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Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience

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TOPIC: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 23053 Views

Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 29 Jan 2016 13:51 #275943

Workingguy
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I'd like this thread to be a thread that shares with people some of the mistakes that they made on their journey to recovery. While obviously some people's challenges are their own only, what I've seen on the threads is that many of us share challenges and have similar ways of thinking that get us in trouble. Please feel free to post mistakes that you've learned to avoid. I'll start with an example or two, but it's an open thread.

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 29 Jan 2016 13:53 #275944

Workingguy
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One thing I learned is that I can't be sober without having Shmiras Einayim. I tried to stop masturbating while still looking at racy movie clips and looking around in the street, and I kept on falling once in a while. Now I've seen that I have to be working on real Shmiras Einayim or else I'm "getting into the ring" with the yetzer Hara/addiction (whichever term you like) and it's a losing battle.

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 29 Jan 2016 13:56 #275945

Workingguy OFFLINE Platinum Boarder Posts: 1150 Karma: 139	Making my sobriety dependent on my level of intimacy with my wife or an ability to have a "permitted outlet" was not helpful. While it's a very understandable way to think, it opens the door to all sorts of trouble. What kind of outlet is necessary before you're "good"? What happens if things are not good? It only works when you put the responsibility on yourself.

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 29 Jan 2016 14:00 #275946

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External recovery tools such as filters, 90 day charts, taphsic methods, Torah, posting on GYE- these are all your friends IF THEY WORK FOR YOU. They are there to help, but if they are not working for you, or they are hindering you, pick something else.

So for example, most people would advise having a string filter. But if you're filter is too restrictive and it's going to cause you to be trying to get around it all day, change it. (Disclaimer: filters are a good idea, and for most people on the site who are ready to work, they find that filters of some level are extremely helpful. But the above still applies).

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 29 Jan 2016 14:02 #275948

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Fall or slip? They have a saying here "Fell, she'll, keep on trucking". What does it matter? For a lot of people, being too caught up on the definition is because if it's a fall, they are "out" so they may as well act out a little more before they restart counting or being sober again. Don't let that happen to you. Decide that fall or slip, it's all toward the same goal and that neither one is a license to act out.

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 29 Jan 2016 14:03 #275950

Workingguy
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Addict, yes or no? Whatever you'd like. If it helps you recover by being one, be one. If it doesn't, then don't. But make sure that either way, you're being honest with yourself and not trying to avoid admitting that you have a serious problem. Often, the hesitation to be an addict is just a lack of willingness to admit you have a problem ( and this from a person who doesn't necessarily identify as one).

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 29 Jan 2016 14:40 #275954

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Good stuff!

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Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 31 Jan 2016 04:49 #276014

BenTorah.BaalHabayis OFFLINE Platinum Boarder Posts: 321 Karma: 12	WorkingGuy, this is a great collection! I will just add what is probably one of the more common and obvious mistakes - "I just need to try harder!". As I saw someone here write - "Sometimes its not enough to try harder. You must try smarter!"
	Feel free to email me at BenTorah.BaalHabayis@gmail.com 1 day may be too long for me, but I take it OWAAT = One wave at a time, cause the lust comes and goes like a wave which rises and crashes.

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 31 Jan 2016 15:36 #276048

Workingguy
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One thing that I noticed is that having a positive reason to stay sober is much more effective than wanting not to be not sober. In other words, instead of having only negative motivation, say- "I am sick of this and don't want to be acting out" it's helpful to have a positive reason like "sobriety is better.

Why? First, studio after study shows that positive motivation is more helpful than negative motivation.

But besides studies, I've found that it makes sense in my recovery. Instead of feeling "I don't want to act out, but why not, what should I do?" Where I don't have a replacement, when I think "I want to be sober because it feels much better" it's easier to see acting out as a contradiction to your goal.

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 31 Jan 2016 15:40 #276050

Workingguy
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Try to succeed in areas that you can. What do I mean? Say you feel powerless to stop masturbating, or that you have a struggle when you've seen racy movies and can't stop then. Bring the struggle to where you do have free will. For example, say I'm not going to YouTube or I'm not using the computer alone. Stay away from the things that won't trigger a struggle on you.

So for me, when I was hanging out on YouTube I would inadvertently either see something stimulating or go looking for racy clips. Once I did, it was trouble, and I would lose that battle.

So now I stay off YouTube most of the time, and if I do need something I try to use view pure.com (which can be as bad as YouTube but no suggested videos on the side).

Basically, I stepped or of that struggle to a place where I don't have to struggle.

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 03 Feb 2016 04:19 #276405

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Dov wrote on 22 Jan 2014 17:58:

Rav Twerski... posted...

"All of a sudden when it comes to recovery you are concerned about what's best halachically and are ready to say things like, "Nu, let me go about it the proper way - why should I look for a heter?"! Where was your 'better judgement' and frumkeit before?"

Most of us people just try to use yiddishkeit to bash ourselves over the head and create anxiety about what they want (sex and porn) and 'struggle' in secret - and then use yiddishkeit to hold the solutions away from themselves when they start to see that the will lose the struggle!

"It's a chilul Hashem!"
"But viduy befarhesia is assur!"
"But it's serving avodah zora to walk into a meeting in a church bldg!"
"But there are goyim in that meeting!"
"But there are yidden in that meeting who are not frum and they will say..."
"But there are yidden in that meeting who are frum and they will say..."
"But my Rov said it's assur to do _____ for recovery!" (But did he really tell his Rov exactly what what he is doing, how and where he is doing it, and how often and for how long he has been doing it? Of course not - it's a chillul Hashem and viduy befarhesia! So then he didn't really ask a shailoh at all, did he...)

The only 'preferable way' is the honest and real way, period. Find a real way to be real and honest. Hashem will help you do that wherever you have to do it. He is everywhere.

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Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 03 Feb 2016 18:05 #276513

Markz
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Reb WG I like this thread - Shkoach!! Make sure you don't miss the previous Dov quote

Pidaini wrote on 10 Apr 2014 14:50:

After two full days of being clean, I threw myself down again this morning......twice. In between I renewed my TaPHSiK, and then went on to make sure there were still ways around it.... This is it, I've had enough. There is a limit to everything!!! I want to live real life again, and I will. One day at a time seems so difficult again....but that's really all there is. I really realized the power of isolation, it's REALLY powerful. The tzad hashaveh of every time that I fall is that I didn't speak to my friends that day (or the day before and up until the fall). But yesterday, after I finished watching a very kosher movie (not that I would have cared had it not been), I thought "you should really call someone" and I answered "no, now I have to go learn".....wow!!...and I fell this morning. So bli neder, I will call at least two friends a day, one between davening and lunch, and one between lunch a supper. V'chol hamarbeh harei zeh meshubach. Please do not hesitate to post your feelings, for I know that people do.

Warning: Spoiler!

cordnoy wrote on 10 Apr 2014 15:36:

When I said that I will call a friend between breakfast and lunch, that is only if I eat breakfast, but if I skip breakfast, then I don't need to call...haha! Figured it out. And even if I do eat breakfast, in shulchan aruch it says that one needs pas shacharis, and there's a machlokes regarding cereal, and certainly if I only ate an egg, I didn't eat breakfast, so there! And on a day when I do wash and eat bread, perhaps it wasn't the shiur kedei seviah, but let us even say that I did eat breakfast, who says I will eat lunch, and that is a davar shelo ba l'oilam, and according to the bnei yissoschar's pshat in that, Tzu felt in gemirus daas, so lunch is not even in the equation, and of course if I don't intend on eatin' lunch, I don't need to call after breakfast, for the call would be prior to eatin' supper; and when that time comes around, I can say that I have no necessity to call, for I didn't eat lunch. And truth be told, even when I do eat breakfast and lunch, do I really need to call someone? As long as I bumped into a friend on the street, that is sufficient, for the tachlis was to avoid isolation, and lo and behold, I had a conversation with a friend. "Hello" and "good mornin'" count as well. And what happens if I call and he doesn't pick up? I called! And truthfully, even if I disconnect after one ring, hey! I did call! Is it my gesheft that he didn't respond. That is what the Heilige bashefa had in store for me! So there! Did I leave out anythin'? The Ribbono shel oilam has faith in special me that He gave me this nisayon, and at the same time, He gave me those precious tools to deal with 'em: I installed a filter on computer (which I can crack); I made a tapshik about clickin' on celebrities, especially cute 19 year olds, a tapshik about kosher movies, a tapshik about not so kosher ones (and there is no real way to get around these, unless of course I say five perakim of tehillim or help my wife with the groceries or change one diaper of shprintza yenta or shalom dov ber, or if I chazer the biur of the sfas emes why he disagrees with the keren orah in the sugya of dam shenishpach in the explanation of the rambam with the din of ya'asfenu); and I even made up to talk to two friends a day between meals. So...in the words of my neighbor Lorde, [I'm kind of over getting told to throw my hands up in the air]: "So there!"

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Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 03 Feb 2016 19:18 #276516

Eyeglasses OFFLINE Expert Boarder Posts: 119 Karma: 2	Looks like Cordony learns סדר קדשים בעיון lol

Re: Recovery mistakes to avoid- your experience 03 Feb 2016 19:33 #276519

Markz OFFLINE Platinum Boarder Posts: 8283 Karma: 427	[quote="Eyeglasses" post=276516 date="]Looks like Cordony learns סדר קדשים בעיון lol[/quote] He sends me lots on נשים too
	My Story---------Dov Quotes *FREE LUST TRUCK TOWING* *Click HERE to checkout;* • 100 Day Success Stories: cordnoy, Dov, Gevura and more... • Awesome Threads Saved for You • Cast Your Vote ➣ GYE Plenty Solutions ➣ The Mark of Torah - Lust Chizuk ➣ Nice Trucking Story