Dear Friend,

I have come to visit once again. I love to see you suffer mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially. I want to make you restless so you can never relax. I want to make you jumpy, nervous, and anxious. I want to make you agitated and irritable so everything and everybody makes you uncomfortable.

I want you to be confused and depressed, so that you can't think clearly and positively. I want you to feel guilty and remorseful for the things you have done in the past and you'll never be able to let go of. I want to make you angry and hateful toward the world for the way it is and the way you are. I want you to feel sorry for yourself and blame everything but me for the way things are. I want you to be deceitful and untrustworthy and to manipulate and con as many people as possible. I want to make you feel fearful and paranoid for no reason at all. I want to make you wake up all hours of the night screaming for me. You know you can't sleep without me, I'm even in your dreams. I want to be the first thing you think about every morning and the last thing you think about before you black-out.

I'd rather kill you, but I'd be happy enough to put you back in the hospital, another institution, or jail. But you know that I'll be waiting for you when you get out. I love to watch you slowly go insane. I can't help but sneer and chuckle when you shiver and shake; when you freeze and sweat at the same time; when you wake up with the sheets and blankets soaking wet. It's amusing to watch you ignore yourself; not eating, not sleeping, not even attending your personal hygiene.

Yes, it's amazing how much destruction I can be to your internal organs while at the same time working on your brain, destroying it bit by bit.

I deeply appreciate how much you are sacrificing for me. The countless good jobs you have given up for me; all the friends that you deeply cared for, you gave up for me.

And what's more, the ones you turned yourself against because of your inexcusable actions. I am eternally grateful, especially for the loved ones, family and the more important people in the world that you have turned yourself against. You threw even those away for me!

But do not despair, my friend, for on me you can always depend. After you have lost all these things, you can still depend on me to take even more. You can depend on me to keep you in living HELL, mind, body, and soul. For I will not be satisfied until you ARE DEAD, my friend.

Forever Yours,

Your Addiction

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Many times in my life I have lasted long times without any falls. The issue was that they were always post-fall and then I'd feel guilty and say "never again!" It would last a while but then I'd have another fall. I always looked at it as "forever." This time, I took it literally day by day and was able to follow my chart and see my progress. This was probably the best Shmiras einayim period of my life! I'm almost 30! I hope to continue day by day by day. One day at a time. Thank you, GYE!

Living "one day at a time" really boils down to being oseik in today's business today, and tomorrow's business tomorrow.

Taking baby steps in turning our will and our lives over to His care. In other words, to start trusting that He'll make today's efforts work out right - so we do not need to feel like we have to jump ahead and worry about tomorrow, next year, or next decade. That unknown and untrustworthy future is where many of our self-centered and childish fears live and breathe, you know.

And we slowly begin to let go of the pains of our past and trust that He'll make it right, too. That He will help us do what we can to correct things, and help us accept our powerlessness over what we cannot. Like the serenity prayer talks about.

These things are probably among the most basic to true yiddishkeit. Just basic simple trust in Hashem in our real lives - in our marriages (or lack thereof), our schoolwork, relationships, growth, and health - real life, rather than just a sefer or a sugya. We can grow tremendously in learning and practice of Torah and mitzvos without this, of course. And normal people can get by...many probably do, nebach. But for an addict, too many 'alarms' go off and life becomes too unbearable. We are just too screwed up, I guess, so we need to learn to live in the present, otherwise we cannot really live, at all.

Not a very bad fate, really.

To me, what sets it all apart from the almost useless faith I had before, was that when I heard about bitachon, it was all about the extremes: Either I went all the way and trusted Him fully, or not. Recovery showed me that real bitachon grows out of the little, unglamorous, insignificant-appearing things, and comes in tiny, little steps. To me, that used to appear unimportant - not what the sforim are really talking about - or maybe even as apikorsus, or at least hypocrisy. B"H the truth is that useful emunah and bitachon are only learned through real life action, that is, from taking steps - and not from s'forim and 'step-study'.

Do you have a problem with obsessive and compulsive porn use? Have you seriously tried the tools on GYE and feel that you are not getting better? Maybe it’s time to consider joining a 12-Step program.

Porn Anonymous (PA)
If you’re compulsively acting-out with pornography and masturbation we suggest you explore joining Porn Anonymous (PA). If you need help deciding whether to join PA, call Michael at 347-699-2368, or email help@pornanonymous.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit pornanonymous.org (Hebrew: p-a.org.il / Yiddish: pa-yid.org).

Sexaholics Anonymous (SA)
If your compulsive acting-out has progressed beyond the screen (with other people, paid sexual services, etc.) we suggest you explore joining Sexaholics Anonymous (SA). To figure out if SA is for you, call Dov at 917-414-8205, or email Dov at dov@guardyoureyes.org to schedule a time to talk. For more information visit www.sa.org.