Hello all,
I've been pretty quiet on the forums lately; SA has been very helpful for me and I've been generally trying to stay away from the computer.
I just want to share here -- before I share it at an SA meeting tomorrow -- that I'm resetting my sobriety. I surfed with lustful intent multiple times over the course of the day and "stumbled on" some things that were "just" triggering and some that were downright pornographic. I did not touch myself, but I had zera levatalah multiple times and it included intention. (On a side note, that's an indication -- for me -- of decreased tolerance for lust, which I think is a good thing).
My sponsor told me that resetting my sobriety is not a defeat; calling myself sober when I haven't been would be a defeat. I wanted to share that here. It's interesting; I've been in awe of folks who come to meetings with 10+ years of sobriety, but I've also noticed that some people who have been in the program for well over a decade, but have less than one year of sobriety. They often introduce themselves with bottom lines that I've always thought sounded too stringent, but I'm taking a page from one of their books: I'd like to begin introducing myself with, "It is against the bottom line of my sobriety to surf the internet with lustful intent." It sounds wishy-washy and bendable, but I know when I'm getting on the computer for the wrong reasons, and I'll have to face it from now on.
I want to surrender that I'm feeling ashamed and depressed. "I had five months sober!" I keep telling myself, along with, "If you had to fall, at least you could have waited until after aseres yemei tshuvah." But I hope my lev nishbar v'nidkeh, along with concerted effort on reviewing the writing I've done for steps 1-3, will propel me to a positive sobriety, one day at a time.
One of the regulars in the SA meeting I go to struggles with entitlement. He keeps saying, "Sometimes I just feel like I have the right to have an easy life." I identify with that. I spoke with him after a meeting about it and shared something I had been reading by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks regarding rights and duties. He nodded and said, "I know that the only rights I really have are to praise God and love all people." Simple and sweet.
Gmar chasimah tovah, everybody.
