Ineedhelp

I feel your pain and sadness at your fall.  I have found in my experiance that on my own recovery is impossible, the addiction thrives on isolation, and even though this forum is amazing it is no replacement for a 12 step program, have you considered  joining one?  Since I joined I have nerver felt alone, I have lists of numbers on my cell of people that I can call 24/7 in emergency, and people call me sharing their struggles.  The meetings are a place where I can see people face 2 face who are sober and their lives have changed dramaticly.

Even though I am going through a difficult time I know that it is possible to get recovery, however I have to be willing to put my recovery before everything in my life, as this illness has no boudries and when I am in the heat of the addiction nothing is sacred.  I therefore have to teach my YH that recovery is the most important thing in my life without exception.
As is said at the end of every 12 step meeting "it works if you work it"

Hang in there my friend.

London

Ineedhelp!!

Yes to everything London wrote. Please consider looking at my first post on this site regarding my putting of really doing something about this problem until I started living in the solution 11 years ago.

Yes, perhaps some people "don't have it as bad" but it seems clear, my dear brother, that this issue preoccupies a lot of your energy each day. Your life is getting pulled into this problem more and more, not less and less, it appears. Am I wrong? You may have "good days" or weeks, or whatever, but the answer to this problem is not getting lucky, ignoring it, replacing it, nor forgetting about it. Facing it hurts a lot less than ignoring it. If you disagree, fine. I wish you'd email me or call me the day you change your mind, cuz I'll be there, G-d-willing, to share my experience, strength, and hope with you and do anything i can to help make the road easier. So will anyone else I know in recovery. (the ones that won't, probably won't stay sober very long, anyway.)
With love and respect to you, Dov

Thank you London and Dov for your kind and heartwarning words. It definitely gives me Chizuk when I sense that there are people that really do care.

B'H and Bli Ayin Hara I have lasted and Im on my second day today MOnday the 18th. With Hashem's help I plan to continue this forever.

Every time I feel i come even a little close to slipping (which hasnt really ahppened in the last two days), I try to think of Yosef Ben Yaakov. He is known as Yosef Hatzadik. Such a high honor. Moshe is Rabeinu. Aharon is Hakohen. Mordechai is Hayehudi. But Yosef is Hatzadik. Why the best name for a person who spent the main part of his life in such a terrible place, MItzrayim? I think it stems form the story with him and Eishes Poitphar. She tried at ALL costs to seduce him. Yosef at ALL costs did not give in even though Im sure it was an "impossible" task. His strength in that situation is what gives him the title Tzadik. And to everyone out there who has recovered, I give you the name Tzadik next to your name because you are all who I strive to be and thats what a Tzadik is. Hopefully one day everyone on this website will become the type of Tzadik that Yosef was.

I guess I just went on a rant about something random but it looks good from here. tell me what you think.
-Yiddle2

Thank-you INH!! (how about a name?) -
One sort-of correction. I'd consider removing the qoutation marks from the word "impossible" you wrote. I believe with a whole heart that the 12 step program is not written for the person who is having a hard time w/this stuff, or who is having an "impossible" nisayon. It is written specifically for the person who has encountered an absolutely, really impossible nisayon for them. How many times in early recovery did I think in a nisayon, "well, they certainly weren't talking about THIS in recovery and then steps and told me to make a call to a program guy and to daven to Hashem and work the steps! THIS IS REALLY, REALLY IMPOSSIBLE and nothing will work. It's for the person who has fallen so low that they have no hope at all. They may have lost their job, wife, children, most of their sanity, and health and are truly alone, and they recognize with a shock, that they'd still act out tomorrow!! They can't believe it! It is scary to know you can't stop not matter what. This is the one who recovery is for, along with everybody who realizes they are going there, too, should they follow the path they are on. The desperation, the struggle is over. We lost. That is my "step one" - I by my power, I am beaten. Now recovery starts. This disease is a roller coaster ride you can't get off of going down hell - I mean "hill". If you grab onto the steps and get your "power" out of the way, then Hashem unbuckles the seat and plucks you out like an "Ud Mutzal Mey-eish". It IS impossible. It is not a struggle - beating the YH is for the normal yidden. If you are really an addict, you need a neis. Period.
Love, Dov

Dov,

My experience in this must be quite different than yours. I never feel that it is an impossible task to overcome. I have felt that I will never overcome it because of my inner will and true feelings but never thought it was impossible. After seeing som estories on this website, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is impossible. impossible is impossible (chew on that one). But it can be done with the proper mindset as a Jew. I'll tell you exactly why its not impossible. let me give you a classic example: Someone Chas Veshalom gets that feeling inside them that they must look at imappropriate things. nothing is going to stop them right? All of a sudden his mom walks just to see how he is doing. Is he going to stop? I think so. If someone walking in can stop him from doing it, then you can stop on your own will. yes i do agre it is an addiction, but there are things and occurances that will stop you when you are even at your worst stage. The way you make it sound is that nothing can stop you if your mind is set to do it. I dont think you need a Neis from Hashem to stop this. Eizehu Gibor? Hakovesh Et Yitzroh. Becoming a Gibor, a strong person doesnt happen over night. Ya you can take steroids and in the shirt run you'll succeed, but current events have taught us that taking steroids will get oyu caught. In order to become a true Gibor you need to work your way up, lifting weights everyday. If ou take off one day your regimen is off and you start your journey to become a Gibor over. But its you who does it with Hashem's help. The fact that I lasted the past 2 days was not a Neis, it was my own will power. Hakol Biday Shomayim Chutz Mi'yiras Shomayim.

-Yiddle2

Dear Yiddle, you write "my experience is different than yours". Before I try to address your question, I just want to point out that "your experience" is 2 days clean. Dov's experience is 11 years clean. Let's stand back in AWE and try to understand this deep message Dov is giving us... Maybe if we learn from him NOW, we will save ourselves from riding the endless roller coaster of Teshuva/Neffila.

The truth is Yiddel, that what you are addressing is one of the oldest questions. "Do we truly have free will, or is Hashem doing it all?" And the answer is that BOTH are true. See here and here on our FAQ pages. The amazing thing with us though, is that in the case of this addiction/disease we have to focus - and "live" with the "second" truth much more than the first, or we'll end up falling. That's how I see it at least.

There is much I can say... but since this is a truly "fine" line to define and a very "touchy" and delicate subject - I will leave it to the real expert "Dov" to explain more this deep concept.

Dov, we want to hear how you answer Yiddle please.

please let me answer if i may. I heard from R' YAkov Weinberg, zt'l, brother of r' noach, zt'l. G-d has a plan, but WE determine what roads to use to get there. if we choose the bumpy roads, then that's how we'll get there.if we choose the smooth roads, then THAT'S how we'll get there.

Dear Yiddle - Thanks for your note and for sharing your experience. I have never thought of applying the mother-walking-in idea to the addiction. It reminds me of an Eben Ezra that one of the Briskers explains like this: How can Hashem make Lo Sachmod a command? Either you desire it or you do not! How do you change the things you desire? The way the Brisker understands the Eben Ezra (I think) is: Imagine you are walking away from the ice cream stand with a delicious cone on a hot day. You have not made a brocha yet but are about to...suddenly you trip and fall into a hole! On the way down, do you still desire the cone? No, the instinct of self-preservation and the fear of getting a non-elective nose job takes over completely and the desire for the cone vanishes for the time being. This is how Hashem gives us Lo Sachmod. As soon as a yid realizes he desires his neighbor's cow (or i-Phone) he should naturally be siezed with fear that he will be oiver on then issur of Lo Sachmod! The yiras shomayim he has developed from then mitzva temiddi of veyareisa me-elokecha should take over completely and obliterate then desire he naturally has for the cow (or i-Phone). His point is that it is not a choice regarding Lo Sachmod, it should really just happen naturally as a result of working on yourself (or from chinuch, or some other gift) in the mitzva of yiras shomayim/yiras cheit.

Now, I do not have much yiras shomayim yet and do not expect to gain this madreiga of yirah, though, who knows? Anyway, I do  not even believe that my yiras shomayim is what is stopping me from acting out! I do my part to have, or allow, Hashem to let me off the hook and remove my YH each time it comes up simply out of then desire for self-preservation. Maybe this is "yiras cheit" or the lower level of yiras shomayim that the RMB"M writes about - who knows - I don't care what it is, it just works. On the other hand (literally - the Ye-min'), I can honestly say that I have a suprisingly deep desire not to lose the closeness that I feel with the Ribono shel olam now. I do not want to lose what sobriety and precious sanity I have been given and descend to what depths I cannot imagine. I left off in a very bad place. Perhaps this is ahavas Hashem? I do not think it matters what it is, it just works. I really think it'd be useless or even bad for me to analyze it. (A davar hasamui min ho-ayin is much safer, especially when it was a freebie.) They say "the addiction is outside doing pushups while we are in the meetings" and "we start where we left off when we pick up the drug again"...Uh oh. And I believe it.

To try to give a more direct answer to your question, yes, maybe I could have been saved a few times from acting out onmy lust in the past by outside circumstances like people walking in on me, etc. But for me, then threshold was quite high. For example, I was picked up by then authorities and almost arrested once, slid out of control driving my car in yehoopits a few times on the way to nowhere good, fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from another adventure in yehoopits, and had many other uncomfortable run-ins with reality, including my wife, a big chunk of reality (no pun intended there, really). Well, in each case I acted out anyway, or continued to act out. I would have needed such a cadre of constant open miracles, like i-Phones falling out of heaven and hitting me in the head every time a bad idea popped into it, to stop me. I would have been quite a phenomena! (though I probably would have been oiver on Lo Sachmod with the phones...
Seriously, When I say it was impossible, I do not know if that applies to each and every case of the thousands of times I acted out in some way. I just don't know. What I mean is that in the long run, I wanted to be free of it, and as sure as the sun coming up, I eventually would act out. It was obviously impossible to get free of it. It became obvious to me at some point that even though I had become an expert on current jewish-psychologic literature regarding then YH and sexuality in general, I was no closer to being safer. I might get away once or twice, but it would surely get me eventually.
Now I did not have this "fatalistic" attitude from the start. It developed over years of "starting fresh" and re-dedicating myself (often on yomin tovim and in frequent terrible, abject sufferring over my failings) to Hashem. I finally was helped to see that I was barking up the wrong tree. I accepted that I needed real help to remain safe from this behavior and took the steps which helped me see that there was hope for me,  I was not a shmateh, nor a child, but a man; that I was totally self-absorbed/egotistical, entangled in lust, and over-complicated. I just came to see these are the facts, not a value-judgement or condemnation, just the facts. And that would have to be OK, because it was the way it really was. That last OK-ness was quite a leap for me at that time and sometimes still is with new things that come up. That is the fourth step, and the acceptance of myself slowly changed everything. I needed a lot of work but I was also no longer alone to be the "Gibbor" who landed in the mud so often. They helped me see that one reason I couldn't just "do teshuva" was that my mind was so twisted in knots and I was seeing through those off-colored glasses! In addition, my relationship w/Hashem was not as a Friend. It was infected with years of "self-training" to feel so, so far, then so very close, and later "Hashem, please take me back again!!" Gevalt! This was what anyone would call a normal relationship?! Not quite. It was full of guilt, shame, hatred for myself, fear of what Hashem would bring upon me, etc. Where is the safety every relationship needs to succeed? The balance? I was not really sure that He was out for one thing, and one thing only: My true best interest. I had serious doubts that I could trust Him - he may have some bad punishment waiting for me, after all... Today I am sure Hashem is and always will be acting 100% in my own best interest, for eternity. It changes everything. I do not know if I'd be able to have that attitude if I'd still be regularly acting out. Thank G-d I have been given some small measure of freedom from a portion of the YH and it makes it easier not to find myself unacceptable. Incidentally, it is certainly an important avoda to recognize that Hashem loves us even in total depravity and failure, but it is a hard avoda and I would not not like to have to have it. If G-d forbid he removed my ability to stay sober, then I gues I'd need to get help in order to do just that and find peace within failure and even cheit. But as a person in the gemora says  somewhere, "I'll just pass on that hard avodah, thank-you." Let someone else do it.
Sorry about the very long post, and may Hashem give us all a large helping of all then good stuff this shabbos and shevuos. Please forgive me for rambling and help me remember that there are many other ways to do this that the one little way I have been given. We will all be OK in the end.

Get to a meeting in your area where you can meet real people in person.  Staying on the computer
is just feeding your addiction, no matter what you're looking at.  Feel free to call the hotline
anytime to talk.  901-685-3256.

Hey Dov,

I was thinking about what you said it being a Neis and I think we can come to a compromise from a Gemara that I came across 2 years ago. I am too lazy to get a Gemara to look it up but somewhere in the third Perek of Macos it says something like this:" B'derech Shebebnai Adam Holech, Hakadosh Baruch Hu Molochin Oso" Which ever path a person chooses Hashem helps him out to go to that path. So maybe from the fact that I keep falling I dont really want to takew that path deep down or else Hashem would help me.

-INH (thats for Dov)

INH

I have been in recovery for sex addiction now for 4.5 years and met many people both jewish and non-jewish with similar issues.  I have yet to find a person who is addicted to lust recover from this illness without working the 12 steps with a group of other suffering addicts.  That said, the SA white book clearly states that we have found a solution that works for us, we do not claim that it is for everybody.  Further in the AA big book it states that if a person is not sure that he is addicted to alcohol, he should try and go out there and control his drinking on his own, if he is sucsessful then excellent if not he is welcome in AA with open arms.

I have seen (myself included) many people come into the fellowships who think they are special and different, when I joined my meeting in the UK aged 27, I was the youngest there and the only jewish person there too. I found it hard to maintain any sobriety in those days as I was different, they were older and some had suffered terrible consequences from their acting out, they were not jewish the list is endless.  After a while I got sick of my inability to stay clean and made a decision to to what I was told and thats when things started to change.  People when they first come into recovery are often blinded by denial and self justification and will use any excuse including religion why they are different.  But the truth is I am not different I have an illness called sex addiction and if left untreated will cause me to loose everything in my life that I hold precious, my wife, my kids, my religion........

If you are able to get recovery from this without the help of a 12 step fellowship by working a program Yiddishkeit, I will be really happy for you.  Try it, put as much energy, effort and time into working a program of Yiddishkeit as you do in acting out to get well.  If it works Brilliant!! If not perhaps then you should consider a 12 step group.  I say this will all sincerety as if you went into a 12 step group now, you will alway have at the back of your mind that perhaps I could have done it another way, therefore, I urge you to put all your kochos into working a program of mussar etc, and if you find that works for you fantastic, if not you know we are here for you and will welcome you with open arms.

Hatzlocho
Londo

Thanks for the advice London,

It always feels great to get advice from an experienced person who has/is in the middle of recover. I would like to go through these 12 steps "Be'iyun". What is the best way to do this? Ive looked at them and I dont think I could do it on my own. I thought of a great idea that someone maybe Rav Twerski or someone else who is knowledgable in this field could record 1 shiur per step and post it on the website. If this is possible I think alot more people would get involved in it. If someone could give 12 shiurim and post them that is basically what i think I would need. It would allow me to focus and take notes on the subject. Another potential idea is to have a live broadcast of a shiur over the internet so that everybody could listen at the same time. I am not sure how to do it but I could definitely figure it out and set it up if someone would be willing to give the shiur. We could make it at a time when its convinient for all time zones. Maybe on a Sunday afternoon Eastern time zone.

I fell again Motzei Shabbos but Baruch Hashem ive picked mysaelf up again and Im on day 2.

Kol Tuv
-Yiddle2

This is a great idea. We have to find a way to implement this. See tool #14 on the GYE handbook. We have/had a plan to do this, but the guy who was going to run it hasn't gotten back to me. Maybe Dov or London can help with this idea? There are ways to do Step work on-line, learn the steps, etc... Again, see tool #14 on the GYE handbook for more on what I'm talking about.

Does anyone have any pull with Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski? I think he would be the ideal person to give a general shiur through a webcast or a recording. Maybe we could do an hour shiur or something like that.

-INH

I have some pull with him... I can maybe ask him if he'll be willing to give us a phone shiur on this... Hmm... (if I can gather the courage :-) Let me think about it...