The Library

I feel very guilty when I do something really stupid. What's wrong with that?

Yes, the guilt pain of masturbating does require many people to medicate all over again. So?

Too many newbies make what they think is a 'recovery call' - but really they just want the 'older' guy on the other end to make them feel better. They are desperate for that one thing and that one thing only. It's BS (pardon my french), and it will not help them get sober, at all.

Yes, feeling badly about doing something that is bad for me has bad side-effects. But so does going to work, driving, cleaning up after your child throws up on the floor, etc... So? It's gotta be done.

It is evil for me to masturbate - but if I am an addict, that fact is irrelevant to me quitting. It is evil for me to use porn, look at a woman and undress her with my eyes, focus on how 'hot' Hashem made her, etc...but that fact is irrelevant in getting me free of the compulsion. There is some unpleasant work that I cannot avoid, like facing the truth about my choices, powerlessness, failure, and lifestyle.

Masturbating, fantasizing, and porning - even if it were 100% mutar...wait - even if it was a mitzvah - is and always was self-destructive to me. period. I abuse it like an alkie abuses alcohol - and drinking alcohol is certainly not a lav, even in the SMa"K. There are times when it is a good thing, actually...but not for a frum alcoholic. For him, getting drunk on Purim is like having sex with his niddah wife or a prostitute - it is destructive, even deadly. Is that not evil? Drinking wine for kiddush or the four kosos is evil for him, and as Chaza"l say, sakanta chamirah me'isurah.

This is derech eretz, not a mitzvah-issue - if one is an addict. Just cuz it overlaps issur - that is pure distraction, totally irrelevant - for one who is unable to stop and if it is risking or damaging his real life.

None of this is true for the average Jew, who simply masturbates once in a blue moon because he really, really likes the way that a good orgasm with himself feels. That is what He made Teshuvah (ila'ah) for, not recovery.