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Giving In or Giving Up?

Dov writes to someone on the forum:

GYE Corp. Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Dear heiligeh yid. You posted about how you were "feeling like giving up the 'fight' soon" and saw that as ominous. I guess 'struggling' didn't work this time.


Most people only see two avenues before them.

1. Try to struggle and win with trust in Hashem that He can and will assist you. Use whatever tricks you can find, chizzuk, help from friends, mussar and other sforim, whatever. I wish you hatzlocha and believe that it can work for some people. If you want that, go to the people with problems like you have who successfully use that, and ask them to teach you.

2. Giving up the struggle. You seemed to be saying that giving up the fight means giving in and doing stuff that's bad for you and your life.

That is not accurate in the experience of many recovering people.


There is a third option to your bind. It is: giving up so I don't ever have to give in. Give the fight to Hashem, rather than failing at it - cuz I probably will. It isn't a hashkofa issue, it is purely a matter of statistics. If I see that I am basically guaranteed to eventually fail, cuz I do, then I cannot expect to win. So, if I really care about myself, I'd better find Someone who can get me out of this bind. That is most likely G-d Himself. Learning how to do that is what recovery offered by the 12 steps is about. If you want that, go to the people with problems like you have who successfully use that, and ask them to teach you.