ovadia wrote on 25 Aug 2010 08:41:


wow. same thing here. i get chizuk from you. and i get double chizuk now that you said that you get from me. the very thoguht that i give yuo chizuk is.....wow. i cant even say anything. keep going strong. your very name testifies about you. servent of hashem=ovadiah.
hatzlacha

ovadia wrote on 26 Aug 2010 08:26:


I always thought that the better we understand the better equipped we are for the battle...


-T'shuva Bezmananu By Dr. sorotzkin

in simple english we say dont make the same mistake twice

there is a HUGE group of people who say NOT to gribble into the YH

reb nossson vachtfoigel used to say "gribble nisht"

gribble nisht is called keep on trucking!!

speak to dov=rebberebber  he says too that we dint need to figure out how the YH works


do u need to know how fire damages

or how nicotine kill the fresh cappilaireis in your lungs

or how potholes puncture truck tires

nehhhhhh

just listen to what your mother told you

dont talk to strangers

dont jump off a roof 'cause everyone is jumping

dont play with fire

dont look at someone elses plate (wife daughter shvigger)

kot!!

bardichev

Yeah but what if you try listening to your mommy about not talking to strangers and not playing with fire but you somehow find yourself walking out of a strangers house for the umpteenth time or you find yourself calling the fire department to extinguish the fire you just unwillingly deliberately started....

I would start giving some thought as to what the heck is going on... what does cause me to talk to strangers and play with fire..... What does go wrong for me?

If however, you start becoming obsessed with it and instead of working on it when you can, you sit down with a match to figure things out :o... and end up lighting it... I hear you...

In short an understanding of yourself and the dynamics behind triggers is necessary, over-obsession about it can be counter productive, as is the case regarding almost eveything....

Tried-123 wrote on 27 Aug 2010 05:19:








BINGO!!!!!!!! ace  10-4 

Another day. Just one more day.

I started this thread out of desperation. Since falling a few months ago after my previous clean streak I was unable to pick myself up. And I tried. I tried to restart the 90 days, I received daily chizuk from someone on the forum who did not give up on me, I contacted others for help/guidance but nothing helped. Many times I began composing something to write on the forum, but I was embarrassed. I felt like a failure - "Why did I fall after such a long clean streak?"  And I would go the same cycle each day.

During this time I began to realize or rather internalize a few things.

Firstly, I am addicted and this addiction is here to stay. There is no way of getting rid of it, only to learn how to live with it (which I have not yet even begun). Secondly, learning how to live with it should be the most important thing in my life (which I am still trying to internalize) and thirdly to take one day at a time. Nothing new, but there is a big difference between knowing these things and acknowledging the reality of them, and even now I feel that I am only as far as knowing the importance, but I am not living it yet.

B”H I have now been clean for a few days. I have tried to program myself into desperate thinking! "Just one more day, just one more day!!!" It has worked at least to get me out of the rut I was in, but I feel like I am walking on a minefield, terrified that it can explode at any minute, I don’t want to start counting 90 days again. I don’t think that this works for me. Last time I think that I became complacent because I felt so confident. Besides I feel that I have to train myself to live without counting or records. But who knows which other tricks the Y”H has in store for me. But the main lesson I have learned is that he NEVER EVER gives up.

Just fell.

ovadia wrote on 30 Aug 2010 12:09:


Do you have a sponsor? Do you go to SA meetings?

ovadia wrote on 29 Aug 2010 08:45:
And neither should you. Never give up. Fell, schmell.

The yh is pulling out all the stops because he knows what an eved Hashem like you will do for the world once you can stay on the Taryag Team reliably. Take it as a compliment, gibbur!

Fell shmell. Keep on trucking!!!

Another day. Just one more day.

Interesting that yesterday I did not post this and I fell. I felt strong enough to manage without posting and it seemed pathetic to post this. Coincidence?

I had a revelation yesterday.

The last few days that I was clean I left work each day feeling horrible. I was unable to daaven or to learn. It seemed so false. Yes, I had “survived” the day. But that was not the real me. I told myself that I had only done it to feel good, to be able to save face on GYE.

Yesterday after I fell and I came to mariv, my heart was filled with remorse. I “connected” with HaShem asking him to help me. I felt so low. I needed Him……..

And then I realized the LIE, the big LIE and the truth of what Dov wrote once:

I had lived a double life. There was the me that loves Hashem, tries to learn well, is a devoted husband and decent person....and there was the me who  (sickly) related to Hashem almost exclusively as the One to "take me back! Clean up my mess!" over and over. Like the baby that spills the spaghetti on the floor and enjoys having his mom bend over and clean it up...I loved the idea that Hashem would take me back and clean up my mess. Just loved it. It was the only real proof I had that He loved me! After all, I couldn't successfully live for Him, right - I was masturbating, lusting, and acting out over and over (and hiding it and lying about it), right?
But that is not a G-d/servant relationship - it is a toilet/janitor relationship. Not what He wants, at all. I see it as a complete (and perverse) twisting of the "nimtzah, you will live each day in teshuvah" that the tanna is talking about.
And I know that it is not what He desires, not from any meforshim, but simply because my life was slowly getting flushed down that very toilet! Living Hashem's Will is supposed to give forth a life that works. My honesty with my own wife was bleeding to death...hiding (as you describe a bit) meant lying, too...covering the bitterness was lying, too, wasn't it? It was living the lie instead of telling it. So? Which is worse? And my acting out was generally worsening, not getting better in the long run. Where it would all lead after I was old scared the hell out of me, frankly.

I have come to the realization that I am incapable of any rationalization or objectivity of any kind in this struggle, and I definitely do not have the ability to evaluate my relationship with HaShem on the basis of this struggle.
Thank you Dov

Yes Barditchev, it has taken time to realize how right you are:

PLEASE HASHEM, NO CHESHBOINOS JUST GIVE ME THE STRENGTH TO KEEP ON TRUCKING.

Another day. Just one more day.

PLEASE HASHEM. HELP ME KEEP ON TRUCHING JUST TODAY.

Sorry guys if I am being a bore but at the moment it seems that this is the only way I have to keep myself aware of this. Somehow when I post this, it makes me connect to the outside world.

Thank you all for being there.

I am beginning to realize more and more (thank you Dov) the possibility that the way I understand yidishkiet and my relationship with HaShem is wrong, and that my barometer for measuring right and wrong is totally based on how I feel.

For example if I want to be mechazek in brachos I begin by trying to say each bracha clearly and with concentration. But it doesn’t feel right and I feel uncomfortable doing it. So after a while I stop.

In the same way I walk down the street. I see a triggering sight or pritzus. I avert my eyes, but the image is there in my head. It is uncomfortable. It does not feel right. It is not me. It seems to be false. “You know very well that you are much more comfortable looking” I tell myself.

And in the end I go back to the other me, because I cannot take the pressure, of living a “double” life. So I choose the easy comfortable way out. Act out – that’s me being myself; and then daaven to HaShem to help me out – that’s also me.

It is so obvious but it is probably the first time I have realized it: The nice comfortable feeling, the one that you identify with, which feels that it is in your heart and calms you down; that is the Y”h. The horrible nechsy feeling, the one that tears you apart, that makes you feel that your head is going to crack, that tenses up your body; that is the truth.

I don’t know what yidishkiet is, but I now know that it is not about feeling good.