thanks lehaovate aish and mbj,

very well said but what i am not understanding is that even though i know all of the above and the idea of sinning didn't get me to stop but i do feel that the idea of sinning is what got me to stop in the past many times and i think that thats what brought me here to gye as well,

i understand the horror of being into these kind of stuff can damage someones whole life but i never really felt that bad about it in that way,

so once again i do feel(might be wrong)that sinning and the fear is what got me atleast started here,

You are right, not sinning is what brought me here in the first place. Every previous attempt, unsuccessful as it was for me, was about not sinning.

It is not a non factor. but for me, and of course I only speak for me, it doesn't do it for me. I do many sins all the time, and I don't know which is worse than the next, but I do know that I do them.

I am not saying that sinning is a bad reason to stop, only that for me, I found a much more potent reason. Like Dov says, Derech Eretz, and I guess I never really understood what he meant by that until now. Be a mentch, that is why I want to stop.

For me its like that:
When I'm in te middle of lusting, the sin doesnt even interest me ( prob. Because I know that it cant stop me now)
But in moments when I dont feel the urge (because i'm not triggered) I regret what I've done, because its bad (sin +waste of time and control)

for me its all about not to get triggered, and to add meaning to my life so i won't KEEP LOOKING to be triggered !!

The aproach of addiction is talking to me even in times when sinning is of no intrerest for me....

i did not come here because of the sin
i did not stop (for now) because of the sin
i did not become mean during my acting out
i was not depressed
it was enjoyable
the build-up was heaven
lustin' was excitin'
[I did have downers when I couldn't fulfill some...in real life ...ayin sham b'mikvah thread]
between my therapists and myself, i came here and i joined SA and I am in recovery now (for this moment) only because I need and want to live my life. [if you wanna get deep, you can say like the mashgiach always says that there is no greater desire than wantin' to live.] But whatever, it was simply cuz I was not in control of my life. i was always searchin', lookin', desirin', wantin' my next fix, and that wasn't my life. I could have given up on all of Judaism and I still (although I cant prove this) would have the same thoughts....i wanna live.

one of the things that have been hittin' home regardin' this (besides lately step 3 in da white book) is some of the other members in the SA group; they are not religious minded people (not any type), and at the same time they realized that livin' life bein' controlled by one's urges is not livin' at all.

make any sense?

b'hatzlachah

cordnoy wrote:


lots of sense!!

the problem is we don't make too much sense many times,

dd wrote:


I respect that, and your honesty most of all, dd (or rather, whatever your real name is, chaver).

But you remind me of the guy who asked around for marriage advice. One fellow comes over to him and says he knows all about marriage and can help him out, "For I have been married five times!"

It's so great that you and so many of us have come to GYE, I agree. And it will be great when you get the help you really need to stay clean one day at a time (as anyone does, of course), whatever that help may be. I need help too, and have been getting it, b"H so far in SA recovery. But others may need different help.

But so many come here desperately hanging onto their old ideas - the very ones that got us into this mess to begin with.

It is quite likely that for guys who have already been getting just worse and worse even though they have been trying to repent - approaching this issue as a sin/Teshuvah issue is just plain assur.

But certainly sinning is sinning! The question is: where are you - each of us - coming from? That makes all the difference, be"H as follows:

The halocha is clearly that if no grape juice is available - only wine - it is completely assur for an alcoholic to drink the 4 kosos on pesach and he would use some other chamar medina...and if no non-alcoholic chamar medina is available, he would not have the 4 kosos, period. It's not that he is 'patur', but that it would be completely assur for him to drink them in this case - it is a mitzvah for him not to.

In the same exact vein, lu yetzuyar that masturbating or using porn were a mitzvah for normal Yidden - it would be completely assur for me. For I am an addict. I would have come to recovery (just as alcoholics come to recovery even though drinking is not a sin) because the way I use sex and lust is gluttonous and compulsive. It messes with my sanity and my life enough that I couldn't tolerate it even it weren't assur - nor even if it were a mitzvah!

And being married makes no difference and solves nothing at all for me (and many others)! All it does is sweep the powerlessness and gluttony under a convenient halachik rug - only to come out (as it so often does) years later when the addict is caught, and the tragedies are finally revealed in all their ugliness, dissolving marriages and careers in great shame, with churban for the families. The lying, hiding and faking (starting with 'meshaneh mipnei haSholom') that 'protect us', bite us very hard in the rear then.

But there is another point to be made here: The Nuclear Reset Button.

Can someone post that here? I am not sure how to do it but will goof about and try if no one else can do it.

Thanks for tolerating me and my long posts.

I agree w what you wrote and the way you wrote it 100%, Shivisi. (Two pages up, sorry late)

Unlike the recovery meetings, frum recovery shabbatonim and conferences I attend, we here are faceless on the forum. So you and I never know who is writing: is it a 50 year old man who has been masturbating his head off to porn for 10 years as a bochur and 20+ years as a married guy? Or is the poster 16-18 and struggling with his sexuality as any human of that age must till he gets a bit settled? You don't know, I don't know, and that leads to a lot of confusion for all of us about how to respond.

A bochur doing this is very different than a married guy. And a newly married guy doing this is much different than a 25year+ married guy. And a guy doing this 5 times a week is different than a guy doing it once a month. And a married guy seeing prostitutes weekly is different than a married guy in an affair - and the affair the bochur is having with his own penis is different than the one he might be having with a woman (or with a guy, for that matter)...and some may be addicts, some may not be addicts at all.

But they frequently post exactly the same way here! ("Oy, I am falling and can't stop my terrible behavior, etc."...relatively meaningless, no?)

I have learned that from a lot of experience in 5+ years here on GYE, speaking with many posters and meeting many, as well.

The simple truth is a lot different than many are posting.

But it is definitely a great start! Though that's not what I am hee to say in this (another) long post...

But I want to say that 75% at least of the guys here are not addicts at all. That is poshut. Some are addicts (like me). But most are just sinners - few are true addicts, maybe 2 out of 10 here, I would bet. Unfortunately, people who simply have no clue how to help bochurim with the Yetzer Hora just dump the sinners onto 'addiction' and expect recovery to help where they cannot.

I say 'unfortunately', because the velt - rabbomin included - is rarely ready to deal with these issues honestly. For example: How many shul Rabbis have admitted to the bochurim who come to them that they too, have masturbated or used porn? Few, to be sure. How would it affect their job security I wonder? But surely most of them have used porn and masturbated themselves. I know many kolel guys and mechanchim who are even addicts like I am (and some who are not in recovery yet, too). Many of them have struggled with the issue a few years in some way themselves. So how many share their OWN solutions and tribulations with the issue? Surely that would help the best! How many actually give the real gold of their own painful and real experience to these suffering souls? Very few, if any, I bet. And I do not blame them! Nu. For better or for worse, that is the way it is and will be.

Platitudes are useless, and 'chizzuk' is usually useless, too. They know that. So what usually happens is that whatever chitzoniyus eitzos or chizzuk they give the bochurim fails. And then one of two things happens: either the bochur slips away quietly and shamefully (I have spoken to dozens of exactly such bochurim already), or the rov dumps the kid into 'addiction'. Or the kid comes onto GYE and is told he must be 'an addict'.

But most times he is not. He simply needs help learning how to adjust to his own sexuality. Frum psychologists and skilled rabbonim should be able to help them do that. Rabbonim who openly talk about sex. I know a few.

But there is one thing that comes before the helpful kind of rabbonim or shrinks: PARENTS. Frum parents have a very difficult time talking about sex with their kids when needed. We are too afraid of admitting our normal human failures and struggles to our kids. So they are doomed to reinvent the wheel themselves and suffer through it all, all over again! But of the father would admit to the child that he also had problems because he liked the feeling of masturbating himself and seeing porn - he would be able to tell his child exactly what he did to get better and wean off it, or whatever he did.

That is gold.

But instead, they are getting dumped onto 12 step recovery. And that's too bad. Cuz it will not work for them. For they are really NOT powerless. Only the addicts among them are.

Like myself. I am an addict and powerless to control lust. It has changed the way I live, the way my wife and I relate sexually and enjoy sex, the way I relate to Hashem, myself, and many aspects of my life.

12 step recovery is the gift Hashem gave me that has saved my life. I tried rabbonim, psychologists, getting married, even lots of controlled acting out - all to control this thing...but it kept taking over my life and guided too much of me. I needed miracle. Because I am an addict.

If people have not tried the Torah yet, and have not gotten help from GOOD rabbonim and kosher shrinks, they are sadly shortchanging themselves by pretending they are addicts. Especially pretending to recover behind a fake name on a virtual network of 'freinds'. It's play-recovery and play-openness. It may work for a few weeks or months, but for the real addicts it probably wont do much more. There may be exceptions, but I bet they are few.

GYE has a lot to offer. But may Hashem help us not misuse this gift.

BTW, Hashem obviously demonstrated His tremendous love for me by creating SA out of the addicts (goyim and Jews) who sufferred with compulsive porn use, masturbation (sex with self) and other forms of sexual acting out...and He created that for me WHILE I WAS BUSY DESPERATELY MASTURBATING MYSELF ON MY BATHROOM FLOOR TO THE IMAGES OF THE SWEET PORN I WORSHIPED OVER AND OVER, AND OVER.

The yeshiva bochur in me was so busy desperately trying to figure out what kind of gehinom I deserved for it, whether looking at naked p'nuyos who were goyim is only a d'rabonnon maybe, or how much sperm was a shiur for zera levatola, or exactly what the ten kapitlach are and how many times to dip in the mikvah....while Hashem was busying Himself with creating SA out of real masturbating people who got sober, so that I would have a place to go and get the real help that a true addict needs.

He was busier helping me than thinking about whether I was a sinner or not or schar v'onesh.

But guys here are way too busy philosophizing about halocha and hashkofa to actually do the work to get better. I did that for about 15 years.

For a true addict, the entire subject of sin/Teshuvah/not-sin/whatever is nothing but a distraction.

thanks dov!!!

very well explained the idea about not focusing about the sinning, i can't say i fully get it yet but it starting to make sense a bit i'm sure i'll catch on more be"h the more i try,

kol tuv!!!!

dd wrote:


Shivisi responds:

Just remember that Dov pointed out that what he was saying about NOT focusing on the sinning part of it, ONLY REFERS TO THOSE WHO TRULY ARE ADDICTS!!

Just as is is sooo important for the real addict to realise that he is an addict, and what works for non-addicts wil not work for him, the same is with someone who is NOT a real addict just someone who needs help dealing with natural taiva and yetzer hora, must realise that all the stepsand programs offered to the addicts, are NOT appropriate for him.
The same is true with ADVICE!
We find ourselves giving each other advice here, but as DOV pointed out, many of those here are NOT addicts and thus sharing addict advice with non addicts is not appropriate, and sharing advice of what did or did not work for the not addict (who might mistakenly THINK he is an addict), is not appropriate for the true addict.

I therefore think that the first step must be to clearly identify whether one is truly an addict or not.I think not enough attention is given to this matter her.

Och, people, you realy make me cry!!
How the HELL should i know if i am an addict or not?????
Isn't the fact, that i'm waching pornography since im 13, tried 10000 times to stop, married and continued to watch, have a double life( from outside a ben torah), spending hours over hours and days over days mastur. , therefore causing terrible pain to my wife AGAINST MY WILL, begging to Hashem to free me from this terrible behavior or to show me a path, having even sometimes sucide thoughts, - enough to tell that i'm an addict????

I AM SO SO SO confused!!!

shivisi wrote:


ok first of all i was speaking about the first post about the sinning not the second one he wrote to you about addiction,

and for that post i think i feel the same way lighting does i have no clue where i am with that,

if you can help me with that please do so,

thanks!

lightning wrote:


lighting i feel every word you wrote, but for now i think we should try to use whatever is working for guys like us,

kol tuv!!!

Word of caution: I consider myself an addict, and therefore I may just be talking out of my tuchis, but this is what believe.

To allay the fears of lightening and dd, your first step is NOT to determine if you are an addict or not. Your first step, and ultimately only step, is to stay clean right now.

Now that you have that down, the hard part is how to do your one and only step. Your first priority is to see what works. If the mussar, chizzuk approach works for you, wonderful, mission accomplished. If you need some more than that, then do more than that. If I understand it correctly, Rav Twerski has been in AA recovery for many years now despite not being addicted to anything. As I heard him saying on a recording of Duvid Chaim's call, as long as you have personality defects 12-steps are good for you. So saying that someone who is not an addict and does the 12-steps will harm them, I feel is wrong.

The 12 steps, as I understand them - having not done them explicitly - basically says, trust in Hashem. Realize that you need His help in your life. Give up your pettiness and selfishness in realization that He is helping you and those feelings show lack of trust in Him. Make emends where you can and help others. There is nothing harmful there.

On the other hand, and I think this is Dov's constant point, if you are an addict and have a disease. One where your choices are not your own, where free-will is not so free, then trying to beat it like a taivah to eat a cheeseburger is going to get you nowhere fast. Even worse it can cause spirals of depression that only drive you further into your addiction.

So this as always brings me back to my first point. See what works. If what you are doing is working, then why change things just because you don't know how to label yourself. If it is not working, then you have to change something, even if you don't know how to label yourself.

Don't give up the search, don't give up trying things. Ultimately it will require a whole tool chest to beat this taivah/disease. The more weapons in your arsenal the better off you will be. Wasting time and energy focusing on how to label yourself is just distracting you from your one and only step, stay clean right now.

Banal q.: do i know that somethink istnt working after i tried it and fell anyhow?

I don't want to be vague, but you know when you know. Sure if you are constantly falling that is a bad indication. Does one fall mean that what you are doing has to be thrown in the dust-bin, not really?

I have found for myself, that everything I have tried has different levels of usefulness in different situations. But when I hit a wall, or I keep coming back to the same problem, then it is time to reevaluate what I am doing and dig deeper for ideas. Reach out to different sources, different people. Talk to Hashem to get some ideas, or work ideas out.