guardureyes wrote on 31 Mar 2009 11:57:
(Boruch is close
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/wink.png)
but even he feels the groups is his only hope)
Actually I never said that at all and if we go apples to apples, it is not true at all that I feel I could not have done it without the groups. I'll explain and I will be a little more open about my issues.
I had a problem with images for 36 years. I was a periodical who consistently fooled myself that my interludes were successful abstinence and that I just had to get the interludes to last longer and I would be fine. I refused to turn to anyone for help, being convinced that I would handle it on my own. What was worse I convinced myself that my problem was not that bad because throughout the years I did my utmost and was largely successful at stopping my obsessions with the images every time I indulged, before I had gone "too far".
In addition as much as I sincerely felt that what I was doing was wrong and it did disturb my conscience, I never suffered from anything remotely like depression or remorse at all. On one occasion after a whole night of periodically viewing images I gave a Shiur and had no problem with it at all. Over a year ago Shomer caught me and it hardly made even a dent, even before he confided that he had the same issue. He told me how he had struggled for years and tried many options and I was impressed by his seriousness, but was very accepting of my own relative apathy, that was just me, I thought.
Then we were both yo-yo-ing in and out of sobriety backwards and forwards for over a year while Shomer was actively doing everything he could including working on his Yiddishkeit and being active daily with readings about problems with addiction, creating a blog on addiction, posting on various sites including this one, while I was happily burying my head in the sand, convincing myself that he had a worse problem than I did (which as a matter of fact, is very likely, although it certainly is no excuse) and just accepting that I meant well and was doing my best without seriously trying anything.
Then in December after a sustained period of relative sobriety my addiction returned with a vengeance. It got progressively worse and worse until I was involved every day and much more consistently than I ever had been.
My rock-bottom came on January 19th. By that time I had been spending hours on end every day gazing at images, despite filters and accountability software and whatever else. By January 19th though, I had been clean for a couple of days. I had a couple of near misses when I was almost caught by a Rov, but that was a story in its own right, I had beefed up our accountability system, I had confided in my therapist and that day I discovered Shomer's posts on this forum and was truly impressed. I felt for the first time that I was actually taking my addiction seriously and that I was finally beyond it.
That night I was alone and working, I got distracted and in no time I was engrossed as never before. At some point I caught myself and saw on my watch that it was time for evening seder and for the first time when presented with the conflict, instead of half-heartedly lying to myself that I would go in just another minute, as I consistently did in the past, I actually wanted very very much to go to seder, not to escape my addiction, but to be a part of the learning. I realized that at that point in time I was powerless and I just watched as I was taken over and time ran out and seder was over as much as I had really wanted to go.
Later, when the madness left me and I had returned to my senses, I realized that I had totally lost control. Here I had really wanted to go to seder without excuses and I had not been able to. Despite the fact that I had told my therapist. Despite the fact that I was almost caught. Despite the fact that we had improved our accountability system. Despite the fact that I was serious for the first time. Despite the fact that I had been so inspired that afternoon by Shomer's posts. Despite the fact I had been convinced that I had said goodbye to my addiction forever.
And I was seized by a passion. This had gone far too far. A red line had been crossed, and for the first time, without any excuses it was clear to me that, that night, my addiction had clearly and obviously licked me. I was not going to take that lying down and I made a decision. There was no way that I would ever let that happen again.
I made a decision. I knew that I had one weapon with which I could destroy my addiction for good. I knew what I had to do and so I enlisted my biggest yetzer hora, my pride, to destroy my lesser yetzer hora, my addiction, once and for all. I decided right then and there to post on this forum and publicly and dramatically crush my addiction, do a permanent azivas hachet and a real teshuva, right here on these forums.
So could I have done it without the groups? It depends what "it" is. I had given up pornography for life, forever, no ifs ands or buts. I was determined to do a genuine and lasting Teshuva with all 20 ikkarim of Rabbeinu Yonah, including a total transformation of my avodas Hashem. And I am convinced that I did not need the groups for that.
So if the narrow goal was to get beyond the images, to do a full Teshuva on the images and to transform my avodas Hashem, no, I believe that I would have kept that up without relapses, ad meiah ve'esrim. Of course I may be delusional, but whether I am right or not about that I certainly never said that I could not do "that" without the groups.
Here, though, is what I would never have even dreamed of without the groups, never mind have implemented:
1) I had given up pornography, but it would never even have occurred to me to give up the excessive and unnatural cravings of the taava itself, what SA calls lust. BeChasdei Hashem Yisborach I found SA and I gave up lust, the "right" to lust and the "expectation" of lust forever, I have finally given up on all the obsession and compulsion that used to be such an integral part of my physical desire.
2) I had a concept of tikkun hamiddos, but I thought, that as R' Yisroel Salanter said, it takes a lifetime to change a midda and everything I had tried for over 20 years of learning mussar seemed to back that up. Of course R' Yisroel was certainly 1000% right, he knew what he was talking about. But that was not my issue, nor is it the issue with us addicts. In fact one of the most widespread misconceptions is that this has much relevance to anyone today.
Here is why.
We have our natural middos and those take a lifetime to change and improve. However, those middos that we have are supposed to be balanced, as the Rambam says in Hilchos Deios in the Derech Yeshoro, the Derech Hamemutza. We live, however, in a society that between stresses, selfishness and poisonous attitudes ensures that the biggest middos issue of our dor is not that we have not improved beyond the default nature of our natural middos, our problem is that the natural middos we have are totally unbalanced and have run amok.
For years I was trying to work on my middos instead of realizing that I would do very, very well with my middos as they are naturally today, if only I would learn derech yeshoro, if only I would learn to be a mentsch and not behave as if I were less than a beheimo. And I can tell you from personal experience that joining the fellowship is the most foolproof, most effective and fastest way to gain mentschlechkeit that I have ever encountered.
Joining the fellowship gets straight to the core of how to behave like a mentsch in a totally new environment, learning alongside others, and I for one could have learned, read, analyzed hundreds of times and even tried to practice the Steps from the Big Book, which by the way I would never have done anyway without the groups, and I could have become an 'armchair expert' on the steps, but I would not have become much of a mentsch without having had to interact with others in the group, without having to have gone through joining as a plain newcomer and without having to grow into the groups alongside others who were more senior and more experienced. That was a new and very humbling experience and it made something of the beginnings of a mentsch out of me.
For me this was even more pronounced because I was very self-conscious of joining a group with Frum Yidden, and to a certain extent I was also concerned with my anonymity and so I had chosen to join a non-Jewish group. I was unable to impress any of them with my learning and determination because almost to a man, they appreciate humility and patience much more than they appreciate learning and determination.
Of course, it is a very good thing that SA is about anonymity, that it is about principles and not personalities, because if we are talking about personalities, if we are talking about me, I am not yet an example of a mentsch by any stretch. That said I have made progress in a very short time that went well beyond my wildest expectations. I could never have done that without the groups.
3) I would never in a thousand years have broken out of a self-centered and self-righteous existence that I had for years been excusing with chayecho kodmin, torah hi velilmod ani tzorich, talmud torah keneged kulom and other examples of Torah and Maamorei Chazal that I was using out of context to justify my lack of basic mentschleschkeit.
Again beChasdei Hashem I found the groups and discovered how to help others on a consistent and ongoing basis, for them and not for me, as opposed to once in a yovel putting other people first in my mind.
So, it all depends on what the "it" is.
Being honest and putting modesty aside, I do not for a minute believe that I would be doing any less than what I have seen Yaakov post about on this forum (obviously I don't know what he has not told us), albeit in my own way, even if I had never gone to the groups at all and without working the Steps at all, on any level whatsoever.
But without the groups my Recovery would be a very poor shadow of what it is now. I truly believe that the Eibishter saw that I was at least a "bo letaher" if nothing else and in His Chesed, without any merit on my part, He had Rachmonus and directed me toward a Derech Yeshoro unlike anything I have ever known or experienced.