UNDERSTANDING WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST
We are not simply dealing with a “stronger than usual” Yetzer Hara, and we are not just “weak-willed” people who can’t control ourselves.
We are struggling with an addiction.
The symptoms of this disease are twofold.
1) We have accustomed our minds to crave the chemical rush that lust gives us, in the same way that an alcoholic craves alcohol. We have often learned to use lust as a drug for self-soothing purposes.
2) Stimulation triggers a much stronger arousal for us than it does in normal people. This is a medical/psychological condition known as "hypersexuality."
Once the addiction has advanced to a certain level, it will likely be there for life. What that means is that once we have trained our minds to use lust as a type of drug, we must learn to keep far away from lust. And no matter how much progress we might think that we’ve made in this struggle, once we let ourselves take that first “drink” again, we will feel powerless.
But as scary as all this may seem, it is not really so bad. Someone who has a chronic iron deficiency can still lead a perfectly normal life, as long as he takes his daily iron pill. And there are many techniques that can be used as "our pills" every day, to keep the disease in check.
Also, there are many levels of this disease. The fewer times we acted out on lust, the less defined the neuron pathways will be in our minds, and hence, the disease will be at a less advanced stage. This is vital to understand, and it should serve as a powerful incentive for us to do everything in our power to stop these behaviors now. Because every single time we act out on lust, we are making the disease worse, and harder to deal with in the long term.
