The Library

I have noticed a funny thing about the people I work with professionally (in health care): As they begin to improve, they start to complain about how bad off they are. It is just so frustrating as a person helping them, to hear them get more negative at the very time that...

I'm so grateful to Hashem, SA, GYE, and all the support. I realized today that I need to surrender more. I read in the White Book that part of surrender is surrendering the right to act out. Another big Yesod of SA is that the recovery and surrender has to be against lust...

Dear R' Guard, We owe GYE a tremendous thank you. My wife and I feel like we've just been married again. Thanks to your website we've been able to tackle issues that have been haunting us ever since we were married and had effected all aspects of our marriage, and our liv...

The point of writing our 1st step is to finally be able to answer this: "So, do I actually have the ability to remain sober? Have I run out of resources yet, or not?"That's the only question when it boils down. If in my heart of hearts I still believe that I really posse...

I just want to share a thought about wearing tefillin. It is known that tefillin is, in a sense, a commitment that we make to HaKadosh Baruch Hu both with our intellect (shel rosh) and our actions (shel yad). R' Yosef Ber Soloveitchik famously asks why we say "baruch shem...

Dear GYE, It's funny how Hashem works. Years ago when I first became Bar Mitzva, I would wear a Gartel. As time went on I decided, "What do I need this for? So what if it's our Minhag, it means absolutely nothing to me!" ...as did a lot of other things. Now, by the grace ...

I was just in Manhattan, and definitely empathize, but the salvation for me is to come to truly believe and remind myself that no matter how juicy and outrageous the images of those women are, the problem - if I have one, is in me, not ever in them. No matter how lusty...

Kasis lama'or l'hal'os ner tamid. Question: Why is it necessary to work so hard? Why do we need to break apart our ego & other bad traits in order for our inner purity to shine forth? We seem to be able to have some clean streaks the way we are too? Answer: As long ...

The Medrash explains how each of the Begadim that were worn by the Kohen Gadol was a Kapara for a different Aveira. Two of them were the Michnasayim and the Tzitz. The Gemora says the Michnasayim were mechaper on the aveira of Arayos, and the Tzitz was mechaper on "Gasus ...

One of the beauties of the 12-Step program is this: Many people (especially men) tend to think in terms of solving problems. So while we are writing our 1st and 4th steps, or whenever we think or write about our problems or what is messed up in us, we want to see it all i...

I would just like to share with you something incredible which just happened to me.3 days ago it was my 40th day without masturbation and porn. I got a kind of fever, cough, sore mouth and throat and I was generally feeling not so good. At night just as I was saying the S...

I woke up today feeling R.I.D (Restlessness, Irritability, and Discontent) big-time. I began to shout "MAY DAY!"... I held myself together long enough to turn on some Purim music. I picked up one of my children and danced with them. My 6 month old son was in his chair, an...

"The challenge now is doing something about it," you say. Bear with me please, as I am not arguing with you at all, and some of what I will say seems to be paradoxical. Sorry about that, but here goes...If I really could do something about it, I'd have done it years earli...

So I was learning Chovos Halevovos last night and Rabeinu Bachya talks about the chesbon a person has to make regarding the wonders of creation; the ones we take for granted because they are so common, but that are nonetheless no less amazing. Says the C"H that just beca...

Yehuda Mintz from www.recoverythroughtorah.com sent us an e-mail today: It is important for addicts, especially in our frum community, to know that addiction is a disease, and this disease cannot be dealt with like a regular Yetzer Harah; it is a chemical imbalance of the...

Nu. Sometimes we just get the crap beaten out of us with a walk through the streets.... I guess that as long as I make a call to a 'more or less' sane recovery person to admit it so that I can let go of it and get back to real life and whatever it was that I was doing ...

Feeling bored and aimless while sitting in front of a computer is a recipe for disaster for an addict. It is so easy to be pulled to YouTube for some so-called "kosher" entertainment, but one click leads to another... and we all know where this can lead. In previous Chizu...

Hey, I need to thank you... A while back you recommended SSRI medication (after all else had failed - even live SA groups) and I dismissed it. But having failed repeatedly without meds, I started taking them and they've done wonders... I haven't had any lust attacks and I...