to react but they got to learn pretty fast how to adapt to this new addition to my life, the same way i eat three times a day and Shabbos happens once a week they would learn that i call once a week to see how my lust situation is doing.

B''h I'm heading my 90 days. It took a lot of effort, probably the most I've ever put in, yet there were some technicalities. I have fell in my sleep maybe 3 or 4 times over the course of the 90 days. Although they felt real and realistic, i know for sure that i was sleeping. Consequently i would wake up really upset with myself. Towards the beginning of my fight to 90 days i really had to push through a lot of temptation. It could be that at the beginning of my 90 days, when i was fighting constantly throughout the day (literally non-stop), i allowed for some thoughts to come in,  and i maybe even hoped that i could have a lust dream so i could still get "that "wonderful" feeling", but that was my addicted self and B''h my neshama won over and i didn't act on it, i cried because i really inside didn't want them. Also, probably since around day 30 or 40, i set my goal and really fought my thoughts through and through. I took a lot of procations to not even put myself in a position to think like that. And i literally punch the wall (hard), if something comes up that i don't like. Yet, even after this mindset, i probably fell in my sleep and had a lust dream once or twice (to my despair), i was really upset. 

Being on day 82, i wondered if my real streak was tainted. I read somewhere that falling in your sleep can be attributed to lustful thoughts during the day, a swell as eating meat. The falling in my sleep was against my will, And if i could have always been awake, i probably would not have fell. 

Hi My Dear friend Dan.

Your post that you wrote, is my story. you just needed to sign "my" name on it. I tried for decades to stop, and my Yeshuah came once i realized that i am powerless over this addiction. I can share with you my 2 cents on this demon. 
What kept my addcition progressing and unstoppable, was that i was realizing that my addcition was living on 2 main blood supply arteries that kept it alive and powerful. Arterie #1. Secrective.  Arterie  #2. Deception.  Once i exposed this secret and stopped my deception that i am regular guy(and everyone struggles like me) my Yeshua started to form,  I am today clean 84 days, because i got myself a friend here on GYE, that i met in person, and i got myself a Webchaver account, and i am accountable to my actions. it is no more a secret, and it is no more a deception. it is out there for my trusted Chaver and myself to look on my actions boldly. If this makes sense for you, i would be eager to share with you more on my journey. 

Hello yyys, I saw your question about medical evidence that masturbation isn't healthy. I don't have any info on that but I decided to see if you had a thread with more information about the problem you are dealing with. I will admit that I'm not too clear on what your issue is. What is the motive or intent behind your wife's question? You write here that you are separated from your wife and you also write about other issues either past or present dealing with anxiety or depression. It doesn't say that you connect the porn and masturbation to any of your problems. And maybe it's in fact not connected. Just wondering why you want to stop. Is this a religious issue or is messing up your life. Also you write " Eventually, I became an addict and frequently gave in several times a week, and sometimes a few times a day as well!" Just because you "gave in" several times a day doesn't make you an addict. I'm not saying you are or aren't, but I don't see that in what you have written here. Not that I'm any kind of expert. Also you mention having problems in your marriage and you are trying to have your wife help you with your problems. So your bringing problems to the table? Why? Are you trying to get empathy? Do you think it will bring your wife closer if you bring her into your problems? 

Btw, I'm not at all trying to be critical. I don't know you and I know little to nothing about your story. I'm just trying to help you have some dialog with yourself. One issue with this forum is that people try to answer people up and sound smart and try to defend themselves. So pls don't feel any obligation to answer me up. The better thing would be for you to share more about what's going on and probably with a professional other than your wife .

Hi there!!
Sorry for this. I feel licensed to say life's not easy. I'm now in SA and they teach that we can accept that everything that Hashem does is for the good. In order for an addict to live any type of life they must believe in a loving caring "Higher Power" (step 2). I am lucky to be an addict because it forced me to find the Riboinoi Shel Oilam in such a light. Now I can look back and say everything is for the best and anything which disturbed me in the past the fact that it disturbed me is my fault.
That's my experience. If it's irrelevant to you ask the mods to delete it I won't be offended.
Best of luck!!
Hashem loves you more than you can imagine!!!

I have a question.B"h I've made it 76 days... It's one of the hardest things I've ever done, and im highly anticipating day 90. One of the main things I have done to accomplish getting this far was making a lot of drastic lifestyle changes. I locked the internet app and app store off my phone, put a strong filter on my computer, I started fortify, am in contact with a partner, and I've tried to have restraint on certain basic things in my life to practice restraint, like not eating cookies (on the outside my mom thinks I'm crazy for not eating cookies and all of the stuff like that) I also listen to the chizuk messages and read the emails every day. So pretty much I made a lot of changes.After thinking about it though, now being day 76...I watch football on Sundays to take a mental break from my very busy week. Its a time for me to chill and just relax, i need the break. But sometimes not tzniut things come up. I usually switch the channel right away, but I know what was coming.Also I have spotify, which is a music listening app, sometimes there are not kosher pictures on the opening page. I switch it right away, but once again I know what I saw. Also on spotify there is a feature to look people up and you can see pictures of girls, some are probably not tzniut, I'm not sure though...For both of them the damage is done even if I switch right away.It would really be hard to cut these things out. Football has been a really good outlet for me, and I use spotify to listen to music all the time and it can get me in a good mood when I'm down. It also helps me get into the spirit of shabbos and really enhances my whole shabbos. They both played a small role in getting me this far.Pretty much the over arching question is do i have to cut these out too. I really would rather not because they sometimes they just get me through the week. Football is a big outlet for me. Also, I invested a lot of time in compiling all of the Jewish music I listen to into one playlist spotify, and it would cost a lot of money, on spotify its free.My mom says Im way extream with everything and am too hard in myslef...But she has no idea what I was (am) like. Let's just say that I was addicted for about 4 years and I could not stop. Stopping the past few weeks has taken so much effort and sacrifice. It's the hardest thing I've ever been through, and I've been through a lot in my life. I know its been a gift from Hashem and I must do everything in my power to keep it... I must do it for myself, those around me, and my future wife B"h.I just want to make sure I solidify my long term success, and stopping these may be very extream. But I know very well, even after day 76 when i think im stable, that it could just be my taiva talking and eventually I'll fall because of something stupid... I may be shooting my own foot.I know for a fact that I am at least biased because i do enjoy them both very much.Thoughts?Ps. My mom doesn't know about my "struggles"

lionking wrote on 06 Dec 2017 17:58:

You missed my point, but that’s ok. I also don’t want to hear the details.

The point I’m making is that for this to have happened it had to either be pretty not private, or he had to be drawing attention to himself.

I want him to hear himself say that and possibly come to the realization that what he did is a real issue.

And while I have no desire to get the details, of saying out the details makes him hear the depths of it, then it’s worth it. Many people have posted some pretty graphic, upsetting, sometimes gross things. Sex addiction isn’t glamorous or pretty. 

ted wrote on 25 Dec 2014 00:48:

I didn't like that the Gary boy tottally changed the track of this great thread.
Investigations belong elsewhere (or mod delete those if in the mood)

can we please stay on topic and utilize our stay in the bathroom to its utmost (no this is not a wake up call for hardcore PA)

Garysheboi wrote on 24 Nov 2017 05:28:

It definitely is a wake up call, but sounds weird- how open are these bathrooms? What were you doing that made it so evident? You can definitely reach out to a lawyer who deals with these things but I agree with HHM- get help. Masturbating in public bathrooms is definitely a sign of an issue; I’m sure many here have struggled with that but it certainly has a level of riskiness and seems like part of a real addiction. 

"my issue is a lack of connection" That is the essence of sex addiction. Here from the SA White Book "Early on, we came to feel disconnected—from parents, from peers, from ourselves. We tuned out with fantasy ..."

Our acting out is but a symptom. We need to get down to causes and conditions. From AA Big Book Page 64. "Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions."

ngc51853 wrote on 05 Dec 2017 09:41:

Sorry to hear your situation. You write
"i was not dealing with the go-to GYE diagnosis". Addiction thrives on uniqueness
Gye has many tools, and many guys here were dealing with depression, self bullying etc. I'm not sure what your therapist was trying to say...

168 days ago, we hit the ground limping. trying to reach a distant goal of 90 "clean" days. therapy was going well and the therapist though it was time to meet less often and less often until i was declared "healed". so fast forward 168 days - and im back!
During therapy, we discussed various issues and experiences i had had. It was quite clear that i was not dealing with the go-to GYE diagnosis. i was dealing with depression brought on by years of abusive siblings and dysfunction that, while at the present time things have become a lot more healthy, kinda messed me up bad and im still struggling with it. looking at stuff was not an activity. it was a way to distract from the depression. if the depression would take a break, other things would disappear. and visa versa.
Through therapy a learned my depression comes from a lack of connection and love. not because i was incapable, but because there was no outlet. the family situation is shaky at best, and friends cant fill the void forever. 
so, the obvious solution - get married. yeah - i know that the people on GYE go nuts if someone trys to suggested that getting married helps, am im sure for the struggle is different for everyone based on what at they are going through and where they are holding. but again, my issue isnt addiction. my issue is a lack of connection mixed in with some self-bullying and loathing. 
so marriage. the messed up world of shadchanim and resumes. where you get to go out with a person you dont know, commit your life to them and then, 10 years later,  be walking home from shul shabbos night talking to a single guy(me) about how the whole process sucks because you realized the second you got married that the girl you have spent a mere 25 hours with has been faking everything about herself and now youre stuck with her (true story).. So great - date for longer! well thats "not done" because apparently once you've checked the boxes, you have fulfilled your chiyuv of dating and now you must get engaged. or get engaged and break it off. so yeah - not fun. 
To add to that, my last date was back in august. the shadchanim dont have anyone or wont get back to me. maybe they like dealing with typical yeshiva guys and not professional guys, maybe the girls prefer the prior over the latter. either way, i got a no back from a girl whom i had agreed to go out with tonight, and that kinda wasnt too good for me. 
so for the past 168 days i've had various anxiety attacks and really downer days. some meditation helped a lot when i can push myself to do it. this past weekend, i wasnt doing to well. i started heading into the pg-13 subcategory nothing real bad. today was better though. until tonight. i got home. got my response from shadchan. family situation had been not good for the past week. i crossed over in the rated R category on youtube. nothing explicit. nothing vulgar. everything was within youtube's "safe filter". just a little more that i had seen over the past 168 days. and things kinda just happened on their own. no "outside forces". like actually.
so i took a shower, pulled myself together and sat down to write this. i found out that writing helps me calm down and puts things inter perspective. 
so where do i stand?
i dont know. i can sit here and say that this is it, and im going to do better and all that. but i find that hard to believe. i know im not holding by a shimiras einayim struggle. its a side affect of another struggle. the other struggle doesnt seem to have more than one solution. what i do know is that i'll probably be "clean" for a while (hopefully starting nowish, if my internal bully doesnt continue kicking me into the ground and im able to break out of this depression) and ill go about life. constantly struggling to fill a void. hopefully with less damaging things like shiurim or music or politics or school work, or work work. and if wife-stuff works out, then i hope to be up to the challenge of putting away this crap for good. the last thing i want is to back here in an other 168 days.

Markz wrote on 04 Dec 2017 23:47:

Actually I got worried he was going to disappear again for a while.....

cordnoy wrote on 04 Dec 2017 23:41:

I went on the "recent-posts" page and saw cord' posted and has this sinking feeling 
Oh phew... thanks for clarifying ;-)