Great stuff; like usual!

The dear man, Sandy B. just passed away this week. Boruch Dayan haEmes. A real loss, to anyone who has heard and grown from knowing him or his talks for AA. What a spiritual mentch.

Dov wrote:


A real loss. I have gained tremendously from his talks.

I thought I would post one of his talks here. When he says 'AA' and 'drinking' you can change that for 'SA' and 'lusting'. Audio starts after about 10 seconds

Man alive, I am just bursting with resentments right now. I've been picking up resentments quicker than I've been asking Hashem to remove them. Today I remembered what one speaker said about allowing people to irritate me 6 times for free so I thought OK, just for today I will allow my wife to do 6 really annoying things and I'll let them go. Just 6, after that I can be justifiably upset.

So when the first thing happened I got angry at first then remembered it's OK, she has a free pass. Fine. The second thing happened and I remembered I have to let 6 things pass before I say anything.

How was I supposed to know that she'd annoy me 8 times in one day?!

Of course once you've let 6 things go you feel pretty silly making a big stand against the 7th. But of course she picked up that I was irritated, so she got upset! What a chutzpah!

The slight annoyance in my voice she picks up on, but the fact that she's married to the biggest tzaddik in the world she doesn't even notice! Unbelievable!

So now it's after midnight, I have a headache and I just want to chill for a bit before bed..... This addict will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Quick update. Last Thursday I had a very difficult day and I came home lustful. The lust grew and grew and in one instant I thought of a brilliant way of finding some pictures of naked women online. So I found them and looked for about 20 minutes. Then again motzoei Shabbos for about 20 minutes then on Sunday for about 5 minutes.

All I did was look, I didn't have sex with them so I'm still technically sober but I don't feel it. In truth I didn't find the pictures all that amazing. I spent almost an hour searching for one with anything other than dead eyes in them, and I only nearly masturbated with only 2 of them.

It occurs to me that without lust they're just naked human bodies. It doesn't excite me by itself. I can use them to fantasise lustful scenarios but by themselves they're not really all that great. This morning I am using the same computer and I don't feel any pull to look for the pictures again. Maybe I'm surrendering on an empty stomach or maybe the very fact that they're naked isn't enough for my addiction.

Truth is I'm much more sensitive to lust than before. I used to take long walks along the beach in the summer despite the half-naked girls there. Now I think my head would explode. But pictures behind a screen? Yes she's very good looking. And...? What am I supposed to do with that?

But still surrender is in order. I told my sponsor already and will share with my recover partner. I'm playing with fire, I don't need this, I don't want this. I want to leave all those pictures behind when I hit the submit button, let G-d handle them, and move on with the steps.

Watson wrote:


I am much more sensitive to lust than ever now, too. I used to be able to watch porn for hours and 'save it up', even for a day or two...to do lots of other things, too, without masturbating. But the way I am now after 17 years of sobriety in recovery, I could never succeed at doing that. If I were to look up porn even for a second (not just '3 seconds' ) I'd lose it in my pants without even getting an erection. I know this to be true, for I have felt it start with little provocation.

Yet that sensitivity does not mess with my real sexuality and I can b"H still function totally normally with my wife.

Lust must obviously be totally different than sex in love. For one thing, it's not 'stealing' anything and it's not sneaking...and another thing about sex in love is that it is real. In so many basic ways it is totally different than fantasy. Only the fake thing gets a person crazy. Unlike lust, sex in a stable, real relationship can be optional. Wow, what a great experience it is. Peaceful, satisfying. The exact opposite of doing it with one's hand secretly in the bathroom that all of us here are so very familiar with. No philosophy or 'Torah' is needed here to explain it at all, it is just the the way things are.

The sensitivity is not to women or even schmutz...it is to wanton use of it. That sets off a machine that is as sick as ever, and perhaps gets sicker as time goes on, whether we recover or not.

To those who feel dissapointed with that description of recovery, I'd ask this: Do you define 'Getting better' as 'Getting the ability to use pornography or fantasy a little, yet still not have to pay the price of acting out sexually as a result of partaking?'

Believe it or not, many here - even frum people - do indeed describe it exactly that way, though they do not realize it.

So...is any that relevant to what you described in your post?

Hey Doc!
Sound familiar?

It's all a fantasy. I look at a girl and fantasise what it would be like to have sex with her, and it's completely different to how things actually are with my real wife. The girl is perfect, always made up, always looking fresh, always smiling, never talks when I'm tired, perfect middos, never ages, does unreal things in the bedroom etc etc. And I'm different too. I have more energy, I'm thinner, fitter, make more money, have a better job, live in a nicer house, etc. It's insanity really.

Next thing I know I'm all resentful at my wife because obviously it's her fault that I don't have a better job, a nicer house, more time and energy etc.

Dov wrote:


I wish I could, however that is not an option for me.

I wrote this recently:

It's just us and the objects of our desire, and they always love us. I don't know if you watch porn or not, but you ever wonder how they always love us; they would do anythin' for us; they would bend over backwards to fulfill our wildest fantasies. You know why? For then it is stress-free; there is no resentment, no anger, no revenge. Imagine if you'd have your own porn star, and you would ask for sex and she would say no and slap you for it, would you go back to her? Would you dream about her? In general - that is not what we crave.

Oy what a day. Lust has been creeping in over the last week and really caught up with me today.

I found a way round the filter again. It doesn't bypass the whole filter but does access some pictures. My feeling is that I have not been sober since I decided last Friday to test my idea to see if it really works.

B"H I have now plugged the gap in the filter but a lot of damage has been done already. Funny how you can read words of the Big Book or White Book that you've already read several times but they suddenly take on new meaning:

"Lust throws my whole system out of whack. I lose my equilibrium, my control, and have to recover as if from poison."

I literally feel ill - physically, emotionally and spiritually.

We are listenin'.
So is God.
even more intently.
He could.
And He will.

The poison of lust is slowly leaving and I again realise how unmanageable my life is. I'm so tired I can barely function and I feel like if I could just get things in order, the house clean, back into my learning schedule, etc everything would be plain sailing, but somehow I just can't, I'm too unmanageable. I know G-d can do it but I'm finding it so hard to ask Him.

Funny how acting out makes me feel afterwards. One week of depression, one week of resentments, one week of tiredness, then I start to feel human again. Why would I keep doing something that makes me feel like this? A few minutes of pleasure followed by 3 weeks of pain!

As the White Book says "Knowledge was not power...What I needed was not more knowledge...but power to stop what I was powerless over."

the yaaros devash quotes צאנך מיד גוזזים
when the farmer gives the herd some salt blocks to lick upon, so the wool should grow nice and long, only to be able to shear them afterwards
dont lick them salt in the first place, dont go near such a farmer at all, he is our gr8test enemy
the y"h doesnt mind some period of recovery in order to regain some lost energy of sinning, lets use the new energy in enrouting from that farmers path

Great mashal!

It's not a question of what, but of how.