"You are not ____________, you are a yid with a strange and powerful yetzer hora and you are finally fighting it!"

Fill in the blank however you wish, friends.


I wish these opening words were my wise words, but they are from another post from which I borrowed them.

"You are not _Bad___________,

You are not ___alone, hashem is with you, have emunah and faith, You Will Win The Y''H!!__

Where is the "Like" button when youneed it?

i _____________ don't get it

"You are not an addict. You are a yid with a strange and powerful YH and are finally fighting it."

Is that what you'd say?

OK, so you may be right about all that, and you may be wrong.

I have a few questions for you, if you'd like to answer, fine:

1- what is your age?

2- are you willing to describe here exactly what behaviors you are doing that are against halocha/upsettingyou/getting you in trouble?

3- are you willing to give them up yet?

Hatzlocha, whatever your  response may be, and ah guten Mo'ed!!

@Dov:

LB's point is not about denying the addiction, it's about shedding labels, as an extension of the original line, which came from my thread. LB posted there also at more length.

Basically he's not saying to deny whatever problem you have, just not to label yourself with it and allow it to define your identity, because then you will be convincing yourself that it's impossinle to change.

So one can say " I am not an addict, I am a Yid with an Addiction". Thus one's primary identification is not with the adddiction.

It's the same like with people with disabilities, we don't say "he is disabled", we say "person with a disability". He is a person first, whatever his disability is just something he has to deal with, not who he is.

A Gut Kvittel,

Gevura!

When has being a yid with cancer ever defined that yid?

I think I hear what you are saying but to me it seems to all semantics and based on shame. A person who repeatedly fails and finds he is doing things against his own will - cuz he feels he has to - is likely an addict. If these things are damaging his lifestyle, then he is actually a sick man. Like me. Talking of 'defining' is just a way of escaping the label, as far as I am concerned.

If I am an addict and my life is truly actually not in my own hands, that is one of the most important facts for me to recognize. It does not 'define me' any more than my height does. Sure, life can go on for some time with him behaving this way....but when those big bumps in the road of the life of an addict occur, it gets uglier....and still uglier. The excuses abound, and all get used-up in the process: the shunning of labels, our blaming of others (especially those we love), and even blaming yiddishkeit (guys call it "eventually my emunah was getting weakened!") . Eventually they pass, until the next bumpy ride, maybe a year or two later.

Those who are lucky enough to see a pattern get help. They call themselves addicts because they come to see that, as they are, their lives are actually not manageable by them. This comes as a shock to most, but eventually is accepted. Some need help in the form of other people who have accepted it, just to get comfy enough with it. Some have to go pretty far down the ladder to actually surrender to the truth, some do not.

I did not have to go that far down the ladder, compared to many others. Boruch Hashem. Some had a much more pleasant trip than mine. Some went through absolute hell - and took their wives and children with them, nebach.

And when they get together, they come to see that there is absolutely no difference between them - each is just as out of control as the other, in the long run. An addict is an addict, and speaks the same crazy language inside. One just brought it out b'po'el more than the other.

"v'chanosi es asher achon, v'richamti es asher arachem." Who can understand it? Not me.

Hatzlocha! I am not judging anything about you! Only you can ever know the truth about you, not anyone else.

its actually a deep and important question (at least in coaching terms - and for unplugging triggers)

if I bore you and you fall asleep, its ok, have a good nap.
on the other hand, if I fall asleep - I hope someone will wake me.

Briefly - it goes like this.. part of the human situation is we create our own LIFE stories... (or more often than not, others create them for us). Imagine being a one-man show... you are the star of your own show! You get paid the BIG bucks for being the staring role.

So whats your story ?

for example - how about: I AM STUCK!!
so in order to make sure you continue to generate revenues you'll have to keep up the story line.
maybe you come on stage with a SPIKE in your foot - and walk around in circles, telling everyone YOU ARE STUCK!

or maybe to add variety, you walk BACKWARDS in a circle - and exclaim: I AM STUCK!

are you getting it?

real life story - a friend recently got married for the first time at age 63!!!
why because one day, as a young girl walking with her favorite doll and stroller - her mother notice the doll did not have a blanket, and pointed out to her daughter, that she'll never make a good mother !

well guess what- she believed it.. and lived this LIFe story most of her life. Anyone who tried to get close, propose, etc - she would create situations to scare the guy off - after all "she would never make a good mother".

Once you are aware of your LIFE story - you can inform your mind that you are NOT X.

another life story - one of the guys used to like to look at married women. Why? (ok - he is an addict. but besides that.. ) he felt he was a dirty and disgusting person (based upon what he had been told), so he looked for ways to "remind" himself that this is what he was.

Change the storyline to : I AM NOT A DIRTY DISGUSTING PERSON...
after some practice when a married woman crossed his path, he was able to CHOOSE not to look, since after all he was NOT a dirty and disgusting person.

bottom line.

Is he an addict. yes.
Was it a label: yes.
can a person grow? YES!

are you a person? YES!

welcome to being HUMAN!

have a nice day

dov.ii