extending my taphsic method till next week Thursday
hashem hep

extending my taphsic method till next week Thursday
hashem help

i am going to beet my record of 30 days if i didint yet

in the past i sometimes fell after beating a record

any suggestions?

Thank you

gyegye2 wrote:

Hi,

It sounds like classic "white knuckling". Long-term sobriety requires a different way of living, not just trying to "beat a record".

There are lots of suggestions in the handbook and on this forum.

I wish you hatzlacha and long-term sobriety!

Practically all the people who count the days lose their record. I believe it is because they are counting. I think that counting is just plain stupid and childish.

Now I have been plenty stupid and childinsh for plenty of years myself! So there was a time that counting may have been a good thing for me...for about a month, maybe. But the guys I know who are sober a long time, have usually given up the counting thing early on and do not even remember their exact number of days. They say things like, "It was around Peysach time," or, "It's been about a year..I really should go and look up my calendar and figure out when that last trip I made to the bathroom to masturbate at school was - I think I may have an anniversary coming up soon!" I am serious.

Unfortunately, counting is so often just a contest, as in: "Let's see who can hold their breath the longest! Ooh, you have 90 days of holding your sperm in, wow, Mazel tov, iy"H by me!"

If it is really 'holding it in and holding on', then I doubt it is worthwhile - except as a lesson in failure and a precious stepping-stone to final surrender and a chance for real recovery one day at a time.

See, "one day at a time" also means that they days do not really add up. The only way they add up is as a measure of gratitude to Hashem - He has helped me and gifted me with reprieve for so many days, so far! The last time I had to act our with sex with myself was 16 years ago erev rosh chodesh Adar. But as far as I myself is concerned, I did not stay sober for that long - that is clear. All I ever did was give up acting out for this very day - or for this very minute. I prayed for the shiksah I wanted to undress with my eyes, prayed for my wife or my child who I wanted to resent, worked my steps 4-7 to give up my fears of my day to Hashem without trying to push Him out of my way today...so that He could keep me sober. And He does.

If I could let go and stop fighting, then so can you or anybody. As long as you agree to let your ego go, and stick with one day - today. It's kedai.

Beating a record leads to getting beaten, that's all.

But hatzlocha doing whatever works for you!

- Dov

Never become complacent. Don't ever think, "Oh wow, I made it so long I finally beat it." That's the yetzer harah telling you to go ahead and prove it. It's a trap.

Instead think, "Wow, I've made it so long, I'm so happy with how my life is now, I'd better keep this up!"

Dov wrote:

it makes sense so why is counting such a big deal in sa only those who have 30 days speak first u say it at every meeting the keynote speekers at conventions have 10 15 years

1- Having a long time during which we apparently did not need to act out (that's obviously why we did not end up acting out for that time!), is proof that we are doing enough things right...not everything right, mind you, but enough things. So it is also a great way to have hakaras haTov to one's G-d for enabling that miracle, too. Gratitude is so powerful a tool for happiness and general emotional and mental health. We rarely use it, as Rav Avigdor Miller used to point put so often.

Of course, have you ever tried having gratitude for the future? Maybe it works for Hashem to do, but it certtainly doesn't work for us! We do not really live and love on credit. It's just more promises, promises, cheap promises - how many times have you and I faked ourselves and our loved ones (and our beloved Best Friend, Hashem) with sincere lies like: "I will never masturbate again to such porn!", or, "I really don't want to do that ever again to you and really mean it this time!"?

Self esteem we need? Self trust needs to come first, before self-esteem has any meaning at all! Making sincere promises makes us feel like we are already out of the hole...so we do it inside our hearts and we call the lie, "hopes, aspirations, sh'ifah of my heiligeh neshomah tehorah" - and they may be...but they have no achizah in olam hazeh of an addict. Yet. We first need soem long term sobriety before we can even begin to have enough self-respect for our word to have any meaning at all to us (and to others in out lives).

2- Guys who have the least time actually sober have the tendency to give the most sdvice, 'chizzuk', and other shtuyot. False mussar shmoozes - especially the 'sincerely felt' ones - are poison to other recovering people. It's just meaningless, sweet-sounding drivel. So some meetings work that way you describe: "30 days or more sober share first, please." It's to try and start the meeting off on the right - sane - foot.

3- If it makes sense, just use it starting today! This milchomo should not be one where we are 'going nuts' frequently. Rather, if you are really using the meetings, the humility, the honesty with eachother, and using your G-d (Hashem wants so much that we use Him alot!), it should be like a walk - with distractions. Not a run through the gauntlet.

There is no such things as passive lust - getting attacked by lust, really. We invite it in because we are so accustomed to using it that we simply do not know any other way to live rather than entertained and cuddled by fantasy and lust, self-=pleasuring is the only way we trust we can feel good in any real, reliable and tangible way...no matter how frum we are! So as long as you see your lust filling up most of your view, your 'sobriety will mainly be holding your breath and losing. No one can hold their breath forever, right? Not even a great tzaddik can...not anyone. So you would be losing eventually, popping out the other side from the pressure on this side.

Use the tools you have in the program. And again, Avrohom, I ask you how in the world posting here is useful to you - if it surely means that you are using this instead of the meetings, your sponsor, and you program buddies?

extending my thaphsic method till next week Thursday

i have now some very scary medical test result that i am waiting to get in 3 weeks for 1 of my very close family, no desire to sin now, i need a lot of siyate dishmaye and rachmim
hashem help

Boruch Hashem yom, yom.

Boruch hashem the test result was good
as hakoros hatov to hashem i should for sure try to be good

Baruch hahsem!

The word "try" is a vague word. (So is the word "good") What specifically will you do?

Eli

Rather than trying to be "good", how about trying to get well...?

Eli,
same as i did for the last.... about 45 days that i am clean
i can only try

moish u.k.
cool! you are right
thanks

Hatslocho Raboh.

We're with you all the way...

Moish