Shmilu wrote: Dear Tatte, Please give me the strength and perseverance to see this thing through. Without your assistance, I'm like butter in the hands of the Y"H. I'm sick and tired of carrying around all this guilt, and the feeling of inferiority that envelops me after ...

The more you are attached to Hashem, the less you will be attached to Lust. The problem really is that the Torah we learn, the yiddishkeit we live, and everything else we have, simply does not teach some of us wackos how to do that! It just teaches us that we are obligate...

Someone asks Dov: Asking Hashem to save me and remove my lust has not seemed to work; I still masturbate once a week. Why is it not working? Maybe Hashem just wants us to fight this ourselves? Dov Replies: Far be it for me to say, "your missing ingredient is this, or that...

Someone wrote on the forum: I realize now that I need to start being the hero of my own life and defeat all obstacles in my path. If we can learn to see our lives as a dramatic struggle, it can be easier... And that's exactly what it is; we just have trouble seeing oursel...

Getting caught by my wife didn't stop me. It was just a stepping stone till I finally had enough, about a year later. If you remember Captain Kirk in Star Trek... He had a "double" once, cuz he went back in time. But all was OK - as long as the two never, ever met. If the...

Lust usually feels great... and horrifyingly 'emptying'. It is very powerful, especially because it creates bodily sensations, and that kind of thing is incontrovertible. The body is convinced that it is truly good and that we need it. And you cannot argue with a body... ...

Ok. It does a few things. First and strangest, I owe something to the person I am lusting after because lusting is always an act of "taking". I am using their image for selfish ends. (And saying that "They are obviously begging for it cuz look at how they are dressed!" is...

Give the power to Hashem only - and make sure you give the credit to Him when it works. I do not need any pats on the back for not being an idiot by screwing myself up with lust.Ask Hashem to bless and help the "candy" you see with health, a true connection with Him, prot...

Hatzlacha with whatever you are doing, my friend. BTW, I have never really understood the idea that I have heard many times on GYE that, "I'll try x, y and z... and - if they do not work, then my last resort is the 12 steps." The fact that one who is not deeply motivated ...

It is incredible to look back and recall how much pain I was in not long ago. I am still in a lot of pain when I get my mind racing and dwelling on future worries or past regrets. For right now, I am just trying to focus on right now and what I am doing. It may sound od...

I'm also too weak and have given up - not on myself, but on the fight. As long as anyone feels they can live like this, there is obviously no personal reason to stop. So we won't, period. So why add guilt? I've never seen guilt (which is just more self-centeredness) work ...

Someone wrote on the forum: I am trying to rely only on my wife, but I can't find the satisfaction in her, it's a big problem. I am having a urge to just drop the new me with her, & go back to self pleasure, it's just much more fun. Dov Replies: As an addict, I real...

I just found out about this amazing website. I've been struggling with this for almost 20 years. Its such a good feeling to be able to share. I've got a streak going on now. It all started innocently with some masturbation when I was 12 years old. I didn't even realize wh...

If every time I lust in any way, I would react by considering it tantamount to a "fall", there will be many problems. First, it would show that all this is about is what it wasalways about: Me and my goodness, or badness. As an addict in recovery, practicallyspeaking, I c...

Yesterday on my way to Shacharis, I felt VERY uncomfortable & irritable, and I knew I had to do something about this feeling or it might lead me to acting out.So I tried to call someone (1st thing in the morning is even harder than trying to find someone at 2 AM in th...

I found it interesting that on several occasions, the prophets reprimanded the people by comparing their errant behavior to that of alcoholics, e.g. "they were drunk, albeit not with wine; they staggered, albeit not with ale" (Isaiah 29:9). People sinned, giving in to the...

Ultimately, we all live with ourselves. There is no escape from ourselves - even by suicide, I believe. The discomfort we all feel being surrounded by real people in recovery (in SA groups) is just having a mirror shown to us, as the Ba'al Shem Tov taught us. We sense our...

Counting the days we are clean can be wonderful for some, but I hope you realize that it can also be - deep within our hearts - a counting of how long we can actually tolerate the (inevitable) buildup until the next time we act out. I believe this is very frequent. It is ...