[quote=dov link=topic=5352.msg137708#msg137708 date=1337312088]



Thank you Dov. Can we publish this?

Publish?

How is Ontheedgeman doing?

Thanks for checking in Dovinator! I'm doing okay. I'm not totally out of the woods, I still go for massages, the quasi-regular kind, but I feel that I'm attaching myself even too much to those and i'm not sure how or if I need to extricate myself. It really is on the edge; it's like, one day I feel it's okay, the other day, maybe not... I don't feel I can pray honestly if I go for these types of massages... and if I see someone from shul in the nail salon part of the massage parlour, they would surely raise their eyebrows and wonder what I'm doing there... I suppose I'm working the recovery side albeit slowly and in time it will guide me not to go there anymore...

dov wrote on 24 May 2012 20:21:


Yes, publish!
I think its important that people know that there are different needs here on GYE.
and if someone famous like yourself says it, it means alot.

...don't really know what to say. All I would say about what OTEM wrote is: "Well, is it working for you? If it is, who am I to criticize? I acted out and messed around with those women and other sexualized things for years till I had enough and gave it up...though doing that was actually impossible, too, without help. So if it is not working for you, then it's clear what needs to change...when you need it to change, and not when G-d, the Torah, or the Halocha needs it to change.

...and about GTM's idea, all I can say is that I have said this stuff at least 50 times in posts on GYE.

Sadly, the ones who insist they need a "softer, gentler way" are usually the ones who are wrong! Often, they are actually powerless and hopeless addicts, and cannot recover without something like live meetings, full openness with other addicts, and real (written and with a sponsor) 12 step work.

And sadly, the fahitzteh ones who are telling other people here drivel like "you must admit that you are an addict," and like "only the 12 steps really works"...are really just in need of a good rov, an honest talk with a parent or spouse or shrink, and are not addicts at all. They just like the way porn and masturbation feels when they do it. And what's abnormal about that? They are not really out of control, are not really living a double life, and do not use lust as a drug. So naturally, I think they need chizzuk, not surrender.

Without openness - just fear - nobody really figures out what they really need. We all just hide, hide, hide...and nothing changes. Nu. Life goes on.

dov wrote on 29 May 2012 06:21:


I wasnt asking to publicize it because of you. I want the other non addicts to hear it loud and clear.
Did you notice that the Torah & Chizuk approach threads dont get much attention around here? It seems that the action is over here. Im guilty of this as well. The non addicts are constantly looking to the addicts for help, and I'm not sure that they hear that some advice is detrimental for their needs. For them I would like to publish it. Because they listen to you Dov.

I am just an addict in recovery, and not a perfect one, either.

Funny I just posted a megillah on machshovah Tova's thread on the other side of this same coin!

I don't really know what I can do to address the big problem you bring up. It seems to be endemic to a site tlike this.

what's amazing is that thanks to the forum I finally have some control.
I can actually decide not to look. which is progress.
but there are times where i feel like theyre attacking from all directions!

Gesh can you get back to the matter at hand?

TehillimZugger wrote on 30 May 2012 11:01:


I thought i just did !?!?

Dov,
Even a non addict by definition can benefit from using many of the 12 steps.Clearly if they are on this forum they feel disgusted with themselves and want to start living a different life. The best way to work on any midda certainly taava which leads to negative behaviors is to share in a group openly and honestly. It leads to humility as well. The mussar vaadim of old certainly were with this approach.the yeshiva mussar seder that we grew up with served absolutely no purpose other than a good time to shmooze with friends.more yiras shamayim will not come from filtering devices and the like. You certainly need that though.if you walk in manhattan any day from may thru sep you can k'mat be yotzei a porn session.if we are open and honest with ourselves and hashem every shul should have vaadim for taavas, anger other middos etc.curious to hear your feedback.
Maalin

Dov,
One more thing to add. Being involved in the business world i know many "frum baalebatim" who's lust for money mirrors our lust for sex.their ego's are quite large as well. We clearly cant equate taavas noshim with taavas money but they possibly evolved from similar early bad behaviors and life experiences.

Just postulating on that one.

Maalin

Dear Maalin,

Sorry about the megillah again.

This seems to be a distraction from the thread, but I will try to respond anyhow. Many of the very good points you bring up are discussed in the first few calls on the GYE call I moderate, just to get some basics as clear as possible.

In short, you are probably right about a lot of what you wrote. But when addicts are mixed with non-addicts, the blurring of the lines - and worse blurring of the needs - becomes unbearable and destructive for the addicts. The Piaczetzner, Hy"d, wrote a sefer called "B'nei Machshovah Tovah" on the topic of such va'adim as you mentioned. In it, he basically describes most of AA's 12 traditions (not the 12 steps) for how a group works! It is quite beautiful. But these men were not addicts and they were not working on addiction. They were working on avodas Hashem - and they were largely doing it l'ma'an Sh'mo.

Addicts generally do not work the steps (nor recover) for Hashem's sake. If we would be motivated enough to really work these steps for Love of Hashem and for His Kavod...then we would not likely have been unzipping our pants so often in the first place! Unfortunately, there are many true addicts who think themselves all 'holy' and use "Teshuvah" and "Torah". But they discover a strange thing: they worked on madreigos and sigufim and mikvah-dipping...but the single thing that did the most for them was the time they opened up about a specific fetish they had to an understanding rebbi...or the time they got caught naked in front of their computer by their daughter, son, or Yeshivah roommate. That was when the real change began....not while they were
learning mussar b'hispaylus. And it wasn't the bawling they did during a sincerely ecstatic L'cho Dodi that really did anything for them at all - for it was (freighteningly) followed one day later by a binge of phone sex. But it is just to save face - to make the battle more respectable than it really is. We read about this exact phenomena many times here on GYE's forum. I can give you two or three examples readily.

The fact is that the lust addict (I refer to myself here) is just another drug addict. And the woman who is addicted to lust - all by herself - is just as much in need of recovery as the guy - even though there is no 'zera levatola'. Yup. The inner-city goyisheh kid hides in a shooting gallery and his hands shake while he uses a hypodermic...again - and our yideleh is sweating and shaking in front of a computer on a live chatroom using a fake name (another reason fake names are poison for us) and having sex with himself...again.

Both take big risks, both cannot stop, both tell themselves they will stop - tomorrow. Many of these sweet, addict-yidden pretend to themselves that they are busy 'working on groiseh, hechereh inyonim'...while in truth they are just losers like I am but are hiding behind the Torah. All those years of hiding and lying to others - the g'neivas da'as that is the hallmark of addicts the world over - teaches us how to lie to ourselves. They can't stop, lost the war, and are slaves.

I'm with you: your ba'alei batim can use whatever works for them - 12 steps, whatever. But what does that have to do with the addicts?

Sure, there is such a thing as Teshuvah from masturbation, for masturbation is an aveiro - and yes, many of the ideas and traditions of AA do fit nicely with lots of parts of the Teshuvah journey. But the motivation in recovery is qualitatively different. It is self-preservation, not 'self-esteem', 'self-actualization', or madreigos. And though Teshuvah can also be for self-preservation (for fear of Divine retribution or of spiritual death), the entire goal of Teshuvah is spiritual...and again, if his neshomah and spiritual goodness were really that important for this guy, then why did he have his pants around his ankles so often? And if not, then why would he want to be around those who have?

And I think that mixing these two step-workers together in the same group ultimately waters it down for the really pathetic, needy types like me. It provides a constantly tempting lust object. Only this time, the addict is not lusting for sexual comfort, but for 'self-respect' and an escape from this bad rap: the diagnosis of his terminal, chronic and fatal disease some call Sexaholism. I am a sexaholic.

Lastly, the well-meaning and sincere non-addicts who try to use the addicts' chevreh-schaft to work their own recovery, soon see that they are losing out. They try to 'catch the fire' of the addicts - but they haven't the self-preservation motive. For they are not really in trouble, but are just uncomfortable as they are. Boruch Hashem, they are not really in the fight for their lives. Unless they have this motivation, I do not think they will really work these steps the way addicts usually need to work them. It may look like water - but they are still like fish out of water.

And I never try to tell people whether they are addicts or not. Just for the record, on the very GYE call that I moderate there are ten agreements for participation. None of them are that "you must consider yourself (or be) an addict". No way. It's not my business. Those who want what is offered will come and get it and those who do not really need it will not take it, that's all. No judgements made by me.

Does that make sense to you? I am not asking you to agree with me and am not asking for anything. Just explaining where I am coming from.

dov wrote on 31 May 2012 03:57:


that's just as good as "Nisht En Shabbos Gerett!"

dov wrote on 31 May 2012 03:57:


This is very true and very painful.
I can only speak for myself, but I feel like I cant find what I need for my fight against the YH outside of this forum.
very sad. :'(