OMG can you guys please stop it, or at least take it elsewhere. you're not being fair.

it's becoming clearer and clearer that I am an addict. I'm seriously I'll. every time a woman walks anywhere within eye shot my head starts to move. I don't want it to, it just moves almost of its own volition.

there's a woman at work who's very pretty and I'm doing reasonably well in not looking at her at all. then a guy my age who works there had to discuss a work matter with her so he walked right up to her, looked her in the eye and talked about it. I was watching this guy from where I sit and suddenly it hit me. that's what it looks like to be normal.

im addicted.
im sick as well.
make your excel score sheet please...for one day.
Check every tayvah for second look and your success.
Put a column for third looks as well.
you wont need a column for fourth looks, for that won't be happening.

b'hatzlachah

for me this is a disease of inner conflict. I woke up this morning desperate to have sex with a woman at work. at the same time I'm desperate to keep my sobriety.

no wonder I feel restless. and that is bad news.

acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.

have a good one.

30 days and 3 hours of sobriety.

L'Chaim!!!

May we all be able to see that we want to choose life!!

Dr.Watson wrote:


Great!
Now do one more hour!

Here is a "one month" chip.

Great work counting hours.

I have a 24 hour chip as well if you want.

I'd prefer some chocolate chips please

The following thought struck me on Shabbos. If the way to stay sober is to pray to G-d and ask Him to keep me sober, how is it that a guy who's been frum since birth and davened every day can become an addict in the first place?

The answer is now so obvious. I had porn and Hashem confused in my mind. Hashem was a nuisance to me, something extra I was supposed to do, but as far as I was concerned I could take it or leave it. Porn on the other was something I needed to have in my life. It was my solution, the thing I turned to for help and comfort during any bad time. I had a private and personal relationship with porn, and I was consistent in it, spending time with it every single day.

I've begun to realise how mixed up I have been in my mind. Porn should have been a take it or leave it thing, Hashem is what I need to have in my life. The only difference between me as a frum guy before and a frum guy now is that now I feel like I need Hashem. Through realising how hopeless and useless I am by myself, I can come to need Him and have Him in my life in a way that I never had for all those years of using my own abilities to learn torah and daven with kavona and do mitzvos in the most lechatchilah way. I didn't feel the need for Hashem to help me learn, I could figure it out. I didn't need Hashem even to help me daven, it was up to me to have kavona, who cared if He listened to my davening or not. Or more specificaly, He couldn't not listen when I had such kavona. It was all up to me.

Oy gevalt I've been such an idiot.

Yes, that's my experience exactly. But you say porn should have been a take it or leave it kind of thing....I suggest that really sex should be a take it or leave it kind of thing.

The terror we feel in our gut not getting sex, makes us assume we cannot live without it, cannot love our wives without it, cannot be good Jews without it. And it is a lie.

And that lie is the anchor that holds the porn and lust in our lives. Like water in a shoe we just refuse to dump out. We walk all over with it squishing, squish, squish, squish...limping through recovery. (And we find ten Chaza"ls and a few RMB"Ms to blame for that cuz they 'prove' that we need sex to be good or healthy. Just plain dumb and misunderstood.)

We made orgasm and porn a Power Greater than ourselves, no question. Unfortunately it was a power greater than ourselves that restored us to insanity, not sanity.

So yes! We frum sexaholic types were all idiots. That's why I relate so much more to Par'oh than to the Yidden in mitzrayim. Par'oh was the addict, not the Jews. He was unable to let his precious Jews go, makkoh after makkoh, pretend letting go afer pretend surrender...he just couldn;t do it till he hit rock bottom at yam Suf in a last crazy grab for his sweet precious Jews...(see RMB"N who says exactly that there). He started out hardening his OWN heart - soon it was imposed on him...exactly an addict. I started out with desire - in later years it became a need. Then it became an illness I could not beat, period. My heart was hardened and there was no hope but complete surrender of my life - not just my lust - to a Power greater than myself.

In the Torah it says that Hashem tells Moshe that Par'oh has been made the fool. And He tells Moshe that all the makkos were for the Egyptians, not for the Yidden ("So that Mitzrayim will know that I am G-d," and "That there is nothing like Me anywhere," etc - Hashem's words, not mine!).

Nu. Addicts need a turnaround. Taking these little steps of opening up the whole truth to each other as you are doing right here, is the way we do it. But many have reported that it is only a start.

Now I hope you can do this work with real people that are safe and you can trust, so this all becomes really real, rather than just the virtual/comfy thing it is with the goofy usernames and faceless business.

Continued Hatzlocha, doc.

thanks dov!!

you hit it on the nail as usual very well said we really are more the paroh type, so bh tomorrow we will overcome him be"h,(don't worry not the faceless usernames), maybe thats why sipur yetziyas mitzraim has to be done with others bderech shaelah veteshuvah to teach us we can't get out of this addiction on our own only with opening up to others,

a gut yom tov!!

Gevaldig!!

On the other hand, I remember hearing from my rebbe that one of the reasons that there was a desire to go back to Mitzrayim was because as difficult as it was in mitzrayim there was one thing that they didn't have to do, and that was make decisions and take responsibility. The difference between an eved and a ben choirin is that an eved doesn't decide what his day is going to look like, he doesn't need to worry about whether or not it's productive, he just has to do what he is told.

A ben choirin is a person who has to make decisions, and has to take responsibility for his decisions. So when klal yisrael came out of Mitzrayim, they were suddenly hit with this massive task of deciding on that the best thing was, they had to start measuring each step they took, and so something inside of them cried out "I can't handle this, take me back to Mitzrayim" They were willing (to a certain degree, and certain people) to cry and to suffer, to be beneath the Egyptians, pitied beings, but not have to take that responsibility for everything that they did!!

I can relate to Klal Yisrael as well. Sometimes I feel that I am ready to go back to crying, complaining, fighting, and all else, just not to take responsibility, just not to do what I need to do and be able to blame it on the fact that I'm "enslaved" and that I can't make my own choices!

May Hashem help us see the freedom and liberation of Pesach and help us work towards it during sefirah and the whole year round!!!

thanks guys. and Dov, you should be very proud of me. I've made so many phone calls to SA members that I've not only exceeded my monthly minutes but I've hit the limit of how many extra charged minutes they'll allow me to make! I can't make any more calls until I pay my bill, which I just did, cos I can't be unable to make calls. looking for an unlimited package now.