@Me3 -
Were dealing with apples and oranges. I'm sticking to my suggestion that the financially stressed try CH, and your defending the 12 steps.
I'm also standing by my observation that this forum has strayed somewhat from the mesorah of thousands of years in favor of ideas that are foreign to said mesorah.

And I'm reiterating that I agree with point 1 and disagree with point 2.

Sorry, I missed that thread, Ill try to stop by in a bit.

Dear "o",

I, for one, actually have no significant arguments with you. As I tried to explain earlier, I am simply in the business of emphasizing certain protim because my painful experience shows me that the main issue for many of these otherwise ehrlicher people is not  the "banner of Torah" - but rather the weakest link in that particular person's chain. As the wise saying goes, the strength of any chain is only and exactly equal to it's weakest link, period. Strengthening the other links does not make the chain any stronger. It will fail.

I have met hundreds of sweet and ehrlicher yiddin including wonderful mechanchim, talmidei chachomim and others in and out of SA, who desperately described themselves as living a double life because of their cyclical and predictable behaviors using lust. It seems to me that the fact that what they are doing happens to be an aveiro only serves to get their attention - and soon they discover that the issur is no longer their bigggest fish to fry. It may have started off as the main issue, but they -  and often their wives, children, and other people as well - eventually discover that they are living a double life and that it is ripping them all apart slowly. There is no difference whether they are masturbating to porn, injecting heroin in their arms, or drinking. Their friend eventually becomes their enemy. The issur is not their enemy - the enemy is their idiotic, immature, and humiliating dependence on it.

The issue no longer revolves around Torah, at all. It's Derech Eretz now.

Many of these yiddin see themselves (for decades) simply as ba'alei tayvoh (which they may very well also be) and avaryonim. Many of them have been well-primed by the Breslover/Light of Efraim/mikvah-tikkun/Teshuvah-gemurah worshippers and by the indisputable facts of the issur,  into making being omeid b'nisayon the name of the game. Nobody seems to know what to do to help them - themselves the least of all. I meet these people every day here and elsewhere. They wander into GYE when they begin to see that their tools are not working for them, at all. They are scared. Many of them are plotzing for a well-meaning guy like you to re-convince them that they were always on the right track and that all they need to do is go back to Chovos haLevavos - but this time, take it really seriously. That would be soooo comforting for them. They want to win!

I believe that hose guys often do not get better - unless their problem was not that serious a compulsion in the first place. The ones who I have seen get better are usually the ones who no longer care if they 'win', but realize they cannot afford to do this garbage any more, peiod. They will even give up to win - as long as they do not have to continue living the double life. They want to be freed from the shame and misery of living the lie and from losing more and more. 

And I have never said that your suggestions are necessarily wrong! All I am trying to clarify is how easy it is for "going back to CH" to play right into the hands of the problem in the first place and just be a smokescreen for the addiction - for an addict. I have seen it happen many, many times. I believe that going back to CH may work just fine for many yiddin! And I certainly do not believe that the 12 step way is the only way for anybody.

Honesty with ourselves learned and practiced through being honest and open with other [safe] people; seeing our emotional complaints about life as shining a light on defects in our own character rather than on Hashem's 'defects' or l"h on the defects of the people around us; learning how to be totally dependednt on Hashem to help us use our kochos; learning how to live for His Will, rather than for mine; and are certainly not necessary for everybody. And I am not being sarcastic. 

But for those who want to try it, there are no halfsies. It is like breathing, period. I wonder if anyone considers their absolute and total desperation for another breath to be proof that Torah is not prime in their life. What does Torah have to do with breathing? Being responsible enough to make sure you will be able to get another breath is Derech Eretz, not Torah. This is plain. That is again what I mean by "I am not interested which lav suicide is - I do not like the idea of it for other more personal reasons." Don't you feel the same? Is that evil?

Do you get me?

For those yiddin who come here and feel they are addicted and keep trying and failing, I am here to say: "Try whatever you see fit to try. If it still fails, there are other options. I am no great shakes, do not work a very strict program, and nonetheless B"H I have not had to masturbate in 14 years now, nor have I had a wet dream in all that time, one day at a time. I believe that it is due to my becoming open to Hashem's Chessed through this 12-step program that is teaching me how to get out of His way. To let Him run the show. And that option is still Torah and only Torah - because I choose to use it for Torah, to live a Torah life. Same as what I choose to use my breathing for.

But if this is what they want, they must confront the fact that they have a weak link - and it is not just an aveiro. It's more basic than that. It is in something that we share with all humans, even goyim.

The entire program is there to teach me honesty and how to be and remain connected. But honest with what? -  and connected to what? Honest with myself and connected to Torah - Hashem's Will for me.

Now, 'Hashem's Will for me' means what happens to me (chelki) in my life as much it does the halochos and my obligations as a Jew. They are both equally 'Hashem's Will for me'. They are all 'how Hashem takes care of me'. But the chiddush of how an addict can actually learn to live this way - that is the fruit of steps, for me. We don't seem to get it from what you keep calling "the Torah", for if we did we would not be in this mess to begin with - and it is not because the Torah has any weakness or lack. We just do not know how to get out of Hashem's way and everything we hear from the Torah and life motivates us to assert ourwill even more and get even more in his way! - for an addict.

I think you are mainly concerned with what should be the solution - with a group of people who have already learned to make it - the true Torah - part of their very problematic behavior pattern itself! When you get to know us folks, it becomes clear that our very way of using the truths of the Torah facilitates and enables our acting-out! Our guilt and awareness of the gravity of the aveiros backfired; our choking ourselves  to 'hold back' ("one day at a time!" )backfired; our romanticizing about the madreigos we could have through Teshuvah backfired. Paradoxcially, they all made us need to act out even more. It was shocking and bewildering.

We ended up in such a mess because we have misapplied the Torah, misapplied our cheshbonos, and misapplied our bodily powers. Yet you suggest we do even more cheshboning, try to use more Torah, and focus on more self-control of our bodies? Us? Our very best fighting and our very best attempt at thinking is what got us right here in the first place. In fact, many of us developed our yiddishkeit and our addictions in tandem, no? Same ages for both. Is it not likely that our yiddishkeit is just a bit infected? Not the Torah - but our way of seeing life and applying the Torah to ourselves. Who will straighten us all out? You? Are you a bar hochi? And if we went to R' Tzvi-Meyer (the closest person I can think of to a straight-thinker and tzaddik), would we not screw everything up in the application of it? I believe that is quite likely. And if you are a bar hochi, are you an addict and have you been fixed by what you call "the Torah"? If not, what will you say and how do you know what to fix?

Since none of us are such chachomim to know exactly what part of our yiddishkeit we are getting all wrong and how to fix it, the derech of the 12 steps circumvents all these deep cheshboinos and says: first become a sane human being, OK? Make that your focus. Let that be a source of humility for you. Learn how to truly become concerned with G-ds Will, whatever it turns out to be. Accept that you need to be concerned with His Will first, and with being usefuul to His people. Now starts what you call "the Torah".

Na'aseh v'nishma came from somewhere - we know that Hashem first healed them all before they could say that. They returned to simple shleimus first. 

I think that you are just focusing on the other links in the chain. They are strong, actually. We are frum! Except when it comes to this one thing we are failures. But you care so much to prove that Torah works. That it is all about "the nisayon" and bechirah rather than a sickness. To me, this means that you have but one tool in your toolbox - what you refer to as "the Torah" - so I get the feeling that you see all people's problems with behavior as basically "a nail" - a problem with keeping the Torah. You see one problem and hence only one solution. It seems to me that this is the reason you have denounced the implications of some things that I have shared.

Here are some things selected from you posted above. I would like to comment on some. Please have the above in mind while reading the below, and you may see some answers.o wrote on 02 Mar 2011 10:06:

thanks so much for that piece, Dov!
very clear
greatly appreciate you making the effort to put that together

i wrote another really long post to rebbe o, however i see dov did too, so how can i speak up before ppl greater than myself.
however i will copy and paste in the end of my piece:

"O, have a wonderful beautiful day.
_____________
And DAVID/RAGE-if u have a problem being in the same post as Admiral Ackbar  can we take this outside, no holds barred please,  Now i just watch misquitoes fighting over sweaty people in geulah....and people pouring bleach into seminary people's eyes.....free laudry service!
Okay enuff for now, now my Minchas asher hagada awaits me! Zemmo, have u seen yet the Admiral Ackbar hagada?.....from ARTSCROLL, intro from R nosson sherman and Han Solo,

__________
Here's another mind twisting fact related to the Torah psychology goyishe bit-
You ever heard of R' Orloweck? he wrote all these chinuch books, is a talmid and ne'eman baiso of r' sheinberg, and maintains a smaller yeshiva INSIDE torah ohr itself?
So he told a friend of mine to go into the field of martial arts therapy...martial arts therapy, how goyish.....disgusting.....but R' orloweck said it can really help frum bochurim now in Ey.....how do i know this? WAIT!-I WAS THERE WHEN HE SAID IT-IN FACT, HE SAID IT TO me! and so did R' asher weiss, ......eirev rav? what's the teretz...!. ."

DEAR O SHLITA, I BRING HERE PARTS OF TWO LOOONG POSTS I WROTE TO YOU BUT NEVER POSTED. I WOULD LIKE TO AGREE WITH YOU TO DISAGREE. YET, THERE WERE SOME KOSHER PARVE PARTS TO MY POSTS, HERE THEY ARE, FREE OF CHARGE! YOU SEE, I GREW UP EMBROILED IN CONSTANT MACHLOKES FROM TERRIBLE CHILD ABUSE SO ARGUING FOR TOO LONG ISNT SO GOOD FOR MY HEARTBURN:
IF THIS DOESNT MAKE ANY SEMBLANCE OF SENSE, ITS BEC. I DELETED ALOT OF THE MIDDLE SENTENCES:

dear O, who i now know through pm-ing on the first name basis of fitzgerald jr. ,

Today i got Bh a new perspective on the machloikes lisheim shamayim here:
Bh, rage, me3 and I were obviously chosen by God to defend the gye homeland on this thread, and we have done so quiet bravely. If ur issue is with the shita of this forum in general, which it IS, then:

A)please stay on the forum anyway and find the part that you like.....we like u and u cld get chizuk from here, and not everyone here is a proper addict from what i hear

B)On the forum boards main page, is a section called torah and chizzuk approach-this IS for you! please enjoy it!

C)there is a chashuve gye here named reb Yid who is an [addict] rebbe in a yeshiva-either pm or post him-he is a true ben Torah and surely dealt with your questions, as did anyone else who's into Torah and yet cant stop fantisizing about dyslexic paraplegic free willy knock-offs of mexicaan wallrusses

D)i'm sorry, but just to tease you, i have to mention here Admiral Ackbar, brave mon calamari general of the rebellion and new republic!-i'm sorry if this overloaded your processor. "our ships can't go up against firepower of that mahhgnituude!"
do you learn Tanya? it was based 1/4 on chovos halvavos!, see intro. of R' nissan mandel to english ed. )--you are very smart  and funny, and a ben Torah, and that is why your posts attracted so much attention-you have it!
O, have a wonderful beautiful day.
___________
Dear O,
thank you for replying to my pm.

1)please dont have so much contemp for us goyish eirev rav modox rashaim infidels-we are just trying to do the ratzon Hshem as much as you. Please consider this.

4)........maybe u are a different person than me and THAT's why you think different. No problem. You are the special person that you are, just like me, or deranged like orphan anny, just like me! He he he my mouth is foaming, i bark when i see the full moon too! we can be brothers! give me an iron, i want to see what the marks look like on mt forehead Ha ha!

Iv'e done a lot of convincing in my life. Also, when I went for therapy it took me 8 sessions to finally chap that I was a freak show and I that I needed help really badly.
Every person iv'e counseled had to be convinced over a month with violence and breaking their kneecaps with crowbars how they arent thinking right and need therapy.
I had one guy who was absolutely insane-all his friends complained he was weird and he just didnt get it. He always thought he was right and had the Torah view. He claimed that R' yisroel Belsky told him that it is assur to make a bracha in a room where the bed was not made, so when his roommates would make a bracha on a cookie he'd jump out the door to say amein. He was a hard case.

I had another guy who needed therapy real bad. He would do rediculous things like pile up sfarim and then pretend to trip and toss the books like a discus 50 feet across the room. And he did this for attention, to tell people he needed help. He appreciated my efforts to get him help. However, his ill-informed family and rebbe thought he just did this two times a day bec. "he had a sense of humor". No problem, i cant force anyone to understand. That boy jumped off of a skyscraper a few months later, after being taken OFF of meds and therapy. And you know what's interesting? This dead boy came to me in a dream and kinda thanked me, and gave me a warning to do tshuva for something. I told the mekubalim of shaar hashamayim-they liked the story.
Anyhoo hoo hoo hoo these marks on my forehead are so funny hoo hoo hoo!, i agree to disagree, and respect you for who you are although i respectfully disagree, haha ha he  can i get sick if i imbibe this bleach bottle!? he he he im so crazy he hoo hoo 
ow rubbing this vodka into my eyes really is hurting me he he hoo hoo hoo so fun he he
hoo he he where are my shots hehe hoo
(the David hamelech approach, if caught by the opposing forces, just act like you belong in emily oaks psycho facility, food's mehadrin join me! he he hoo hoo hooo!)
lil' Mr O-ffet sat on his tuffet eating his curds and whey
Along came a weirdo and sat down beside him and asked him to ask a rebbi and just do what he says he hoo hoo why does the squirrel's arm get red juice out of it when i stick it in this food processor hoo he he ha

Reb O, it is a pleasure to have met you. Hehe hoo i eat snails to help for acid reflux hoo he he!

tzaddik dont go insane on me! I still need your help!
OK so I went with my wife to the bank today, an activity that I enjoy a drop less than root canal. In the past I would break out into a sweat just thinking of walking into a bank, even to make a deposit. Today I walked in calm and cool, my wife's stomach was turning. And I just said HaKol Bidei Shamayim. What's the worst they can do to us? HKBH controls the world. So we walk into the bank and there to greet us is a lady, YH dressed for the part. And I look away, just to see 3 or 4 other bankers, YH dressed for the part X 4. And I said to HKBH
OK so this is what its all about eh? This YH is blocking my way towards parnassah. So we are gonna stay calm get thru this meeting without staring down someones shirt, and we are gonna continue finding HKBH the right way thru GYE, and the yeshua will come Dont know when, dont know how, but thats not my gsheft. HKBH controls the world. Then I go to take care of someother things (too long and unimportant for now) but I'm riding home in a cab with a charedi driver. I say how much will this cost? he says dont worry! and Im thinking Im worried. So we start talking and he tells me about how he's bankrupt and all. Starts giving me chizuk. So I asked him how do you get thru the rough parts? He says he doesnt know but HKBH is with him, his wife is his support and his Rav. SO I leave his cab half in tears of gratitude to HKBH for showing me that he's still with me, even thoough I've abonded him. Maybe I could get myself out of bed inthe am for davening now?
BTW he gave me a realy good deal. I have his name and number if anyone wants it.

gesher
geshmak
gevaldig

the three g's of gye

great story!

geshertzarmeod wrote on 03 Mar 2011 13:18:


It was worth MY getting out of bed this morning just to read this!!!!

Dov, tzadik90, Me3:

Gentalman, I wish to discontinue this discussion. You have all explained your selfs very well, Dov you piece was a great read and helpful.
No you havnt convinced me (sorry). I dont believe this conversion is any longer beneficial to anyone, and may have the opposite effect that I was trying to accomplish.

Well if it has the opposite effect that you wanted to accomplish, doesn't that mean that it will have the effect that we wanted to accomplish?

OK, OK I'll stop.

BTW welcome aboard, it's nice to have a fellow around who thinks for himself.

me3, you meant aside from Yosef hatzaddik, didnt you?

Me3 wrote on 03 Mar 2011 15:47:


Indeed, hence I need to cut my losses. Need more provisions for the troops (higher post count). And then...

o, now we are brothers in arms, you and me, please remember we are all here to work together to serve Hshem, you with what you have to offer and yenem with his. We have to make sure we are NOT here to try to overthrow the government or anything.

You have what to offer-now, show me the money