I find that the help I get out of this support group is that it allows me to accept myself, not because they don't throw me out, but because they are going through the same exact thing.

Before coming here I was the only one in the world with these issues, that's very hard to accept. When I see others accepting themselves, being happy with their lives with this in it as well, it allowed me to look at myself truthfully and it didn't hurt as much as it would have had I had to do it all alone.

Accepting myself with the evil desiers not despite them, would have been close to impossible without this group showing that that is possible.

All the same there is a lot of love going around here. One guy even wrote "lots of love" or something.

All the same there is a lot of love going around here. One guy even wrote "lots of love" or something.

Just because this post is so precious and real, I wanted to re-post it for Doc Watson. It's like having a candle for each child on Shabbos - the kid knows the world has a little more light because he was born. Thanks, Doc!
Dr.Watson wrote:


Wow. A simple, and resounding, 'wow', for the simple truth.

I think the love and acceptance go together. If I accept myself as I am I am willing to do something for myself, like curl up with a book and make myself a cup of tea, which can be seen as love, like when I make dinner for my wife. Whereas if I don't accept myself I will refuse to do such things for myself.

I think the love and acceptance go together. If I accept myself as I am I am willing to do something for myself, like curl up with a book and make myself a cup of tea, which can be seen as love, like when I make dinner for my wife. Whereas if I don't accept myself I will refuse to do such things for myself.

I think the love and acceptance go together. If I accept myself as I am I am willing to do something for myself, like curl up with a book and make myself a cup of tea, which can be seen as love, like when I make dinner for my wife. Whereas if I don't accept myself I will refuse to do such things for myself.

I think the love and acceptance go together. If I accept myself as I am I am willing to do something for myself, like curl up with a book and make myself a cup of tea, which can be seen as love, like when I make dinner for my wife. Whereas if I don't accept myself I will refuse to do such things for myself.

I think the love and acceptance go together. If I accept myself as I am I am willing to do something for myself, like curl up with a book and make myself a cup of tea, which can be seen as love, like when I make dinner for my wife. Whereas if I don't accept myself I will refuse to do such things for myself.

Woah, I guess I am not the only guy having trouble with posting these posts...yours appears here four times. There seems to be a problem - the forum slowly loads a post, then it seems as though it has not been loaded at all - right?

If u'd like, I will delete the copies for you, Ploni. Let me know.



As far as your point, my point is that acceptance really comes before real love.

For example, taking that nice cup of tea and the book may demonstrate a healthy self-love...but it can also simply be: pleasuring myself. Pleasuring myself is not always self-love. in fact, it can also be a clear manifestation of deep self-hatred. Drug addicts, sex addicts, and porn addicts suffer terribly when we use our drug - but feel absolutely compelled to do it. We harbor a sincere and mistaken belief that we will wither without our fix. Then we take it and feel like we want to die again. And keep right on doing it.

[And it's not about [i]religious guilt[/i] at all (though many frum guys feel convinced that it is. For I have met many completely nonreligious Jewish and gentile sex addicts who describe the exact same feelings of dismay and pain after acting out their lust as does the chronic frum masturbater.]

For a normal person it may be different. But for the addict (like me and many others here and not here), acting out our lust with compulsive porn use and/or sex is not anything like self-love, but quite the opposite. Addictions experts are heard describing addicts as 'self-despisers'. Garbage cans bottoms, to be filled with trash and debasing shameful acts as possible. I know this to be true about myself - but I was blind to it until after I was sober for about a year and a half!

Accordingly, 12 steps programs seem to be based on the experience that the primary work here is NOT to explain or figure out why the addicts feels this way, what emotional ills make him or her feel they need a drug...but rather, they focus on sobriety first. Understanding certainly does come - but later, as a gift of G-d. First things first, they say. But I digress...

CBT people seem to like viewing masturbation and all compulsive behaviors as true choices. Things the addict does out of self-love. I see the initial acting out of sexual behaviors as being self-love, but ending up as an addiction that defies and eventually contradicts. Some therapists treat the addict as though he or she is truly making a 'cost-benefit analysis' every time he or she acts out with drugs, sex, or whatever. I see that as naive, and have met hundreds of guys so far who harbor deep-seated feelings that defy their own beliefs. I have seen their eyes open after they took the leap to get help and give up their drug for the day. Their motivation? Just pain. Like an animal, seichel simply doesn't work. The 'evidence' gets them back into acting out lust, every time....if they are really addicts. Trying to make sense of it all first, is apparently just trusting the sick ego yet again - the very mind that got us in this deep to begin with - to fix it all.

As the gemarah puts it: ein chavush matir atzmo m'beis ha'asurim.

But like you said, Ploni, this forum - and 12 steps programs - are really based on love. Real love, for a change. On caring rather than just pleasing. That's a big deal, right there...

Thank you. Thanks to you I have something interesting and deep to read. Plus I enjoy your writing style.

I agree with everything you said, including the fact that a cost benefit analysis doesn't keep you from acting out. That is defintely not the whole story. That alone would not keep me sober.

The very fact that you actually read my entire post proves that you are probably as hopeless as I am. Poor guy.

But thanks for the feedback, brother!

Dissatisfaction causes me to turn to porn to escape reality by pretending I'm having sex with all these perfect women. At the same time, looking at all these beautiful women makes me more dissatisfied with life as I see more and more seemingly mind-blowing pleasure that I know I can never get. So the more I look the more I need to look.

How does a porn addict who spent over a decade looking at literally tens of thousands of beautiful naked women, imagining he was having sex with all of them, come to terms with the reality of having just one average-looking woman to have sex with. Especially as all those amazing women were never tired, never angry, never messy, never needed attention when I was working etc etc?

Reality can't measure up to the fantasy, it's not even close. So how does one not only let go of the fantasy but also accept and be happy with reality?

For me it is about realizing that your fantasy is just that. It will not happen, it cannot happen, and trying to pretend that it might is only setting yourself up for perpetual disappointment.

The flip side is finding the pleasure and simple joys that is real life. That is what I think happiness really is. Finding yourself in a situation and finding the ways that you can enjoy that situation. For me it is a quiet moment with my imperfect wife, or a silly moment with my kids, a challenging problem at work, etc.

If you are always taking your real life and seeing how it compares to your fantasy life, your real life can never win, and you will always be disappointed and dissatisfied. Not only that but you are also missing out on the pleasure that reality holds for you.

I once heard something, that although it approaches this from the wrong perspective, it is still valid:
"For every really hot girl out there, there is some guy who is tired of putting up with her [garbage]."
So while that is not put so eloquently, the point is, the grass is not really greener. So if you are envious of real or fake men or women you have to realize that they may be looking at you and saying, boy I wish I had his life.

Eli

Dr.Watson wrote:


You can't "come to terms with it." Your choice of vocabulary shows the underlying problem: since the best thing I can hope for in my life is watching a woman make me climax, how can I do better with my wife than with 10,000 professionals?