Dear Skeptical,

Did you see what I posted about (per Rav Dessler's teich of the Chaza"l) the contrast between Dovid hamelech's approach, Assa's, and Chizkiyahu's? That addresses what you wrote above, so I ask you to please see it. It is not misleading to give up and give all the credit to hashem even for me beign clean today. It depends who is saying it. If you knew my story, you might agree that the fact that I am sober today is only a miracle - even today, after 16 years clean, still a miracle. And maybe I am not the only one? You probably will not understand that and may want to say, "well, then if you still need a miracle that badly, you have not made any progress in yir'as Shomayim (or recovery)!" - If you see it that way, you simply do not understand addiction yet. And that is fine, for you are not one.

There is a context for everything. For example, R' Tzvi-Meyer often speaks about the virtues of being a shmateh - not being makpid on others and letting yourself just be a shmateh (and I quote, basically). Do you think it is right to let people walk all over you? Do you know how much damage is done in marriages and other relationships (let alone, businesses!) where a person lets go of his self-concern and hides behind the shmateh excuse?!

But do you think R' Tzvi-Meyer doesn't know that? Of course he does! There is a way to apply it. There is a time and a place for it as a mehalech and a time for the opposite, too. He is talking when it is right. And he feels it is a vital point to make becaue the majority of people have the opposite problem! We try to control our children - and hide our need ego-superiority and domination behind 'kibud av v'eim', fight with our wives - and hide behing 'good sense' or even halocha, etc. The principle machloh here is ego. We of all doros (I) can use some shmateh!

OK, enough of that - it was just an example (and an opportunity to name-drop!). My point is that for addicts, taking credit for their sobriety has been found to eventually lead us to not need G-d any more. Yes, that is exactly what taking the credit for our actions the way you describe it does, for many addicts. I will explain, be"H.

But first, a comparison that is uncomfortable: Parnossah. Hishtadlus is often described as a 'mitzvah', though even like R' Yishmael, it is not clear if it is maybe just a heter. Certainly the Rmch"l and the chassidishe velt, too, see it as part of a mitzvah in the general sense. Now, do we need to do hishtadlus, or not? Doesn;t Hashem give it all to us mibreicha elyonah? Yes, sure. So do we do our hishtadlus with the understanding that it is just an act - that really the shefa comes from him, and our actions do not make the money? No we do not. You do not. Practically nobody does. But I am sure that R' Yishmael did not argue with Rashbi about that becs he had less faith than Rashbi, c"v! He knew as well as Rashbi - but held we do the job of Odom differently than Rashbi did, right?

And we in this dark world struggle with the faith that actually only G-d provides and that all we do does nothing and is just part of the curse from the cheit with eitz haDa'as that we must do - and then Hashem gives...yes, it is a struggle.

Sadly, the emess (that no one wants to say) is that we walk around all day actually believing it comes from our work - and with the perfect faith in our senses, that how hard we work is how much we will make. And as frum yidden we struggle - struggle very hard - to fight this false belief inside us, to live as Torah Jews in our hearts, not just in our maysim. The maysim is far easier than the heart! But it is so hard ignoring our senses and the ruach of everyone around us (including the yidden who are not struggling at all to maintain true bitachon)! Only yechidei sgulah go out and work and still have perfect faith that Hashem does it all. Right? Let's please be honest.

Well, for an addict - a true addict - sobriety is just like parnossah. All our senses tell us, "I was sober for a week - I am cured! Boruch Hashem!" - then we fall on our behinds a week later...we wonder how long we can go? Then we 'last' a month, or the coveted 90 days, and celebrate! Then we lose dependence on Hashem, and fall on our behinds. The humility is the most essential part. And the thing that is lost is not faith, here - but humility!

Perhaps your approach is more realistic and more sensible...just as surely the approach of the pactical-minded man cries out to go to college, go to work and work long hours for the family even though Torah mah t'hei oleha!

My sobriety gives me my life and everything worthwhile in it. So I choose a drop of real humility over a lot of good sense, and even over what you may call 'proper' emunah.

I still love you, cuz we chatted a bit and I see the man you are. But I am sharing a different approach here that works for me and for many addicts I know.

Continued hatzlocha, no matter what!

Dov, thank you for clarifying your position. I am not going to argue further, because in reality, I don't think we're really arguing in the first place.

If I were to be scored on those 20 questions, I'm sure I would be labeled an addict. Yet, I think that just as every person is different, every addict is different as well.

For me, I have been known to be the shmateh you speak of and that could be very dangerous for addicts as well. The pitiful feeling of having a lower sense of self-worth or feeling like everyone else is walking all over you can be what feeds the need to "make it all better" with a load of garbage.

At the same time, I think everyone has different levels of emunah. I have actually been known to argue the point you make in your uncomfortable example of parnassah. I'm a business owner and I said since the beginning that I believe a person can make "foolish mistakes" or he could be so smart as to have everything calculated with the utmost precision, but in the end his success depends on whether Hashem wishes it or not. I love Parshas Hamon, because it illustrates this point so well. I ended up losing all my money my first time around and I still firmly believe this even though I'm still in the hole trying to climb my way out.

So how could I have such strong beliefs in Hashem and still do the stuff I've done? There are many reasons and this thread is not the place for it (I'm actually sorry for having hijacked this thread - wasn't my intention), but it does not detract from my yiras shomayim or any of the countless good things I have ever done in my life. This is a challenge of mine and I am working on it, boruch Hashem, with Hashem's help.

I agree with you again on the 90 Day Chart (it's actually one of the reasons for my name here). To me, counting days is pointless. It makes us more anxious as each day our minds are on the garbage we're trying to hold back from and then when we reach our goal, we're supposed to be cured. I don't pay attention to how many days clean I am at all. When someone asks me how many days I've been clean, I actually have to go look it up. I think it just happens to be 90 days clean for me either yesterday, today or tomorrow, but it makes no difference to me. I need to say no to temptation today as much as I had to say no to temptation the first day.

Hatzlacha to everyone here regardless of the method chosen to go about it!

inastruggle wrote:


Please take this in he positive spirit it is intended, inastruggle.

When you write, "but saying that there is..." that makes me think you are involved in hashkofah discussion. I am not, here. I do not particularly care what the sheettah or hashkofah is, in what "we are saying". I simply try to be honest and share the same thing when addressing goyim as when I address you: the truth as I experience it.

So, if you can continue the same fight and succeed, then you are simply not an addict, as i am defining the experience. Whether you feel you can get away with calling it 'al pi tevah', or whether you 'need' to admit it is a miracle and 'not al pi teva' is all just party line irrelevance, to me. Like whether a black hat is to be worn vs no hat at all, and whether it makes a difference or really does not...and in the end none of us are buried in a black hat, or any hat! Maybe it is very important....whatever.

It does not really matter what you say....all that matters is what you know in your heart. If a guy plays with porn, then he sincerely believes that he can control and enjoy it.

If he really can't drink alcohol successfully/use porn and masturbate successfully - if when he does it he gets put of control and hates himself, then he is like every goy and alcoholic out there who is ready to join AA or SA. Same issue. It is not his yiddishkeit or 'pinteleh yid' that is crying out - it is his humanity! He is ois mentch - lost as a human being - and knows it. Ta'isi k'seh oveid!! He cannot control and enjoy his drug, whatever it happens to be. He tries, and always ends up going way overboard making himself very miserable whenever he tries to control and enjoy it...he is in denial. People live in denial for years and years. Eventually it becomes unacceptable and they are ready to quit - but if they are addicts, cannot stay quit. For that, many of us have found that we can use G-d to change us for one day: today.

Is that a little clearer, or more sensible yet?

first of all, i dont think that i am an addict and i think that thats why it sounded like a hashkafah question,i was just trying to understand the concept. i apoligize if it sounded like i was questioning it hashkafically or making fun of it, that was not my intention.
second,your post did clarify the idea but im still not totally clear on how exactly you use hashem to help, again not hashkafah-wise but practically, like what thought do you use and when?

Once I knew that I am hopeless and have lost this battle and will continue to lose it, needing and using Hashem was not a complicated or strange matter. Until a person knows this is true for them, the idea of doing that makes no sense whatsoever.

Hashkofah is just not relevant to this issue, and when you need it you will do it. That's all I will say here.

was clean for 8 days
i had a fall

i found a video online on Friday
i said to myself... you don't want to waist now 25 minutes listening to a shiur as i said i will do in my thaphsic method
rather i will not extend my thaphsic method for Monday and look at it then ( i am extending my thaphsic method every day for till after tomorrow)
Sunday morning i thought i really want only the imagination so why do i need to look on that video and out other new ideas in my head to make my struggle harder
so i extended my thaphsic method with the exception of imagining and masturbate
Monday morning i said... that why waste time at work let me do it after work
after work i said let me wait till after muncha
after munche i fell

thinking about next step

gyegye2 (or actually, whoever you really are, chaver) - have things gotten better? You disappeared. Is that good news, or bad?

Hatzlocha amigo!

i alwys was sure that if someone disapeared is bad... unless he is one of yechidei segula that was able to do it by himself... until i waqs "kicked out" of the system... which mean i didn't have the access to the site (or the net alltogether) & yes it was hard for me. but it was even harder to think that everybody is thinking tht i left them....

"to except the things I cannoot change" & to be "don acherim lekaf zchus"

Dear צדיק גמור

Are you saying that by asking 'gyegye2' if his absence is good news or bad, that I am danning him l'chaf chov?

And I am happy to report that I never think it a bad thing when anyone stops posting. Posting is a powerful tool for staying clean one day at a time, and it helps many huys immesurably. But some guys have actually discovered that they do much better when they quit posting! For they relax, stop making a giant intense deal out of this whole issue and begin obsessing about life instead of obsessing about fighting their tayvos! They find that in the long run, obsessing about 'fighting it' is JUST as poisonous to them as losing is! For them, obsessing about 'kedushas habris' ends up leading to them defining themselves as either tahor bris kodesh's or tamei bris kodesh's...and the last time I heard, people are not bris kodesh's, but people! In other words, you and I are a lot more than our private parts - no matter how tahor and kodesh our privates happen to be.

That's one thing. The other thing is that there are actually far better tools out there than this forum! Like communicating with real people face to face, using our real names (as I and some others here do) and real faces - in other words, our real selves, for example. For many here (and I have been priveledged to know about thirty of them so far), this forum is a stepping stone to shedding the virtual and getting the help they really need.

So the next time we see someone disappear from the forum, there are real good - and bad - possibilities.

And yes, צדיק גמורit hurts to think that ppl are assuming the worst about us. Thanks for sharing that openly here - your honesty is a great help to me and everyone else! I have a very hard time with being suspected, too....but it is 100% because of my own gayvoh that such things hurt me. I care too much because of my ego, that's all. And Hashem can relieve me of it, (steps 6&7) just as He gives me and others a reprieve from lusting and obsession about sex (or about tahara, for that matter) one day ata time.

Life is really good!

Seeya,

Dov

thank you so much dov for inquiring!
there is good news i am still clean up to week 2-3,

i think that my next step is to get a sponsor
would you like to be my sponsor, i will call you before i feel i am going to fall? what is your #?

You want me to post my cell# here? Du bist serious?

As far as I know, sponsors are for sharing the steps they worked, so that their sponsees can also work them. If that is where u r, then we can talk for sure. But if you just want someone to talk with and share with about recovery in general, aren't there plenty other of clean-seeking Yidden who you could call on this big wide forum?

Please PM me for the #, tho.

Hatzlocha Mike/Bob/Shaya/Moshe/Yossi/Menachem/Shmeel, or whatever your name really is!

its ok Dov, i understand that you don't want to post your cell, you can send it to me by email gyegye2@gmail.com if you want.

i think that if i add to my thaphsic method that before i fall i will call someone it might help me.

because that is something that i never talked to anyone about it and i believe that this will be hard for me, so it will make me a little harder to fall, in addition it will make my fall more a process, and will be a distraction.

Thank you

Thank you

I realy don't understand the taphsik method. if i'll have to make phone call or go on my knees or anything like that it will sure delay it. but when i'm under attack i can't wait a minute. i need to send my sechel for a vacation & act out right away

in my case if i don't do the distraction i promised in my thaphsic method to do
1000$ from my bank account will go to tzedaka, so it helps when the attck comes to wona do the distraction,
lets say the distraction takes 30 min, you say let me wait 30 min and not have to pay 1000$
You can read it here

guardyoureyes.com/the-gye-program/20-tools/item/tool-10?category_id=278

thank you

The Taphsic method would never have worked for me or most of the people I know who are addicts, because (of course) the fox is guarding the henhouse. And delaying was never the answer either, of course. The only thing that made a differnce at all for me and others I know, was learning how to live differently and accepting a new way to see life - not just sex or lust.

That is one of the big disadvantages of addicts trying to use avoidance or external things Like punishments or 'accountability') to 'stop' themselves: it delays the inevitable and reinforces their confusion (and gayvoh) whenever they are (occasionally) successful.

But everyone should certainly try Taphsic and everything else before finally admitting they are in need of real change. Otherwise people will think we are losers.