This mouse will not have a pity party.  Nice try yetz.  foiled again.  Nobody's counting, case you didn't notice.  KOT

Thanks guys! sb - I learned a lot, but I dont have time to post it, I hope to in the next few days.

In the meantime, my partner is going away for a week, is there anyone who wants to step in to keep the mouse on the straight and narrow? 

A chavrusa is not a partner 

Look were u slipped

Don't look were u fell

so true bards!

so i came up with a lot - sadly (as is often the case) that 1st fall last thursday has paved the way for a few others since... and this is the 1st lesson i've learned. one fall  (at least in my case) NEVER means one fall. The addicition has so much momentum and inertia from habit all these years that being in solid recovery for 2 weeks, whilst beautifully freeing, is not enough to rewrite the script in my brain and once i open it up again, i cant just step back into recovery - i dont have to start all over again - but i have to find a new way of changing the patterns.

i will compare it to veses (in hilchos nidoh) if there is an unfixed veses, one akirah is enough to remove it, whereas, if there is a fixed veses, 3 akirahs are necessary. What this shows (as well as amazing how in tune with human psyche the torah is) is that once something is kavuah, it becomes the trend and needs much more of the opposite to stop it from being the trend. This is true of the acting out and also true of the recovery. The more fixed the habit is, the less of an impact doing the opposite will have.

What i therefore now see stronger than ever, is the 1st slip is so vital to not take, not just because it will lead to a fall, but becuase it will undo the rewriting of the script. (now all i need to do is to get back into sobreity to put that realisation into practice)

The next thing i realised about myself, is that until now, i have always been searching for the rid in a situation where lust strikes. ie, what about my real life is bothering me that i am turning to lust. but, sometimes, i just cant see anything, old triggers are triggering me even though nothing is bothering me - this happened to me a few times this week. it was very frustrating coz i didnt have the tools to deal with it.

i have realised that my brain associates whatever triggers i have with intense pleasure - therefore, even if im fine, seeing the trigger is going to make my brain think its about to get pleasure - at that point, i develop rid because i know i cant have the pleasure and that builds the lust and leads further.

In other words, i think the lust and the rid come at the same time - the opportunity to act out itself creates the rid. but now i have the tools to fight it - exactly the same way as when my life creates rid. by letting go, by reaching out to Hashem and one of my great buddies here - by reminding myself that i will survive without the pleasure and connection with Hashem is much better etc..

(i hope that wasn't too convoluted - its late in the UK)

RID is not the only cause of acting out. For a while, it was  deep association for me - if I was in front of a computer, then I had an incredibly strong urge to check out my usual problematic haunts.

As time goes on, and you successfully resist the urge, it does subside. For me, visual imagery helped a lot - imagining myself in front of a computer and NOT going to those sites - or walking away from the computer when I felt the urge. That made it easier for me to actually do it when I was in the situation.

Realizing the risks involved in the first slip is important - but equally important is realizing that you don't have to continue that cycle. You have the ability to stop even after a fall. It is possible, albeit difficult. You can accept the difficulty without surrendering to the inevitability. In other words, for some people, once they've accepted that this is their behavior pattern, it's almost excused, in their minds they haveno escape, and after the first fall, it's "not my fault" - so I might as well "take advantage."

Oy silent thats so true. It used to be that if there was a computer in my house overnight i would feel compelled to use the opportunity  and i would fall.

I looked at it as a 'wasted opportunity' not use a computer......  :'(

an honest mouse wrote:


um... errr..... actually;

Histakel b'oraisa ubara alma - Hashem used the Torah as his blueprint according to who's specification he created the world.

The Torah is not "in tune with the human psyche", the human psyche was crafted to match the Torah!!!

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 13 Jan 2011 16:51:


touche mon amis! how right you are! i meant it that way round but sent out the wrong message, thanks for pointing it out!

sb - thanks, thats a good idea to visualise - bH i didnt allow the cycle to continue with a trigger this evening, as you describe, an about turn be'H. As my partner refers to it "flexing the muscles in my brain of a different behaviour pattern".

hi AHM,
how are you doing?

hi zemmy, thanks for asking! i havent posted here, just coz i dont have anything specific to report, but I will answer your question!

A little while ago, I had the best 2 1/2 weeks of my recovery so far - proper surrender, reaching out to Hashem and my partner early on and real serenity. Then something built up which i couldnt find an escape from and i acted out and things went downhill pretty fast coz it coincided with me going back to the computer at work. bH this week is much better so far but im kinda still rebuilding what i lost 2 weeks ago!

It's amazing how one slip/fall which is dealt with using the old system can rewind everything and set us back!

an honest mouse wrote on 19 Jan 2011 13:33:


True and not true.  It definitely sets us back.  But it doesn't rewind everything.  Those two and 1/2 weeks are yours for keep and they caused a tremendous nachas ruach before the כסא הכבוד.  I heard this week beshem Rav Wolbe our life long goal is training ourselves to do the right thing.  That is the goal not perfection.  So as long as we are in training mode we are good and accomplishing.  It sounds to me that's where you are.  So keep it up and you should have much hatzlacha doing it.

to echo what Harav UAJ said, those two weeks are not lost
you lived the right way and you keep those days no matter what
keep your nose pointed in the right direction and keep working the program
you are making progress
continued hatzlacha