This is what I wrote once before, and was a key point in my recovery.
chesky wrote:
Someone who is up against an enemy has two choices; either to fight or to surrender. One, who feels that they have a chance to overcome the enemy, will choose to fight; otherwise they will surrender.
How do I surrender? I raise the white flag, BEFORE the fight.
And now for the application:
For twenty plus years, I thought that I could handle lust. Actually to be fair, I really knew from the beginning that I had very little choice to resist, but I believed based on religious doctrine, that somehow, someway and someday I could and would overcome it. And this became my life mission.
I found GYE and I was even more convinced that I was going to win. I was now a member of what I felt was one of the most holy groups of yidden in existence. But I discovered the hard way, that for me, lust is more powerful than any type of power that comes from within myself.
I eventually came to SA. And I was in for a big shock. My first sponsor told me to put a filter on my internet, block my phone etc etc. I was furious. I was convinced that SA would take away my yetzer hora to lust; that I would not need to fight anymore, and here I was being told to do the same things as I had been told on GYE.
It took me over a year until I finally became prepared to accept that: I AM AN ADDICT; I AM POWERLESS OVER LUST; I ADMIT DEFEAT OVER LUST; AND THEREFORE I DO WHATEVER I CAN TO STAY OUT OF THE BATTLEFIELD. To me that is surrender.
However, surrender is only the first part of Step One (we admitted we were powerless over lust).
The second part is: that our lives had become unmanageable. To me the point of this is not that the acting out had made my life unmanageable, but that my dependency on lust and acting out, had made my life unmanageable. In other words, life WITHOUT lust had become unmanageable.
So Yes, I can surrender and stay out of contact with lust, but that does not help my head, BECAUSE I AM CONVINCED THAT WITHOUT LUST I CANNOT LIVE AT WORST AND AT BEST WILL BECOME INSANE.
So all of a sudden, surrender is not so simple. I can be willing to stay away from anything that causes me to lust and I can actually do it (look how many guys here on GYE manage for short periods) but my head will NEVER accept it.
And that is why I can never succeed to beat this thing on my own.
But by reaching out for help I can take that leap of faith; I can actually give up lusting, without any idea how to survive or remain sane, because I have come to believe that a Higher Power can restore me to sanity.
I stress again, that for me no amount of clarity or willpower can keep me sober, without action (calling friends to reach out, meetings etc).
May HaShem grant us a sober and sane day.
