Dov,

1) Your 'deep down' insight smacked me back to reality. Years of my rebbeim telling me how great I was because of my 'potential' rather then telling me how weak I was at the moment, really ingrained in me the fallacy of 'deep down'. Too many times I forget about the TRUE ME and resort to relying on the 'DEEP DOWN' me.

2)" Wishing we had it, 'believing' it is right, or admiring those who do, means nothing." Can you further explain the quotations on the word 'believing'? I believe i know what your infering but I'm not sure.

Yossi 

It is 5770's thread, and let's not forget his start here. Hope he's doing alright.

By 'believing' it's right to be clean being useless for those who are truly addicts, I mean this: Having real faith that schmutz - though it is so, so sweet to us - is actually bad for us, is not found in s'forim. It is either in our hearts, or it is nowhere. In most cases, we are given the gift of sight through the very opposite of s'forim. We are awarded it through the bitterness of our acting out. "Yoreh chato'im baderech - He throws the mistaken onto the path of Teshuvah." His Chessed is not always pretty. The emotional and practical wreckage that our own acting out causes is, in the end, our very best friend. It gives us the faith we could not possibly have gotten from all the Torah and mussar in the world.

Not that nobody can get this faith from s'forim - surely many can.

But not addicts.

We are lower than normal people, in this regard. Nu. Humility is needed in order to let the facts of our track records speak for themselves about our limitations. Chizzuk to "keep fighting!" is great for normals, but is the greatest poison for addicts. Our most precious friend is complete dependence on Hashem. Addicts like me need to completely give up on winning through effort - not out despair, but out of honesty and humility. To learn to use G-d, for a change, we need to stop trying and re-trying to use ourselves. It is a very hard battle against the truth...suffering is usually the only way we finally give up. Some are harder-headed, some softer.

And, incidentally, do not c"v be fooled that you, me, or anyone (addict in recovery, or not) will ever fully depend on Hashem or will never forget Him, even in the very best recovery. Lo nitnah recovery [i]l'mal'achei hashoreis[/i! These are not 'madreigos' like they describe in the s'forim - we are simply losers against our lust, who have discovered they can depend on Hashem and live sober one day at a time. It's a real miracle. Not the kind of miracle we refer to when we say things like "childbirth is a miracle". Childbirth has an explanation, science, and is natural. This miracle I am referring to has no explanation, makes no sense, and should not be. We do not [b]deserve [/b]to be sober. It is Chessed (grace). And by definition, Chessed is not deserved.

Did that help any?

Yes, thank you.

5770 wrote on 26 Sep 2011 02:34:

Exactly 5770! That is exactly what they are! You are speaking truly, as few do. Schmutz is not perceived of by our very hearts as 'tum'ah', 'evil', whatever....our hearts and bodies really believe it is our very best friend!

This is the beauty of the 1st step of AA (SA) - and precisely why so many people (especially frum ones) have expressed disgust with davka the 1st step, mistaking it for the Christian idea of inherent inherent human evil, of original sin, etc. They think the admission our powerlessness is forced on us by "the 12 steps". Ha! Truth is, that if it is forced on us (which it usually must be) it is by our own behavior! There is no "religion of the 12 steps." It is not an exclusive club or . If it is a club at all, then it is simply a club for losers against lust, period. We lose in order to finally let G-d win through us. Just as Hashem did Chessed in the world through Avraham Avinu - yet it was His middah of Chessed expressed. And we call A"A ( ) the ushpizin for that Middah!

The admission that as addicts, porn is deeply precious to us is only apikorsus if we were to say it is the way things should be - practically, though, it is exactly how we addicts live! It is nothing more than acceptance of reality. Our behavior proves we have twisted beliefs - and twisted beliefs do not go away because someone is intellectually convinced they are false. See the dor haMidbar! They lived through this, that, all kinds of nissim - and they still ran to fear of failure and familiar cows! (see the Even Ezra)

Addicts in recovery accept that our inner beliefs are sick, and understand that they will likely remain sick for some time - but G-d has the power to give us a reprieve! That's sobriety. The most important gift I got from my earliest recovery was that I came to see that being failure at controlling lust was the truth about me!

And suddenly, so many other things made sense. Why I hid it so much...wasn't because I was ashamed about it, as much as it was to protect my ability to keep doing it! Why I inexorably kept going back to it..........was not because I was so weak in my emunah in Hashem or yir'ah or ahavah, but because I am naturally so strong in my faith in porn's ability to make me feel good. Hence my deveikus to it. Hashem, knowing and understanding all, is certainly the least surprised of all at my devotion to it! It was perfectly sensible: porn and sex made me feel good over and over, so I came to trust them, to turn to them, to use them, to protect my access to them, and to obsess about them. Hey, I always knew it was wrong to stare at naked people and use their most personal images to pleasure myself with my sexual fantasies, that's obvious to anyone, and when we were kids we all knew it was naughty and wrong! But it was there (to make money, not because it was what society said it was good - they just want to make money, as a hooker once told me) and we used it. It felt good and we frankly did not care enough to stop helping ourselves to it.

Look at how many of the beautiful and essential aspects of a proper avodas Hashem, I use in my addiction for my lust and sex:

1- tzniyus (kept it private, hidden);
2- t'midus (consistency and regularity);
3- kavonah (focus - and what focus/kavonoh we have while searching and finding the sweetest porn we can and then using it for just the right fantasy!);
4- Yichud hama'aseh (putting real life, the kids, job, wife, all on 'hold' once I start to plan the evening's escapades - that is true yichud hama'aseh [misused, of course] - see Chovos haLevavos);
5- Mesiras nefesh (taking so many risks for it - I endangered my job, marriage, respect of the community, chillul haShem, and even my bodily safety and often overlooking or tolerating tremendous physical discomfort just to get my fix, many, many times);
6- kana'us (I'd get resentful at those hindering my attachment to my sweet, loving, porn women [ie, my wife and kids] and often lash out at them);
7- Deveikus (being attached to it as to a chain, it eventually takes over my thought, context of living, relationships and motivations for living); and more...

My point is that though the ma'asim of porning and sex with ourselves are indeed rotten things to do and very assur, they are perceived by us as our best friends. So many frum guys have tremendous pain - as I would - over their acting out. The torment of the confusion of a powerlessly lusting frummy that only we can understand. But it is because of competing faiths, not 'evil desire'. This is important. That's why we lust. Not because we are evil, bad, or whatever. Rav Noach Weinberg zt"l would make a great point of this regarding cheit, in general. He would say this is why Torah doesn't call it "sin" yechhh. Inside true addicts, our acting out is not evil, but our very best friend! It is because we really believe that, that we end up so messed up. The fact that it is an aveiro is so very irrelevant. And arguing with a faith is usually a complete waste of time. Pain is often the only way out.

Until the frum guy who is truly addicted admits that he does it because he loves it, he will never know what is going on, and will just see himself as a rosho. And that'd be a lie. He is not acting out because he is bad, but because he has learned to trust his natural instincts with the wrong thing.

The beauty of the thing is that Hashem has arranged it that eventually it becomes our enemy. Eventually the emotional and practical consequences of our obsession catches up with us until we become ready to finally get the help we really need to start giving our best friend the cold shoulder. It is very hard, we are hard-wired that we must have it, and that it is good for us. So it never goes that smoothly.

But if we really understand that we developed our sexuality in tandem with using/fighting this lust stuff, we are not at all surprised when we often feel like turn naturally and strongly toward our old friend during our first few years of recovery! That is patience through honesty.
So, what do you mean by this?




Hopelessness is the only hope we have. Give up on beating it through strength, if you must (as I do). But do not give up on yourself! There is a Big G-d in the world, and He has lots of friends all over who will help you out. If you are truly an addict, then Chizzuk is not the answer. I'd suggest looking at the first step. Read step 1 in AA's book, "12 Steps and 12 Traditions." Then decide where you stand.

dov wrote on 27 Sep 2011 17:02:

Quite a list!

dov wrote on 27 Sep 2011 17:02:

Another great quote!

Thanks dov!

Back to 5770- if he feels he needs some escape- is it better to always try and face reality as painful as that is?  Is there any room for him (and me) to find a reasonable escape to take one's mind off this stuff for a little while?

black bigday wrote on 27 Sep 2011 20:32:


IMO, as long as you know that it's b'dieved, do it once in a while. But remember, the more you sweep stuff under the carpet, the more garbage will build up inside of you. Better to face life head on when you can.

Wow. It most certainly is. I'd go a step farther than kiddusHashem suggested and say that it must be OK to do hide from some of the truth about us and our lives. Because Hashem hides a lot of it from us! What I mean is this:

Every addict in recovery who works his or her steps 4-7 discovers that they discover new character defects as the years go on. Or at least new expression or depth in their CDs that they never realized existed. Our CDs are not evil. They are pur coping mechanisms, allowing us to live more comfortably without exploding. For an addict, porning and sex with self - and even using prostitutes - are all just coping mechanisms. As you, BBG, call them, 'escapes from real life'. Who can possibly face everything?

Nobody!

And this is surely true for non-addicts, as well. Not even the Chofetz Chayim could have tolerated having all the defects of his character removed at once. It'd cause a mental breakdown for any human. This is why even an amorah  (or maybe it was a Tanna) could say "oi lanu l'yom hadin, oy lanu leyom hatocheicha!" He even meant himself. And another Tanna even said "Sure, I want it to happen soon, but just let me not be there to see it happen!" It was not just the wars that scared him, but the ripping away of all our human capacity to comfort ourselves with those silent inner lies. Nobody will be comfortable when all the lies are ripped away by Hashem when he brings Moshiach and saves all us humans from ourselves. We will all want to run, at first.

Hopefully, yidden will trust Hashem enough to go to him when He offers us comfort. Just like Yosef and his brothers (that is where the amorah is drawing the comparison to y'mos hamoshiach in the "oi lanu" meimra). He ripped away the lies and they ran. Then he called them close to speak to them words of nechomah (see Rashi there, if you like). Hashem will do the same thing, and it will be "leila mikol...venechemoso da'amiron b'alma".

So. No, we cannot possibly face it all. But hard as we try, we will only be given the gift of honesty that we can handle. There is nothing to fear in real recovery. Some people are in what they call "recovery", and they keep using porn, sex with self, or worse. Nu. They want to quit, but they simply feel they need the stuff. They see and feel it as "a desire", though it is actually an escape. They do not really believe that, though. Nu. I have to believe that those who know and yrt keep acting out simply cannot face the truth and grow up yet. They need more false nechoma - it is just too early yet.

But we cannot stop hoping that they will soon have enough of the lies. But it is hard, very hard. And you and I are living some lies, too. We just do not see them, nor do we need to act out over them, so we call them 'benign'. But they do protect us emotionally from seeing our full ugliness. It is the human condition.

It is where all the room for growth is! This is one meaning to the well-known idea that "a person would die if they reach their full tikkun. Life would be over."

It's very, very good to be alive and not intentionally hiding. We have enough trouble with our unintentional hiding! L'Chayim!

So what would be considered a 'safe-escape'?

Just keep on doing what you must to recover and you will automatically only become aware of the things that you can handle. The stuff you can't handle will remain invisble to you, as it is to all of us!

The trick is to pick a good way to "recover". I tried learning mussar including a focus on Shomer Emunim, Taharas haKodesh, Yesod Yosef, and those types of things. It was idiotic for me. Here I was, b'bira amikta, expecting not to make any progress, but to rather to just change altogether and start living and walking around b'igra rama! Just plain stupid for me.

After about ten years of that 'struggle' - and getting worse and worse in my acting out - I quit. Sure I'd get better for a month or even a year here and there, but over time  - about ten years - the real truth about what I was and where I was holding came out, and how! Boruch Hashem my bottom was not even lower and I did not have to ruin even more than I did. Chasdei Hashem ki lo samnu!

The program I was led to showed me a sane way of regaining sanity, instead of a way that would be crazy for me to regain sanity. I am still regaining sanity. Ksiva v'chasima tova!