dov wrote on 06 Sep 2011 17:10:


How do i get off the road if i still need to go to the bar mitzvah? i wasnt overcame by lust i just took a couple of peeks here and there, i deff held my self back a lot but i was not perfect. i have to work on the tools to get better.

OK, so 'not perfect' doesn't sound that bad, and actually sounds functional to me, Helpfyi. If you are sincerely trying to be a good Jew and that's all that is going on here, then KOT, amigo! But I advise you to think "Progress" and not perfection - but really work at it consistently every day. Haboh litaher, mesay'in oso really means what it says. He will help you.

But what I wrote is more for a sicko like me. I need to 'get off the road' - and by that I specifically mean:

The entire reason that I go to the bar mitzvah in the first place, must be different than it used to be. I need to learn how to go for a different objective than the usual one, which was always the normal stuff, like to: see people, walk around with nothing in particular to do most of the time, have a nice time, say mazel tov, eat some nice food, and walk around trying to impress those who saw me.   

Though it was hardly ever conscious or on-purpose, the normal way I would attend such a typically crowded and lively event would include my taking special attention to (eventually) scope out the place for the prettiest woman there. This was normal for me. I never realized I was doing this until I heard some guy describe what he used to do (as I am doing with you right now) and then I realized that I had been doing just that, all along! Shocking. I would also be hyperfocused on fighting my lusting - which unfortunately made me think of the prettiness of the women there and the challenge before me, even more! It did not work that way, at all.

OK, so to 'get off that road' I need to discover other real motives for going to events such as these and try them on. Like a new shirt. Yes, the pretty women will always be there, and there will be plenty things to lust after there.....and the Gemarah about 'women washing clothes on that path' is not applicable here, at all - there is no way to escape from all of life, as you astutely wrote above!

So the escape must happen inside, not outside. The thing I must escape from is my own sick thinking. I need help rejecting some things I naturall came to believe over the years, things I did not even clearly realize I accepted, like "woman are essentially objects - their 'real lives' are just a 'distraction' from their true worth as tools for my own sexual and sensual pleasure", and "being lusted after by a woman is one of the best things I could ask for", and "very pretty woman are the most powerful thing in the world - homely ones are poor excuses for human beings", and "my handsomeness is very important", and "people are watching me and judging me - I'd better be on my best behavior for it matters a great deal what others think of me", and "if anyone knew the truth about me it'd be clear that I was the crappiest guy in this crowd" - and simultaneously: "almost every guy I really look at is an idiot, for some reason - too frum, too fake, not frum enough, mamesh goyish, prust, haughty, dumb, bland, unthinking oilem goilem, braniac, self-absorbed, etc." Them!

...all the big stupid lies like those are natural to me. 100% natural and true to me. All my insecurity and competition, religious dissatisfaction with myself turned inside out....no wonder I was always tortured with lust. The challenge of fighting the lust was far more comfortable a thing for me to walk around being aware of than my own inner pain, weakness, or confusion. So there I was, locked in battle with the YH...and these women's images. How could I win, if I needed to be embroiled in that struggle just to be comfortable?

Recovery for me is about realizing that I had it all wrong. It was not true that everybody else was losers - we are all in the same boat, so I'd better live and let live. It is not true that incredibly beautiful women are powerful (that one takes years and years for some to really let go of, and I am still working at letting it go - it's not easy) - women are just as frail as men, and we are all actually very frail and needy. And I do not actually have that much ugliness in me as I had always suspected...so i need not escape it into warm and dark lust splurges - nor into my all to familiar and lathetic 'romantic and glorious struggle to beat the YH'. Life is actually OK. Cuz life is mostly about being useful.

And that is the only way I can go to a wedding, bar mitzvah, vacation, whatever. To be useful. And the difference between this and the religious angle is that there is no price on insincerity in Torah - till you die and go upstairs. But not here. No pop-up timer tells everyone that you really didn't believe all this stuff! You do it all, and everyone thinks you are frum. Even you do! ...till you get up there and all is laid bare.

Not so with recovery for an addict. The lack of sincerity will always tell, in the end. We will not be able to stay sober unless we really let go of our false higher powers (women, approval of others, winning arguments, self-pity, etc); we will not be at peace unless we really do go to the wedding to be useful in some way to our family, a friend or friends, or whoever. There is no faking. The results speak for themselves, and there will always be a thousand excuses fro why it didn't work - till we finally confront our lies and let go of them. That is the steps as I know them, and I am still working on it, very imperfectly, but sober today so far!

Did that answer your question, or is it still a mushy idea? Or are you not particularly interested in the whole shabang because you do not need it? I respect that opinion 100% for it may be 100% true! Only you can know you, Helpfyi. And I'd be the last guy to tell you what "you'd better do or else you'll be sorry!"

Hatzlocha,

Dov

help fyi:
Do you have a great friend going with you? Great in growing in avodat Hashem.  Perhaps you can ask him to stick together with you and then you can keep each other in line (away from the craziness).  I am not saying to divulge your secrets to him.  Everyone could use chizuk in shmirat Einayim,, especially in elul.  Mayb you can talk to friend before and make up a system so that you can help each other.

Thank dov, i hear what you say, i don't go with that intention to seek out pretty women but when faced with them i'm a curious gorge. I don't get carried away in lust and don't masterbate, i just enjoy the sight of a good looking women the same way you would like a pretty flower. I don't mean i have never lusted i sure have, but currently this is where i stand and i don't want it to lead to a lust problem buc i have already had that and got out of it via this web site, and i feel i am slipping on the front which is just taking a look bec they are nice to look at.... i know where that leads and i'm trying to stop it in its tracks.

To chasdi avoes: i do have a freind i talk to about shmiras eyniyim but on a surface level i come to GYE for more detailed.

Helpfyi wrote on 07 Sep 2011 00:37:


Sound fine for derech 1 in my post above. KOT with your sweet chevra here and elsewhere, sir! My personal experience is not likely for you, I guess. We can still be buds, though, I hope.

Have a great day!!

please, I need help!!! I fell 2 days ago and feel like wanting now to go back to it!!! I don't know how to get out from it!

15 minutes at a time.  Daven for 15 minutes of sobriety.  Then progress to one day at a time.

Start over right now.  Guard your eyes everywhere.  Don't entertain fantasies.  Get busy with something, preferably something that requires your mind and body, like exercise or a project.

dov wrote on 07 Sep 2011 05:27:


dov of course were buds, and i consider you my rebbe bec i have gained tons from all your posts... we may not be exactly the same but i can still use your advise bec it can be taken on many levels.

Have a good day rebbe.

Dear Teshuvayid,

Guard once posted to you to read the GYE handbooks and you responded:
tshuvayid wrote on 03 Feb 2010 00:19:
.

You posted that you have been struggling with this 'addiction' for about three years and that you have tried the 12 steps already, as well as other things (I imagine by other things you mean medication and psycholgists, 'doing teshuvah', etc). And now you are falling again this week and weekly, then daily, then weekly again. Now you post here that you fell just a little while ago and feel like doing it allover again!

I know it can feel like a shock, for there is nothing as good as masturbating to get you and me to do "teshuvah" and finally feel free, for a change, of this powerful desire. Is that not correct for you? That you struggle, struggle and fight, and then are only really free from the overwhelming desire to masturbate again once you have done it already? It's fool-proof, no? If so, then you have discovered what many of us have. That the one thing that we can do to guarantee we will feel so very much like drawing close to Hashem in what feels like true, 'humble' teshuvah...is acting out our lust!

This is not a good thing. But it is true for me and many other people.

It is actually horrible. 

The SA White book reads, (in describing how we feel as addicts): "The only way we knew to become free of it (the compulsion) was to do it." Then it describes how we tried so very hard to use G-d the wrong way and always asked Him: "Please take it away so I will not have to let it go!"

I hear this in your words....and I am not being judgemental or critical, just relating. For I am the same way.

So I ask you to bite the bullet. What is it that you actually want? To let it go of it and live without it somehow - or to fight against it and win? Not everybody 'can have both tables', you know...

Hi,

I have not written much on this forum. I just had an experience I would just like to share.

5 minutes ago I felt stressed, depressed, overwhelmed & get-me-out-of-here sort of feelings. Then I felt this surge of lust come into my mind with some pictures attached. I then heard the thoughts of "this will get you out ur problems".
I felt out of control. Right in front of me was this craving of digging right into the hard core stuff...then something very strange happened...It just disappeared. I felt G-ds hand right there with me.

Untill now these thoughts were probably going on before every time I acted out without me even realized it. I started identifying what was going on in my mind which is really helpfull. Don't get me wrong, IT was still hard having to hold myself back. OK, IT probably would have felt really good to act out.

This is what I did: what would be AFTER acting out?? would my problems/stress disappear? absolutly not. I just tried to feel those feelings of what I would feel like after, if I did act out. I literally felt G-ds hand wipe away the lust from my heart. I couldnt have done it myself.

Thank You Hashem

I love U sooo much

Now I know I can do it

teshuvanow wrote on 23 Oct 2011 01:55:


Beautiful! I can testify that I've had many such experiences. Hashem will remind us often that this challenge is not insurmountable with His help. Is anything impossible if H' helps? No!!

You noted that "Now I know I can do it." I remember feeling that, but I also remember falling many times after feeling that. I found that the key was recognizing that I COULDN'T do it. I have no power to do it. H' might show me successes from time to time, but the point of that is not to tell me that *I* have the power to overcome this. I can overcome this when HE HELPS. Once I understood that my successes were not permanent, that I continued to eventually end up where I started from - I gave up and handed this struggle over to Him. That was the turning point for me. Ask Him for help, and when you're done asking Him - ask Him again. Habituate yourself to talking to Him about this, and eventually that will be the 1st thing that comes to mind when you get the sudden urge. Wouldn't that be nice?

Hatzlacha! ... and we're here for you!!

YVY

Hi Anybody,
I have a chashash that I may fall tonight and my wife is not mutar and she's watching a movie. I am trying not to watch but I'm  just glancing over while I write this and there are pretty women in the movie.  I need some chizuk to get me through the night. Please. I'm on my first streak here and its 5 days. PLEASE HELP!

I hope it's not too late.
It doesn't seem like your wife is going to be much help tonight.
But truthfully, you can not rely on your wife to keep you clean anyway.
Try this: Sit down with a pen and paper - or a computer that has a competent filter so you are safe - and write a letter to me. I am about to fall tonight as well. My wife is not available either, and she is not making life very easy for me these days. In your letter, tell me why you think I should not blow it tonight (no pun intended).
By the way - my current streak is at almost 280 days!! That is not something I want to lose, but I am so close. You must really convince me and talk me out of it, or I am toast!!!

Write about the streak, the future, how I won't feel good after, only worse, or anything else you can think of. But please, make it convincing because I am in BIG trouble!!!
Thanks.
Reb Yid  :'(





After writing such a letter to help someone else, I have found it virtually impossible to act out. How could I? I hope you make it through my friend. Good luck!!!

May I suggest you ask G-d to help you. Ask Him to take away your urge(s)

So I made it through last night and this morning i still had the urge but I'm still safe and I'm gonna go to the mikveh this morning and maybe that'll help carry me through a little bit. This is a good suggestion that may help others. Thank you all for your support and I'm sorry Reb Yid for not writing that letter. I hope you are still safe.