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Maccabee's War
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TOPIC: Maccabee's War 4983 Views

Re: Maccabee's War 02 Mar 2011 20:46 #99306

  • Yosef Hatzadik
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Thanks ZemirosShabbos for sticking up for me & defending my honor. (I am not as humble as Dov!)


I am not an addict who has hit rock-bottom in Dov's Style. I do not see it ruining my life completely. I wouldn't have wanted to stop if not for my being Jewish. As a Jew though, I do want to stop. With a Toradig attitude I hope to attain Recovery - someday!
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Re: Maccabee's War 03 Mar 2011 01:07 #99333

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Please let me know where the wedding you go to are at so I could eat the extra cake.  Always make sure to call me before its too late!! 
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Re: Maccabee's War 03 Mar 2011 01:22 #99334

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Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 02 Mar 2011 20:46:

Thanks ZemirosShabbos for sticking up for me & defending my honor. (I am not as humble as Dov!)


I am not an addict who has hit rock-bottom in Dov's Style. I do not see it ruining my life completely. I wouldn't have wanted to stop if not for my being Jewish. As a Jew though, I do want to stop. With a Toradig attitude I hope to attain Recovery - someday!


So you agree that you are an addict, you just unfortunately haven't realized how bad off you are yet. You have my sympathies. Welcome to GYE.
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Re: Maccabee's War 03 Mar 2011 18:25 #99439

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Me3 wrote on 03 Mar 2011 01:22:

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 02 Mar 2011 20:46:

Thanks ZemirosShabbos for sticking up for me & defending my honor. (I am not as humble as Dov!)


I am not an addict who has hit rock-bottom in Dov's Style. I do not see it ruining my life completely. I wouldn't have wanted to stop if not for my being Jewish. As a Jew though, I do want to stop. With a Toradig attitude I hope to attain Recovery - someday!


So you agree that you are an addict, you just unfortunately haven't realized how bad off you are yet. You have my sympathies. Welcome to GYE.
What is with you folks? Who says Yo-Hatz is in such deep trouble? Maybe he is not an addict at all - just cuz he says he is one...how do you think he is defining "addict"? Maybe things are not really so bad for him - in fact, I'd wager the truth is just like he says it: he wants to stop because using lust is very destructive especially for a Yid. He is very, very interested in Kedusha. That is something to admire, I feel. And maybe his work is more precious and harder than mine and yours put together! We cannot know what's inside someone else and their pain, can we? So please consider going easy on him, Me3.

You are a great guy, so I took the liberty to lay all this out to you. Hope we are still buds....
"Off the 18-wheeler and fine on this tricycle!", "I do not particularly care exactly which "lav" suicide is. I'm not interested in it for other reasons...and you are probably the same."
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Re: Maccabee's War 03 Mar 2011 18:30 #99440

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Who asked you?
Me and you buds?
Hrmphh. I'll think about it
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Re: Maccabee's War 03 Mar 2011 19:31 #99454

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If someone is nishtaresh b'chet, he is compulsively returning to the same aveiro, is that addicted or not?
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Re: Maccabee's War 04 Mar 2011 03:55 #99521

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Does he honestly wish he'd stop but keeps doing it even though it is making him miserable? Then he may be an addict, I think. But uch and vei to the guy that goes around paskening for other people whether they are addicts, or not.

To me, "nishtaresh b'chet" only means that it has become truly habitual. Alcoholics and other addicts often describe their drug of choice as "changing from their friend into their enemy". First it was a favorite pastime and lots of fun, then it became a habit, then we started to recognize that it was nothing less than our solution - that we needed it and were obsessed with it (either with doing it or with fighting with it - same thing) ...and eventually we began to recognize it as our problem!

Of course, by that time we have plenty of other problems, too, and sometimes the addiction gets obscured in the big, convoluted mess of our lives. In the very end (boruch Hashem!) it finally emerges as the overriding and main problem in our lives. The elephant in the room.

If we choose life, things actually get better - even though by then it seems pretty clear to us that we are hopeless and so are our lives.

Things get better.

What a metamorphosis. It kind of reminds me of "Hu haSoton, hu haY"H...yoreid umefateh, oleh umastin, yoreid v'noteil Neshomah". 
"Off the 18-wheeler and fine on this tricycle!", "I do not particularly care exactly which "lav" suicide is. I'm not interested in it for other reasons...and you are probably the same."
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Re: Maccabee's War 05 Mar 2011 22:42 #99656

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I dunno...

I sort of feel like the Joe Righteous sort of fellow, but I think that I would classify as addicted because of the fact that even when I have everything going for me, much at stake, etc. etc.

I would still (after telling myself 1000 times first "You are not going to be so foolish this time") find myself (with heart palpitations threatening to blow up my rib cage, shaking hands and sweaty palms) succumbing (Okay, I'll just see if X is still around or I wonder what would happen if I entered Y and then Just a peek...). I saw that this was not just Yetzer Hara based...

And now that I found GYE and started coming out of isolation, and trying to learn the Toirah Sheb'ksav of Addiction (the Big Book, and some of the White Book) my eyes have been opened -and I have been able to pass similar tests based on the new outlook and info which I have learnt over here.

But like Yosef HaTzaddik - If I were a non-Jew, I can't say that I would have the mentchlichkeit not to follow the darker sides of my ta'aivos into oblivion.... After all, despite the fact that you know so many gentiles who have turned themselves into mentchen with the anonymous programs -there are so many more (Jews and gentiles alike) who have driven themselves off the proverbial (and literal) cliff of their addictions until they died as a direct or indirect result!

So I think that it is only my definition of life as being a Jew who is close with Hashem (because that's the way I was created) is what makes me view involvement with pornography or mast****** as life threatening.

Was that confusing?

E
For Dov and the other two guys who care,
My real name really is
 Eli
Like the original Bendy, Ein hadavar talui ela bee




 
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Re: Maccabee's War 06 Mar 2011 05:18 #99689

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ben durdayah wrote on 05 Mar 2011 22:42:

I dunno...

I sort of feel like the Joe Righteous sort of fellow, but I think that I would classify as addicted because of the fact that even when I have everything going for me, much at stake, etc. etc.

But like Yosef HaTzaddik - If I were a non-Jew, I can't say that I would have the mentchlichkeit not to follow the darker sides of my ta'aivos into oblivionAre there many goyim in recovery programs who have "turned themselves" into mentchen due to their mentchlichkeit rather than follow their 'dark sides'? I think not. In this business, the goyim are exactly the same as the Jews. Exactly. I believe it is poshut that if we had the mentchlichkeit to "turn ourselves around", then we would not have went so wrong in the first place. That is why most goyim (or Jews) in recovery will give the credit to their Higher Power rather that say (or believe) that they had the moral fortitude to "finally have had enough with this disgusting behavior".

Rather, recovery is almost always attributed to coming to believe that they simply could not do it any more. Not because they mustn't - they knew that long ago - but only because they cannot afford to. If anything, I see my recovery as the opposite of mentchlichkeit. It is enlightened self-interest. And for that reason, I have never - and I mean never -  seen a single sober SA guy look down on the depravity of porn users (and as you may know, the porn many of us here like to watch is usually a lot dirtier and more embarrassing than we care to clarify - hence the rather clean term "porn") or philanderers (eww...what skotzim). At the worst, a sober SA guy will just shake his head and say something like, "If they are miserable, I hope they end up here. But if it's working for them, then I can't blame for staying out there, for I certainly wouldn't have come here unless I had no other option." And Boruch Hashem for that, for the alternative would be imagining that we are tzaddikim for being sober - and that's a lie, and also very silly. That's why the only guys I meet in SA who make fun of the guys who end up back in front of the computer every few weeks - are not sober themselves. Kind of like the GYE folks who I read posting things that the Gemarah in Kiddushin calls: "an arrow in the eye of the YH!" - here, they say things like "go kill that YH and blast him to SMITHEREEEENS!!!" - and those of you who have been here for over a year and a half will remember that frequent mantra. Not a winner, even in the hands of Tony Robbins.

If you are waiting until what you are doing finally becomes morally unacceptable to you - I suggest you quit waiting, cause it's just a lie. It will never become morally reprehensible to make you stop. Na'aseh lo k'heter is the Truth by aveiros, and it is certainly common in addictions, too. Every guy I meet describes shock and amazement at how low he sank. Folks do not often quit because - "woah, this was just too low! I gotta quit!" - the ones who believe they are just 'too moral' to act out any more are usually sober for a month, 90 days, or whatever...then go back 'out' - starting from where they left off. Surprise! It was just gayva from the very start that kept them drinking/acting out, and they said,  "I am morally superior to those drunks - and they are goyim yet! I will recover for moral reasons!"

Puleese. So much for the addict's morality: Instead of bringing some of us who needed to into recovery faster, it goes a long way to making us worse and worse until the really ugly stuff starts becoming passe.

And finally, I know of talmidei chachomim and ehrligher yiddin who may very well be far more ehrlich than either me, Yosef hatzaddik, you, Guard, or anyone - who nevertheless spent years and years teaching Torah and descending further every few months or years. That is a pity, no? I am not arguing with anyone here, just stating the way I see things and I know I may be seeing completely wrong. It wouldn't be the first time!
.... After all, despite the fact that you know so many gentiles who have turned themselves into mentchen with the anonymous programs -there are so many more (Jews and gentiles alike) who have driven themselves off the proverbial (and literal) cliff of their addictions until they died as a direct or indirect result!
Y'know, every time I hear that I believe that many folks here disqualify 12-step recovery for themselves because they think that it is only for guys who are seeing prostitutes or molesting children and getting arrested, or messing with AIDS-infected types (or getting caught by their dangerous husbands!). And they are there....but at least 50% of the SA guys I have met so far are strictly porn-users (y'know, the more moral types, like us). So it does not have to be a deadly situation - just something that we really feel is messing up our lives.

And (really finally,) while I am mentioning that, i will share that i have already met more than a handful of GYE members who did not admit it on the forum, but are busy seeing prostitutes when they are not posting about how horrible their porn and masturbation problem is. I do not know where I am really going with this, but just thought to mention in in context with what you wrote.


So I think that it is only my definition of life as being a Jew who is close with Hashem (because that's the way I was created) is what makes me view involvement with pornography or mast****** as life threatening.Yes. That may be so. I really believe you can make it 100% of the way with that - but that hole in the eye of the needle really needs to be me'eiver l'eiver (through and through) as the Kotzker would say. So to examine it myself I'd think : If I really believe that it was life-threatening to myself, then why was I have been acting out so much recently? Wasn't it life-threatening? When did it occur to me that it was life-threatening (for religious and spiritual reasons)? Just now? Ten minutes ago? A month ago? A year ago? I am not posting any of this due to any lack of respect, but to ask you if you are really seeing any evidence of a change-of-heart that would make a difference. "Chizzuk" is nice. And that's about all it is. Nice. Is the danger of messing around b'chush to you, or not, and if it was before too, then that may be evidence that it never really was - and we may not know "b'chush" if we tripped over it...

Maybe you have had such a change-of-heart. But is that kind of a change enough to get you and me to take the steps necessary to really live differently? Time will tell each of us, I guess.

In my own case, i definitely had a change-of-heart. And nevertheless, it would have been lorik - fruitless - if I had not taken actual steps to change. Staying on the other end of a virtual computer screen or telephone, I would have remained the same man. Being too chicken to actually show my face to another recovering person to work together - proves i am too subservient to the addiction - if I am an addict, at all. And I would not be here today - cu I am an addict.


Was that confusing? No.

ED
"Off the 18-wheeler and fine on this tricycle!", "I do not particularly care exactly which "lav" suicide is. I'm not interested in it for other reasons...and you are probably the same."
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Re: Maccabee's War 06 Mar 2011 17:04 #99752

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dov wrote on 06 Mar 2011 05:18:

So to examine it myself I'd think : If I really believe that it was life-threatening to myself, then why was I have been acting out so much recently? Wasn't it life-threatening? When did it occur to me that it was life-threatening (for religious and spiritual reasons)? Just now? Ten minutes ago? A month ago? A year ago?


I knew that what I was doing is not good for a long while, but all the methods I tried weren't successful. All the segulos I did & the brochos I got WERE sucsessful, though. They arroused Hashem's compassion & he led me to this wonderful GuardYourEyes Community!!!!
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Re: Maccabee's War 06 Mar 2011 17:42 #99761

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Reb Dov,

I'm trying to understand why you seem to see most of my posts as frontal attacks on SA or the 12 steps.

All I'm trying to say is that if I were a goy, my infatuation with P*** and it's affiliates would probably have wound me up with a slit throat in a dark alley or something of the sort, whereas as a frum Yid -my threshold of tolerance for the stuff is much lower, since I feel like the living dead because of my failings. As you say -you don't care what lav suicide is (actually, it's not a lav -just a bitul asay of v'chai bahem -and in my case porn is a violation of the same mitzvas asay), but that's where I probably would have winded up soon if I weren't so sqeamish...

E
For Dov and the other two guys who care,
My real name really is
 Eli
Like the original Bendy, Ein hadavar talui ela bee




 
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Re: Maccabee's War 07 Mar 2011 10:26 #99888

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>>All I'm trying to say is that if I were a goy, my infatuation with P*** and it's affiliates would probably have wound me up with a slit throat in a dark alley or something of the sort,

Just out of curiosity, what makes you think that just because you are a frum Jew you are except from slipping so low?

Think about where you where 6 months ago...and where you might be 6 months from now...
my guess is they will not be the same place.

project out even further...

easy to imagine how low a person (frum or not) can sink... until human life has no value.
the sites, the people, the places, etc that a person will visit in order to reach the thrill/pleasure level...

last stop on the Addiction Highway: DEATH!
its the train to hell...

but what do I know.
I've blow my brain out a long time ago, and am just an addict, left picking up the pieces.

dov.ii

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Re: Maccabee's War 07 Mar 2011 10:29 #99889

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WOW!!!!! DUI coming out! Thx for showing ur face on the thread.
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Re: Maccabee's War 07 Mar 2011 10:33 #99890

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David/Rage wrote on 03 Mar 2011 15:34:

Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 02 Mar 2011 19:43:

David/Rage wrote on 02 Mar 2011 19:38:

bear jew dont like german...


David/Rage wrote on 10 Feb 2011 14:35:

to quote my favorite nazis,


:-\ :-\ :-\


lo kashe...i was quoting pink floyd, who are british but nazis nonetheless...


Shnei ksuvim hamakchishim zeh es zeh, ad sheyovoh hakosuv hashlishi vayachria beineihem.
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Re: Maccabee's War 07 Mar 2011 10:39 #99892

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I'm back in the US!!!! If anyone wants to come, I'm in JFK for the next three hours. Come say hello!

I had a rough last segment of flight. I had a window seat next to two women. Forthe first hour or two I was successful in doing other productive things and not thinking too much about my situation. I FINALLY wrote out my first step almost to entirety. But after that, things went downhill. The woman next to me fell asleep and was tossing and turning a lot, many times pressing a part of her body against me. I couldn't help not touching.

I think, from now on, as much as I love window seats because of the view, I'm going to opt for aisle seats because they have more legroom, and provide the ability to get up whenever I need to.
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