Beliefs about Urges

From GYE Members

Masturbation is not a need

Some guys think it's impossible not to masturbate. Here's how I deal with it:

First, I try to introduce them to other bochurim that have stopped.

Second I ask them why they think it's impossible? I ask "Did you ever control yourself for, let's say two weeks?

And the guy will say, yeah.

"So how many gallons came out? According to you, there's this volcanic buildup that's taking place that I've asked you is one 60 days. You're going to have five gallons come out. That doesn't happen to anybody."

What does it mean? It means that there really is no need. There's a very strong urge, but there's no need to masturbate.

And as soon as you make that decision, it's very deep decision in your heart and your mind, you really don't need it.

You may be נכשל once in awhile, but it's not anymore like "I'm anyway going to fall. So from anywhere it's going to fall, why am I, why am I controlling myself today? I'm going to fall tomorrow or the next day".

The "Windows" Method

For the guys that were really really hard time. I've used them the house of windows, which is that you tell a guy you like to do it twice a week, Monday night, and Wednesday night, and Motzoei Shabbos, between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM once each time. And then from that, we're going to move to once each week.

I had some guys that worked very, very well with. And I have the haskama of Rabbonim as long as the goal is to stop, obviously.

Then after 3-4 weeks, you tell the guy:

- "Let me ask you a question. If you had a terrible urge Tuesday, because you were by a wedding, how do you control yourself?"

- "I tell myself I don't need to do it right now".

- "So if you don't need to do it right now, why do you need to do it tomorrow? So let's make it twice a week. And do that for 3-4 weeks."

Then you can get it down to once a week. This can be done with yishuv hadaas, there's no rush.

At that point the the guy usually stops on his own.

Now that doesn't mean that 35 day later, you won't masturbate once because something happened. Most guys are able to stick to the window idea, and get to a point where they say, hey, I don't really need this. And if I do, I know exactly what I'm doing it. It's not a necessity.