This guy is taking over the entire first page of "recent posts."
You'd think he was singularity at 4:00 am!
That reminds me, "Where the hell is that guy?"
It's actually kinda fun just posting without looking at the posts above.
This way, nobody can accuse me of saying something wrong to the poster above me; I don't even know who he is or what he wrote.
Sometimes you may get that feeling by other posters as well.
I don't know; they're all good guys, most of them for sure.
Peace out!

Trouble wrote on 24 May 2017 23:02:

Is there still a "recent posts" section, or did Mark get rid of that as well?

Thank God!

It'sIt's about time.

Conference call is now in Algeria. All you Algerians have no excuse now.

Saw a post on a different forum; couldn't pass it up:

Hey!

Mind me, this is gonna be heartfelt...

Lust - I miss you loads and loads. You have no idea. Why are you toxic? Why are you progressively destructive? Why are you not just as good as I thought you were?
But the only fact that I miss you shows how unhealthy you are.
You see, I really needed you today. You would have helped me loads. There's so much stress in here, so many pointless screams from Dad, so much stupid teasing from Mum (who would looooooove to know what I'm doing in my "secret garden", i.e. she'd love to hear me open up to her about my main business, which is recovery).
I missed you so much, lust... I promise you. I can't believe I didn't reach out to you yet. But maybe I will. Shall I?
I mean... I did reach out to you, in a way... I did have you in mind, and didn't always fight you out of my thought process, today... But I definitely didn't give you the place you seem to deserve.
If I haven't acted out with you, it's not my fault. I would have done that quite willingly.
It's G-d's fault. It's Him Who didn't let me. It's Him Who's kept me sober today.
I haven't even been able to reach out to Him so much today - I was waaaaaaay too busy thinking of you and getting rid off everyone's nerves.

Lust, I love you? I have no clue how long I'll last without you.
But I have no clue how long I'd last with you... probably shorter than without.
So, yeah, you know... when I G-d settles my mind again a bit, I'll be able to be grateful to Him. To thank Him for today's miraculous sobriety.
But as I'm weak now, I just wanted you to know that I miss you.
I'll try to let G-d some space in the picture, but not sure...
Maybe He can come himself? G-d, really, you don't need an invitation... You were there the whole day!!!

Good night, lust! I'm leaving you there, hopefully.

cordnoy wrote on 16 Jun 2017 02:20:

That post was incredible
Waves softly splashing down there
Captain Cord at the helm today
The sea is calm
Megaphone has announced beautiful weather
We don't have any meteorologists on board
The only forecast we have is for today
Enjoy it
The only captain we have is cord, and 1 Gd
I enjoy the ride and hope you do too ;-)

So sad. So true. 

cordnoy wrote:


Isn't the moderator supposed to delete explicit statements?

Gevura Shebyesod wrote on 29 Jun 2017 14:50:

If they would have instituted the "star system" that was suggested for each post, this would have received the full five "thumbs-up."

 מכלל הן אתה שומע לאו

Just thought I would drop by and say hello. I hope all is well with you. I'm doing okay. Hashem is still keeping me sober which is a miracle. I say "Hashem" because I'm on GYE and talking to you here. I would normally just say God. So just keeping it honest. Some people want to get sober in order to get closer to God. That approach never worked for me. We see a lot of people in SA and AA who came into program agnostic if not atheist and by seeing the miracle of the program and by working the program for many years find themselves getting closer and closer to God. Old timers in program attest to developing a conscience contact with God. The idea for me as an addict,  that my acting out is what is separating me from God and that I need to stop acting out to get closer to God,stems from ego, dishonesty and self-centeredness. The fact is that I'm no further or closer to God whether I act out or not. When I act out God is right there with me, I just can't let Him in. When I reached a point where I was truly broken, the point at which I accepted that I was utterly powerless over life, the point where I didn't have much self at all then the miracle came. I had to be taken out of the way and then God helped me. That's just me, an addict of the hopeless variety that is never sufficiently grateful for the gift of sobriety today.

serenity wrote on 17 Jul 2017 18:13:

can you explain?

To quote my Rosh Yeshiva from back in the day and also Harvey A. from SA: "Torah is 100% truth. It's what man does with it that isn't always emes." And Harvey added that it's the culture that has been corrupted, so separate culture from Torah and don't twist Torah to support dishonesty.

When it's about me then that's ego for me. Ego loves extremes. So when my addict is in control I'm either doing really well and I want acknowledgement for that and when I'm doing bad I want compassion. It's all about me.  

When I'm living a dirty life, of course God is blocked out because I'm not letting Him in. That however doesn't mean that God is distant from me. The fact is that distance doesn't apply to God and God is everywhere and in everything, how much more so is he specifically in his creations and especially human beings (and all the more so Yidden) who are created in His image. So the fact that I think He's separate is all about my ego. (When yidden look down on goyim it is not Torah and all and purely culturally induces. If you separate yourself from people you cannot have conscience contact with God. And if you allow in feelings of superiority to Goyim, your going to end up to feeling superior to other yidden as well. Superiority is all about ego gratification and breeds separation.)

My addict wants to get closer to God because I'm looking at what I can gain out of that. On a very simple level it's like wanting to be the teacher's pet. Isn't is good enough for me to do my work because I'm a student that loves to learn? Do I need to ingratiate myself to the teacher as well? In program I try to just focus on doing the next right thing.  I try to change my focus and just practice doing what's right and not for the purpose of ego gratification. It makes it easier for me that I'm trying to make a living amends. That  means that I'm in negative column and just trying to make up for that; it's the least I can do.

Look at two different approaches in Torah. One says that the purpose of a human being is to attain shalmus or completion. That in and of itself seems like a very self-centered approach and perhaps it is.  Take a second approach that the purpose of your life is make a dwelling place for Hashem. That approach seems more selfless, it's for God not for me. Personally I think both approaches can be very selfish for me and feed into my ego and the second one even more so in a way. The people who propound both approaches claim their approach is superior and better to the other approach. And the second approach has this amazing component that I'm doing this mission of bringing God into the world. Both approaches become about people and ego for me instead of about being of service.

I guess I'm not really answering the question about me. So what I'm trying to say is that my approach to religion became about doing and being the best and being a part of the best and that gave me purpose and meaning in the world. I was going to change the world and me and my cohorts were better than everyone else. We are top of the food chain and all that. Not just as frum yidden  but Especially as Chabad we had a monopoly on Moshiach and were leading the fight to bring the redemption. For me religion fed into my need to be that special guy. 

By the way my ego and self-seeking expressed itself in religion and religion is a big part of life so I talk about in terms of my experience. Life could have gone another way and my need to be accepted could have been fulfilled in some other way and probably was in many ways like through family and education. When I was younger I made  a lot of trouble and eventually started to find acceptance in obedience to religion so that was path my people-pleasing self took me. Remember ego loves extremes so I went from one extreme as trouble maker to extreme obedience in religion. So I went from the kid who made trouble in shul to the kid who was the better than everyone else in shul and I felt superior to people. And, in the meantime I had this huge hole that I was filling with sex-with-self and with escape into alcohol which is strongly encouraged in Chabad.

Dov said it all in one sentence on his call today. Too bad I couldn't write it down. It went something like this: Just do things because they are the right thing to do without worrying about the goal.

As an addict my goals can be ego driven and that may be okay for other's but not for me. 

Step 1 in the "12 & 12"
Is this still true by me? Probably.
Do I wanna admit it? No.
Is it important for me to read today? Yes.

Then we had been told that so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence was no good whatever; in fact, it was a total liability. Our sponsors declared that we were the victims of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it. There was, they said, no such thing as the personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will. Relentlessly deepening our dilemma, our sponsors pointed out our increasing sensitivity to alcohol—an allergy, they called it. The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over us: first we were smitten by an insane urge that condemned us to go on drinking, and then by an allergy of the body that insured we would ultimately destroy ourselves in the process. Few indeed were those who, so assailed, had ever won through in singlehanded combat. It was a statistical fact that alcoholics almost never recovered on their own resources. And this had been true, apparently, ever since man had first crushed grapes.

I like your big round numbers

Current streak: 900 Days
Happy new year to the new me guy ;-)