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The Makka is the Refuah

GYE Corp. Thursday, 12 January 2012

Someone asked on the forum:

I was wondering about why we have these periods of cleanliness, and then BAM fall into extreme desire? Further, they seem to follow patterns; 30 days seems to be a rough point, as an example. These periods of really bad desire can last an hour, a day or a week. Is there a physiological cause for the patterns and swings?


Dov Responds:

I think you are describing in the most simple and basic way, what every drunk out there knows as 'tolerance' and 'withdrawal'. Nothing more, in my opinion.

But here's the thing. I believe that addiction is in my very body - it is not just something I do, but that it is something I am - I carry it with me wherever I go; that it is one of the most essential if not the most essential ingredient of my life in this world - for better of for worse; and that this nature I have is Hashem's own special way of finally getting me to really need Him.

I feel I must mention here that if recovery would be a mission to get back to where we would be if only I had never been addict, then I say the entire recovery is hogwash. And I believe such an attitude apikorsus. It is setting Hashem out of the bounds of my actual life. It is the G-d of a book, not of a person.

I believe that He planned the refuah before the makkah - which means, if you think about it for a second, that there is really no such thing as a 'makkah', at all. It's all Him and His Will for me. And through the steps I live with Him right now, as soon as I wake up and start speaking to Him intimately (in English - my language, of course). I reach Hashem and stick close with Him (my Eternal Best Friend) by way of my failures and addiction. That appears to be my chelek. And it's nice.

And I owe it all to the fact that I couldn't stop acting-out and using shmutz for all those years - while I was a 'frum' adult raising a family at the same time, of course (haha) - until I finally, really, needed Him and only Him. All my trying, fighting, and teshuvah was powerless to help me. I needed Him to help it all work, for a change. And I had to go slow - and stay slow.

Hatzlocha!