Hi Mr. Way Down,

You have made some very thought provoking points. I will ask a few thought provoking questions myself.

How would you feel if you found out that your wife was masturbating? What if she was thinking of you while she was masturbating? What if she was thinking of your neighbor, her boss, her coworker, your best friend, her friend's husband, etc.? What if she was watching porn while masturbating? What if she was thinking of someone other than you while having sex with you?

Would any of those things bother you? Why? What is wrong with it? Does it hurt you in some way? Would that change the way you feel about her? Why?

Yes I am interested in a program. what is that program that you suggest?

But just realize that its not a one size fits all solution. And not everything people categorize is true about all of us. Like if the program is about how its all due to my selfishness. Well that may be true in some cases but its not my problem. Working on being less self centered won't help me. Obviously I can't post my name but I know my pitfalls and chesranas (and I have plenty of them.) Selfishness is not one of them. Again it may help others so I am not knocking the concept. To me the sickness/ addiction is kind of like the new approach toward fighting cancer. one has to tap into his own DNA and see what his sequences are and what tickes him.

waydown wrote:


Read the big book about alcoholics.
Read the white book about lustaholics.
If it speaks to you, let us know.
I won't convince you of nothin', simply statin' what has helped me and others.
Your life; your choice.

b'hatzlachah

Thanks buddy and I will start a seder in it asap. Can you send me a link to both?

But it does circle back to my orignal question a while back. It seems like we either follow the AA appproach or nothing? why not offer a shmorgesboard of approaches so that we can take one that fits our us? Is there really only one way to control this disease? Or perhaps on the aggreagate GYE can't offer custom tialored approaches. And if I want that I need to find a therpaist? I am just trying to be real.

waydown wrote:

(Pardon if my comments come off as harsh, I woke up on the wrong side of bed today.)

Here you are begging for help, any kind of help. Yet, when someone who actually has a program that works wants to offer you something other than "chizuk," you effectively respond by starting off with a disclaimer that you reserve the right to ignore any suggestion.

The first step is: Do you really want to change?
If you aren't looking to grab any suggestion - really any suggestion, even it may require you to make some uncomfortable decisions - than you are probably not motivated enough to change.
We've debated this before, and I'm not looking to argue about it, but I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of your words. You demand suggestions, but when someone suggests something that actually works for many people in the long term, you immediately say why it won't work.

You gave several reasons why you need to stop your behavior. But do you really want to?

To be honest I would not be sad at all if I found her masterbating thinking about me I would actually get turned on! Sorry maybe its part of my sickness called lust but i would love it. Just as I am embarssed to say, I love it when other men look at my wife.

Re masterbating over someone else; 1) Of course I wouldn't be happy about that. But my point is thats life. I would understand people have tavious. Hashem did not let chazal be mevatal the tavia for zenus. And if she was thinikng about a coworker so be it. As long as its only a thought. Sorry if this sounds a little crazy but this is my thought process. 2) I was never a lady so I don't know how they work. But its generally undertsood that men have this urge and itch in alot stronger fashions than ladies. Thats why most cheating websites are loaded with men but have very few ladies. Any woman with sechel realizes that its the way hashem made us. My wife knows that some times I'll see a pretty woman and get excited. Is she happy when I comment to her how pretty xyz is? No. but she undertsands I am human and thats how us men are created.

Re porn, thats a sense of acting out and is wrong.

More importantly, I still dont think its selfishness. Rather its a lack of self control. As GYE points out often, realizing that we have no control over our lust is step #1 to recovery. So when a mentally distrubed indvidual says or does something offensive is he rude or selfish? No he simply has no control. When lust takes over our bodies we become mentally retarded.

As a side note, i don't think you would ever find a couple getting divorced because the guy is being motzai zera. No sane rav would tell a wife get divorced over that. Why? because that in it of itself is not cheating. But its still terrible. You know why because its the root of lust. It never stops at Z"L. It effects and ruins the rest of our lives. And how that lust spills over into our daily lives is what kills marriages,

Let me be clear I do "want" to change and I am ready to make uncomfortable decisons. And I will read thru the entire book before I comment or criticize.

However, I work with logic. It has to make sense for me. Some of the stuff people feed while it may be true on many is just total untrue when pertaining to me. You can't call me a selfish person when its just so not true. i am not saying that this is what the book claims. But I see that term thrown around often. In my case and I repeat my case its just the farthest from the truth. In fact my greatest stregnth is my un self centered ness.

waydown wrote:


White book is in my signature.
I see a therapist as well.

My point was to read it before you make negative comments about it, or deny its effectiveness, that's all.
If you're desperate, just do it, them comment.

waydown wrote:
That is a great attitude!

waydown wrote:
Many of us feel/felt the same way, but only made progress when we followed in the footsteps of people in recovery and trusted what they had to say even though we did not understand it (and perhaps still don't). This may be the biggest impediment to a frum person coming to recovery. We are trained to try and understand everything in a logical way, and that can be the biggest obstacle to recovery. I know it was for me.

waydown wrote:
Many of us, myself included, "thought" we were not selfish, but came to realize how selfish we really were/are. You cannot determine how selfish/unselfish someone is by their actions alone. Many people who are very selfish do a TON of chessed. (I'm not just talking about obvious cases like giving tzedakah to get recognition)

We cannot "prove" one way or another from your statements. I'm just asking that you be open to the "possibility" that you are more selfish than you think. Many of us have found that to be the case. It may or may not apply to you.

You mentioned that your wife was shocked at what "frum" people do. You admitted that you dream of doing those things. You claim your wife would understand if she found you doing them (at least until a point). Another thing to consider is that we addicts have been rationalizing for so long, we are not really objective.

Certain things in society were once taboo, but are now accepted. It's just the nature of rationalizing for a long time. I know that I rationalized, and didn't fully understand what I was doing, and how bad it was until I saw my wife's reaction. I had been desensitized for so long, I couldn't fully comprehend how bad it was. Mind you it was only porn and masturbation. No contact with any outside woman, not even in chat.

Your wife may or may not understand. If she does understand, she may have also become desensitized.

Again, I'm just asking you to think about the possibility that what you are doing is more damaging than you think. Would you be embarrassed to tell your wife what you are doing? Your Rav? We are very good at minimizing the impact of our actions.

You mentioned that you like kavod. One of the main foundations, perhaps THE main foundation of recovery is humility (and honesty which is really the flip side of humility. We feel humility when we are honest, especially when we share with another person.)

This is all food for thought. All any of us can do is share our experience. If it speaks to you - great. If not, maybe someone else's experience will speak to you.

I wish you the best.

Re the selfish thing, hey look I agree with you (up to a point) noone knowsturley if they are selfish or not. But I tsill question the logic that this sickness is all about being selfish. Like I said, if someone menatlly ill were to commit a shameful act agaianst you must it be selfish. Us addicts as GYE points out are sick people. Why is that selfish? I have a sickness which I ahve no control over. i can't sleep at nite without acting out? Is that called being selfish because I act out so that I can fall asleep after twisting and turning for an hour? I do agree its called being sick.

I get your point re following blindly but it has to somewhat make sense. i am not a computer that just does stuff. I guess I am not either into all the modern days society physcology stuff either. Its a whole other debate though.

I do thank you for your other well thought out pointers though! Well said and I appreciate the openess.

waydown wrote:
Yes and no. If a person is sick, and a doctor using alternative medicine has healed thousands of patients, and his Doctor, using more traditional and more "logical" methods of treatment has not produced results, wouldn't he try alternative medicine? If it works, it works. I think the most important thing to look for is results.

Dov loves to point out that people that philosophize and give advice, often do not have the sobriety to back it up. Find people that are sober, and find out how they got that way. Is that not the most "logical" way to go about it? All our "logic" hasn't helped much until now, has it?

waydown wrote:
Thanks.

Hey look I tend to think that my blow up over the selfish thing is just a small issue. i don't think admiting one is selfish is "the" key to soberty. And so i will defintily admit that reaidng the whole thing is far graeter approach. And if its over correct , not every detail has to conform with me.

I still stcik to my guns that masterbation for me perosnally has nothing to wityh selfishness. Its a sickness period.

The 12-steps program is not all about being self-centered.

What you are writing about how you are not selfish etc., is something I would have said a few years ago. Pretty much word for word, including what you are saying about how your masturbating doesn't affect your wife and the reasons you wish to stop. Part of the topic of the morning call today, was about how we used to think like you. It's not my place to take your inventory, but almost everything that you are writing here is reflective of very selfish, self serving and addictive thinking. There is almost no way for you to see that though, absent a complete psychic change and a spiritual awakening. I'm not sure how you get to that, but God Willing you will some day.

I'm glad to hear that God helped you stay clean last night. The more you get yourself out of the way, the more He will be able to help.

Hatzlacha!

Slow down pleases don't confuse the two. I never said it doesn't effect my wife. In fact the reason it does effect my wife is because masterbation is an act of lust. And lust harms others. But its not the act of masterbation per say.

Whats more,is the fact that lust does effect my wife does not make it selfish. I hardly doubt I will change my opinon on that ever. Lust is a sickness. When one acts upon a sickness its not selfish period. Thats all I am saying. I would be shocked to here differnetly.

I think we may me debating waht selfish means. If selfish means acting out in a any manner that may harm someone else. Then yes call it selfish. But I define selfish as an act of doing something that we can control without caring about the other persons feelings. If we act out in a manner not in our control yes we may be hurting someone but we still care and feel bad for that person. We just have a sickness. Like I said is a mentally ill individual selfish when he hurts you? No. Because he is sick. He does not wnat or mean to hurt you. Thats not selfish. In fact the notion of selfishness is a direct contradiction to step #1 in recovery. Step #1 is to realize that we have no control. One who has no control can't be selfish at the same time. Again it doesn't negate the main point. Change is needed and yes life is unmanagable this way. I think its really a side note.