Ditto to UAJ.  And newavraham where did I say that because you asked about sex pills you were a Baal Tayva? What I said that the theme of all your posts revolve around your lust and not about your fighting it. And I stand by what I said even if it was insulting.

By the way, completely on the side, if you meant those "sex pills" they sell in the gas station or over the counter, you should save your money they are worthless or chas v'shalom harmful (and probably treif).  Of course, if you meant Viagra then it should help.

Your-a-Jew - You responded very very harshly. You can only give me that mussar if you your self do nothing more than "Hu l'maala v'hee lematah". If you tell us all we need to get there, then go to Rabbi Pitter for another chassan schmooz.

He understands that if you tell someone to stop cold turkey on his taavos it is a gzera asher ha'am lo yochol la'amod bo. Dont you know what type of olam you are dealing with?? You are an expert baal taava controller and mechazek. You know that you cant tell people to enjoy their spouse only if the room is completely dark and smack in middle of the night and in the position mentioned above. You know that there is a 12 step process!! Where do you come to make such harsh comments about one who wants to relax in a healthy way with their spouse in a jacuzzi. The reason the question was brought here was to get some guidance and chizzuk about enjoying it IN a jacuzzi but in a proper way for who I am.
Please use your mind when responding not just your emotions. And try being dan lekaf zechus a little more.  We have ta'avos here we need help controlling it. Starving the ta'ava helps up to a point. Eventually the husband and wife will stop the starvation and get back to regular relationship in marriage.  Tha ta'ava is back, we need to control it not to stop it (yet). Im sure you understand.

Dear newavraham,

I believe that the explicit detail and raunchiness that some of your posts have, has a good chance of showing others how much they can get away with if they really feel they 'need/want to' - and yet still overcome. That does not seem like celebrating Chasdei Hashem, but more like playing some sort of game. You may not be playing this game at all, but it is the impression that many of your posts give. I cannot (and therefore b"H, do not) read through most of your posts for this reason. I have been explicit with many other recovering people and many others have been explicit with me about our sexual issues and addiction, etc - but that never triggers. Please try to understand that it is nothing personal, but your posts often are triggerring, unlike even more explicit surrenders I have heard.

You do not know me, as I do not know you. But if you want to speak about this with me over the phone I'd be glad to talk it over as friends who both know this struggle and pain. Maybe I need an education - it would not be the first time...

UAJs post said more clearly exactly what I am talking about. I have been going to SA meetings for many years, and have sat in on many dozens of first-hand, detailed accounts by people (like me) who tell all the truth about themselves in the safe environment of an SA meeting. Every new guy I meet who is serious, gets all the facts about what I do when I act out with lust and what my challenges are in detail. It is not triggerring, but sad, actually. Your posts are different - have you tried what I suggested and read through them from the early days till now? There is a pattern. This is not an accusation. If you take it that way, I am sorry. I am trying to help your sharing here be more effective for all involved, that's it.

There is a feeling one gets when a person is giving more detail than needed in order to be painfully honest. It feels like they are advertizing the ways they pushed the limit. And there is a subtly different feeling that a listener gets when he hears a person who is giving these things up. Telling the truth in order to put it behind him. 'Telling all' is not what this is about. And 'telling-all' here where anybody vulnerable can read it - weak, strong, on-the-edge, whoever - is unkind, I think. It is inviting fantasy. Poison.

We both want to be a help to others, be"H. I think that the honesty will come from others if they really want help, but in a safer environment - like on the phone one-on-one with other recovering people who also need help, like you and me.

YOu and me talking it over on the phone would probably clear cobwebs from before both our eyes, so I reach out to you that way. I get zealous on the forum sometimes, but do not bite at all, in person. You can ask a few guys on this thread of yours right here and they'll tell you cuz they know me well enough. 

If you get turned off in some way and decide to blame me for it, then that is up to you. I know that I have nothing personal against you, at all, and I recognize that coming forward here is a Chessed on your part and perhaps mesiras nefesh for you, as well. I wish you only the best and hope you see that. But I have made mistakes before and ask your mechilah if I said anything in a way that is hurtful to you. It's not my intention.

Hatzlocha!

Dov,
Thank you.
You explained your position well. True not everything needs to be said. I will be very sensitive to the readers.
You have been mechazek me.

You deserve chizzuk, I deserve chizzuk, and that's the way it works, it seems.

dov wrote on 19 Jan 2012 17:37:

I speak to dov... and I haven't been bitten yet . 

NA, I can totally identify with the questions you have been posting.  I had them too, but the realization that fantasizing about my wife was feeding my addiction has really been a game changer.

It is difficult to understand a person's intentions in writing.  Talking on the phone or even meeting in person are much better ways to communicate.  You can hear and see nuances of expression that are just not possible in writing.  So far, I have only found bracha in reaching out to others.  I don't remember what you have said about yourself regarding opening up to other people on the phone or in person, but I highly recommend it from my own experience and what I have heard from others who have done the same.

I wish you bracha and hatzlacha, and 'progressive victory over lust'. 

New Avrohom, I believe that you misunderstood the point of my post I have no objection to you and your wife having a great time in the jacuzzi or wherever else you get your thrills.  Nonetheless you seem to have been offended so I apologize.  For now, I would ask you to kindly keep the details in your posts of your fantasies and desires to a minimum for the benefit of all the lust crazed addicts out there (myself included), and for your own benefit I would suggest that you focus not on how you can fulfill those fantasies and desires but how you can work on making recovery a part of your life.

newavraham wrote on 18 Jan 2012 21:18:


I think we just needed to hear this bit of information first, before anything else was said. I believe the others would have responded differently.

Also, gibbor, I was just quoting that gemara mainly for the quote from Mishlei, where if you let Hashem lead you in all your
ways, He will be closer with you throughout. I understand your point, though. We are not malachim. I apologize for the misunderstanding....Kol Tuv!

Sorry this is such an arichus:

As far as indulgence goes, let me just share this with you, be"H.

Hashem tells us he wants us to practice sexual abstinence with our wives (and it goes the other way, too, for her, of course). Right? This is niddah. About two weeks of sexual abstinence every single month. Teaches self-control, right?

Wrong.

And he knows it.

It does not teach self control, and here is why:

The kiruv and hashkofah sforim kim'at all say that kashrus, niddah, bris milah (RMb"M) and shaatnez, all teach self-control to yidden. Other mitzvos as well, teach subservience to His Will for us in taking many actions that have chisaron kis, difficulties, etc. I am not speaking for all Yidden, here, but:

Plenty frum men are chain smokers, yet do not smoke for twenty-five+ hours every week, on Shabbos. They can go for a whole day without dropping dead, but they still kill themselves, coughing at night, knowing they are eventually going to get lung cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, poor circulation, have stinky breath, have interrupted sleep because of inevitable nicotine drop about three hours into sleep every night, and other problems. Besides the fact that they look just plain idiotic, smoking like adult babies dependently sucking on a lollipop in public.

Where is the self-control? 

How are there frum wife-beaters, ganovim, sex addicts, liars, and drunks? I am not condemning the people, just pointing out that there is a reason that these awesome mitzvos often do not turn us and others (with problems such as the above) into regimented, controlled adults. In fact, in our cases, the entire avodas hamitzvos becomes a vehicle through which our behavior intensifies, becomes like a burr in the cotton and cannot get pulled out. How?

My experience in this teaches me that it is because these mitzvah behaviors are ritualized. So we become 'immune' to them. Their cognitive effect becomes nullified because we do them because that is what is expected of us. Not out of self control. In fact, the self controlling is ejected, because being tempted itself is viewed as an evil, goyish, yuch.

Now, the RMB"M took pains to change that in Hilchos teshuvah, differentiating these mitzvos from moral issues, and trying to make clear than within the heart of the Yid, he or she keeps kosher (and issur ervah) even though he or she recognizes that it'd feel nice. He refrains only [b]because G-d wants him to[/b], period (no pun intended there!). But we have created a culture around them, and that immunizes us to the moral effect that Hashem 'intended'.

Now I am not arguing for reversal of that, at all. It works for the masses. Just like the nusach-tune of tzibbur davening makes davening rote, rote, rote (yuch) - but definitely preserves it from generation to generation for the masses. All I am pointing out is that on a personal level, it neuters an important aspect of avodas Hashem in the mitzvos.

So what to do? Abandon nusach-tune in shul and just say the tefillos (the way R' Yaakov Kaminetzky z"l used to daven)? Abandon doing anything because "that's just what Yidden do"? No way Jose'!

What I am trying to pass on is that as addicts, we need something more - I need something more. We need the penimius, the relationship, the hachno'oh that is in the mitzvos lo sa'aseh. If it will be po'el on us, we must be aware of it and try to face it and use it that way. To be more aware of the fact that I do not touch my wife when she is a niddah because I choose to do what Hashem knows is best right now. Na'aseh venishmah to Hashem. Not to culture - even Jewish culture - but to Hashem as He expresses it through His Torah and tzaddikim. It is a choice, and this is what he wants me to do - bechirah.

Yes, there is a place for hechrech, kofoh aleihem hahar kegigis - but not if I want to grow through the mitzvos lo sa'aseh by being aware that I could do it, but choose not to, because I accept that He knows what's best. I feel sure that xyz would be in my best interest, but I am wrong - He is right, cuz he is G-d.

So. About sexual abstinence in marriage. Hashem asks us to do it, and we live OK without sex for a few weeks...at least some of us do....but as soon as she comes home from the mikkie, sex is typically no longer optional for people like us, at all.

Where is all the self control we were mekabel/learned during the past two weeks?

It was never there. We were not really refraining because Hashem commands it, but because of cultural reasons: our wives would not tolerate being married to a sheygitz who would mess with her during niddah c"v,  we were deathly afraid of koreis c"v, habit, or other reasons. All Ok reasons - but they do not work for addicts like us - like me. They do not inculcate in us anything like self control, hachno'oh to or acceptance of/devotion to Hashem's Will for us. They will not even touch our sexuality, at all.

I gotta go now, but so far, do you hear where I am coming from? Please leave the next conclusions out of the matter - just till here, do you hear me?