I've had a few close calls lately in my struggle to stay clean.

I was thinking, it seems a lot harder than AA.  An alcoholic does have a certain control over his environment.  To rid his house of alcohol, and to stay away from the bar.

Yet, in this struggle, it seems like there's no escaping the possibility for lust.  You can't just pack up a body part and leave it on the shelf.  You can't keep all the women off the street.

How do you deal with this?

The Alcoholics wrote back in 1939 in AA (p. 101) about how they felt after recovering through the 12-steps:

"Assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. People have said we must not go where liquor is served; we must not have it in our homes; we must shun friends who drink; we must avoid moving pictures which show drinking scenes; we must not go into bars; our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses; we mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at all.

We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.

In our belief, any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself he may succeed for a time, but usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods. These attempts to do the impossible have always failed."

By working the 12-Steps properly, we will find that we no longer have to run and hide from the world. We no longer will feel that we are walking a tight-rope every time we go down the street or shopping. We will be able to live normal lives "out there" in the big world, and still remain serene and sober.

See also this page for some correspondence we had with Rabbi Twerski on this issue.

Thanks Reb Guard, that was helpful.

So, it seems, an alcoholic can completely rid himself of a desire for alcohol, but a lust addict is always going to feel some degree of lust.

This could be disheartening, but I hope instead to take chizuk from it.  I'm not necessarily struggling to rid myself of lust.  The struggle, at this point, is just not to act out on it inappropriately.  Or, even better (I'm starting to realize), NOT TO FOCUS ON THE FEELINGS OF LUST.  Focus on other things I have to do.

And this can already be considered a great success.

Thanks Guard, this was post and the link to R Twersky gives me great encouragment. The excerpt from AA is brilliant! What r u some expert on the Big Book?;D

No, but I'm an expert on the chizuk e-mails, and this was in chizuk e-mail #466 on this page  :D

Ah Ha! Time to review the chizuk emails