Thank you Dov for your respond:
You said: Such a person needs to be helped to look in a 'mirror', and it is yehoreig v'al ya'avor for him to not to. Not halachically or technically - but in simple reality: he is killing himself! He will be helped, eventually. "Ader a nisayon, ader a bizayon," as Rebbe Nachman zy"a used to say - either humility saves us, or humiliation does. 

I respect every word you are saying but i respectfully disagree with this one. I love you anyway.

(I am one of those who you described, that always disagrees, and always finds ways to...).
My humble opinion is You can make a person feel humiliated with out changing his Minhagim and his Mesora. He should not look in a mirror and change his Mesorah for humiliation purposes.

Aderabbah, if I understood rebbe reb b(er) correctly he meant that the only way to avoid the humiliation is through humility. That is, we can choose to humble ourselves through our own honesty and seek out help wherever it's available, or else Hashem will have to do the work for us -letting us fall on our faces in public while suffering terrible humiliation, after which we will be humbled b'al korcheinu/ee and then maybe we will seek out help.

Chap?

Hello Lo Yichra,

I just noticed you didn't get the official GYE red carpet welcome yet.

So, here it is...

Welcome to our community, you have finally come home!

We're all in the same boat here. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama   Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up with them!

GYE Program in a Nutshell: (Right Click the link and press "Save Link/Target As" to save the PDF file to your computer).

'Guard Your Eyes' offers a unique approach to helping people by recognizing that there are many different levels in the struggle for "Shmiras Ainayim" and "Shmiras Habris". After studying the experience of hundreds of religious strugglers over the past few years, we put together the suggestions and recommendations that we feel are best for the various levels. We divided the tools, features and services that GYE offers into 8 different levels. This "GYE Program in a Nutshell can help people quickly identify at what level of the struggle they are at, and which tools and features would help them most at their particular level.

Here are some quick things you can do to help you jump straight into recovery:

1) Make sure to install a strong filter. It will be almost impossible to break free of this while having all the garbage within a mouse click away. See this page for one good filter option, along with instructions on how to install it best – and give away the password to our "filter Gabai"… See this page for another 20 (or so) filter ideas and information… We also highly advise installing "Reporting Software" such as webchaver.org to give you some accountability, because filters alone are usually not sufficient and they can often be bypassed.

2) Join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day.

3) Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here.

4) Post away on this forum! You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

5) GuardYourEyes also offers many free anonymous phone conferences where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See www.guardyoureyes.org > Tools > Phone Conferences for many different options. Our conferences are taking place every day, morning, noon and night… Joining a phone group would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps – which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but the daily call will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

6) If you need more general guidance, write to our e-mail helpline at gye.help@gmail.com or call our hotline at 646-600-8100.

7) Download and read the "Guard Your Eyes Handbook". This handbook outlines the GYE approach in detail, and makes our network much more effective and helpful for people. The handbook has two parts:

A) The first part, "Attitude & Perspective", details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth…

The second part, "The 18 Tools", detail suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. No matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

May Hashem be with you!

dov wrote on 07 Aug 2011 06:25:


My friend I love you dearly you are my brother lets give each other a huge hug before I am giving you my opinion.

I will talk about Chassidim but a lot of it is relevant to all religious Jewish people as you mentioned. (i am not ready to discuss other religions as i really don't know about them).

You said: The fellow told him that he has compunctions about using a goyishe book (AA) to get better. He felt it was beneath him and suspected it was questionable halachickly.
A Chassidishe boy usually gets trained in Chassidish schools for Preschool, Elementary, High school, Yeshiva Gedolah, Kollel, and so on. since he is in his diapers he hears day and night we are a chosen nation, we are not looking at the GOYIM. We are not taking lessons from Goyim. (P.S. its very common in Jewish education that Jewish educators listen to education classes, or tips and ideas from the modern outside world with the statement of chaza"l חכמה בגוים תאמין. However the ultra Chassidim are still fighting against it full force. and some schools will not allow a rebbe to come teach by them if they were trained even by Jewish professional man who was college trained for education, quoting that he has outside Hashkofois. lets go back to our point...) There is a famous Vort on the Psukim קדושים תהיו כי קדוש אני ה' אלקיכם... אל תפנו אל האלילים. it sounds very drastic here the torah talks about such a high madreiga of kdusho as rashi quetes יכול כמוני and a second later you are telling the person not to serve idols? there are so much levels in between the highest level of kedusha to serving idols?. Chassidim keep on saying Pshat that you should try to grow higher and higher in kedusho but chas vesholem dont look to the goyim the idol servers how they act and take lessons from them.
this concept is said and commented on the lines and between the lines million and one times for a chossid since he is in his pempers untill he dies.
even new ideas that ehrlicha people come up with is not allways accepted by chassidim with the famous quote חדש אסור מן התורה. which makes it even harder for a chossid to accept anything NEW.

Any outside educated person will say: They are Wrong. Times has Changed and we must do things to rescue the world according to todays challenges and we have to change our systems and modify our Mesorah. And there are even a lot of torahdiga proofs that they are right in every generation there are diffrent Nissyonos and you need to know your generation and know your yetzer and work with him. and i am not going to argue which way is right or wrong. but i will say one thing the chosid who said:  that he has compunctions about using a goyishe book (AA) to get better. He felt it was beneath him and suspected it was questionable halachickly. he was trained under a leadership of a godol and tzadik that trained his people this way. and he has it in his blood from birth till now. And he is really concerned about it. It is a real fear for him. all his years his rebbeim were obsessed in this track. So he is really Questing it inside of him.

You said: Rav Twerski answered him with a tmihah mikayemes: "And when you were looking at the porn, where were the compunctions? Where was halocha?"   
במחילת כבוד תורתו when Rav Twersky asked back this question it was not a meaningful question, it was a question to knock him down to the ground. Because if even the Gemoro says עריות שנפשו של אדם מחמדתן its very very sad, but it is a fact that some people fall into the trap of הקנאה והתאווה והכבוד מוציאין את האדם מן העולם. with one click away, and with one look on the street, he could be trapped into a powerful powerful tool that can literally take him out of his world, of his Yesodois, of his life, and put him into another world with no control. So not only is he so sad when he comes back to his own world do you want to take him into an area where he feels threatened to his Mesorah he learned all his life?

You said: Until we learn how to be honest with ourselves, we will twist Hashem's Torah and there really is no hope for us to be what Hashem wants. We may be eating kosher, keeping Shabbos, etc...but we will not have a relationship with Him and His people, because we will remain subject to unmanageable, crazy lives because of our powerlessness over our addiction. That is a true concept.

You said: Admitting our lying, hypocrisy, and how we use anything - even halocha - to hide behind rather than be honest with ourselves, is a far greater priority than stopping doing any aveiros. It is True that we are living a double life and its important to humble down and admit to it in order to wana start recovery. In my eyes that Chosid did not have a problem in admitting and accepting that he is leading a double life and etc. and that he is powerless over his lost. and that he must take action for change. because he would never come for help to begin with if he wasn't there. the fact that he goes out if his closed community and is even trying to find outside help shows how desperate he is. Its much much a greater step for a chusid to reach out to GYE then anyone else. and by the way a lot of us here are chassidim becouse we really are looking for the way out.

You said: And that is not even recovery yet. It is just the intro to the first step. But admitting this, gets us over that well-known shame of showing up at a real (live) meeting with real other people there. Because it is really just more lying. It is just our fear and shame making up halachik and other excuses in our minds to protect us from facing the truth about ourselves.

Did you ever think of creating a real chassidish group for this that he can feel that they really relate to him?

Chassidim were always in all generations into groups. making chaburos. discussing nisyonos with a chaver naaman etc. The reason why he is not ready to show up is not for his fear. we live by Chassidim specially in an environment that every one is involved with each others life for the good and for the bad, we try to help each other very often more then other crowds. unfortunately we label each other we know each others insights a lot more then average people. So the fear of showing up is not because of a lack of admittance we just have a real fear that 1000 people will hear in one day that i was there walking in to that place. and about 500 of them are boruch hashem 100 percent closed into the chassidishe life that they will never understand why and how come you are doing it. This is a fear which other communities dont have so much. and it even truly goes to the next level that not every one will want to be Meshadech with me. its unfortunately a fact that happens day and night that people are judging and giving statements and labeling other people. it is not a plain fear its a reality. So you have to know your clients before you deal with them.

You said: We so often are convinced 'we are here working on big things', and this simple basic 12 step derech eretz stuff is poshut beneath us. It's really sad to see a sweet chassidishe yid who comes to a meeting and spends his entire time advising others and spewing complaints and trying to adjust the philosophy of the program as he sees it....and he cannot even get sober. he eventually stops coming to meetings with various complaints about why the steps are crazy, or the guys are losers, or whatever.

First the 12 steps aren't so basic they are a meaningful strong treatment.

Then, when you see this chassidishe man advising others it comes from the chassidim being very very helpfull to each other in all areas and they allways try to give, and one of there giving things are some times advise. now they are not always good advise, they are not allways well educated advise. but it comes from a good nature. its not allways used in the right time and metter.

and for the fact that you feel that he would stop coming and etc. so we have to find things that will help them not stop from coming. are get sober in other ways because כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה.

You said: Maybe he is right. Maybe he needs some other derech to recover - and there are surely many! But his chances are very poor indeed if he is lying to himself, for whatever reason.
as i quoted till here i don't feel that he is lying to himself. i just feel that anyone open to modern world has a very hard time to Analise and realy understand a chusid.
i will give you an example of not understanding each other. I remember siting at a Shiur with elder people from the regular Jewish frum world not chassidish not yeshivish and i quoted to them that if you will take the viznitzer rebbe and the satmerer rabbi and the tosher rebbe etc. and you will put them in Manhattan now at their old age, and you will force open there eyes to see whats going on over there, they would go crazy the same as us. because they were always sheltered. so they all scram at me "are you crazy?" and all of these kind of expressions. do you think that they are so immature? etc. they could not get my point. my freind ask any chusid that comes from a real sheltered chassidus, if i am right with that fact?.

Now it is very important to state that i do agree that a person who is in the trap and he needs help he should go for whatever help he needs to get back to purity. and if he needs the 12 step program to grow he should take it. first of all i will consider it as a refuah a illness that needs to be healed and if there is a therapy that works for this illness we need to recover ASAP and get well soon. so i 100% agree with you that he should stick to a program. but i want you to also understand him. another way to explain my agreement  is similar to a fire if a fire is burning down my house and there is no water around. the only way to put out the fire and prevent it from burning down the whole house is if i take a pump and i pump up fluid from the sewer system which unfortunately damages my house with impure effects but if that's the only way to put out the fire i will definitely take that option.       

So what could be done to make it easier.
1. some one who has real strong experience with the 12 step program can start writing a new book of the similar idea from a more Toradiga perspective with Maamorei Chazal etc. which will make it much easier for people who are sheltered. and we can add to it a lot from the Torah way it doesn't have to be fallowed 100% the Goyishe perspective. It could be a natural book how to come out of addictions even not going to alcoholics because it might not relate well with the crowd we are trying to service.

second this anonymous forum and the anonymous phone calls where they go over the twelve steps without any names is phenomenal. 

May Hashem help we sould all be zoche even though we are so diffrent from each other we sould be zoche to be mekayam the ultimate goal of chassidus  ושנראה כל אחד מעלת חברינו ולא חסרונם ושנדבר (ושנדריך) כל אחד את חבירו בדרך הישר והרצוי מלפניך. אמן.

I love you brother, its really very hard to understand Chassidim if you grow up somewhere else. So please make sure to first truly understand him and then you will be able to relate to him to help in a better way. I never stop loving you Bro. 
     

Thank you "eye" for your warm welcoming. Thank you

1- chazak chazak wrote on 07 Aug 2011 17:47:

This is not what I meant, and you are misunderstanding what I am referring to when i write "humiliation vs humility."

By humility, I mean: a person coming to see their limitations through inner pain. "I actually cannot beat this thing. The best I can do using the tools I have been using is to 'hold on for one more day' letting the pressure build up (which is nothing remotely like recovery)."
But coming to see that is actually step 1, and very, very precious.

In contrast, by humiliation, I do not mean a process of growth, at all. I mean: getting caught by the wife with an email from a dirty chat-room partner or a call from a prostitute, getting arrested, or getting caught masturbating to porn in the living-room by one's 15 year old daughter. I know people to whom each of these have happened. I have similarly been humiliated myself.

For many of us, it takes humiliation to bring us to acceptance of our limitations. To give us permission to say, "I need help."

I have met some who have had terrible humiliation and still did not reach out for help, because they had so little humility. Instead of looking in the mirror and saying, "Hey. Normal people do not get arrested for using porn at the library/get caught by the wife with a dirty note to a chat friend/have their daughter barge in on them while they are masturbating in the living room with loud schmutz playing on the computer." No. Instead of resigning, they react with resentment: "I hate the librarian and the police - they overreact so/my wife is again too nosy/how could my daughter have such a lack of derech eretz and not knocked on the door first?"

In other words, we tend to try and blame how we got caught, rather than what we did. I am serious.

These people need more humiliation. It's Hashem's greatest sweet gift to them.

I know because I have been there. And I see it many happen times a year over again to others tiptoeing into recovery.

2- You wrote many things above. Among them were the idea that a chosid is in a special world and cannot really relate to nor be understood by those attached to modernity and the outside.

You also suggested a group just for chassidim in sexual recovery matters.

You also wrote that having no names used and being completely anonymous that way, would be the best derech for many - perhaps for most or all chassidim, in your opinion. And doing it on the phone would therefore be the best venue for that.

Please bear with me. I want to tell you what I know about chassidim in sexual recovery and from where I know it. Then I will try to share my opinion about the other things above.

I first met chassidim in recovery at SA meetings. After about five years in recovery, I went to a frum weekend for yidden in recovery from sexual addiction. There I met about twenty chassidim, including a rebbe of a shul in Satmar. He and I became quite close and have stayed that way for ten years, now. At these weekends, i met over a hundred satmerer, belzer, lubavitcher, sqverer, vizhnitzer, and other chassidim. They spoke openly in the groups there about their addictions and recovery. They spoke about how twelve step recovery  saved their lives, their families, their marriages, and their relationships with haKodosh Boruch Hu.

Their wives generally come also, twice every year to these Shabosos, and they describe in their own way the same basic difficult journey, dealing with their husbands' addictions and recovery, often by using the 12 steps themselves (though not always).

About half of the yidden there are yeshivish, half chassidish. Nobody there uses a fake name, and it is a wonderful Shabbos.

There are chassidishe SA meetings in many neighborhoods around NY, and chassidishe yidden do get together for the fellowship that only 'anshei shlomeinu' could offer them. I have made shidduchim for GYE guys who finally decided they have had enough whining and secretly trying to hide in a hole and somehow 'win'...and become ready to leave the double life and shame behind and meet others who understand. They become ready to do what they need, to get better and be real yidden and chassidim. The double life finally, finally goes.     

I hear the chassidim describe their struggles with internet porn, with prostitution, with fantasy, with masturbation, and with chat rooms. The way they describe the struggle and the pain is taking the words out of my mouth exactly. Perhaps there is no chassidishe way to have sex with a prostitute, or to search for the perfect porn image on the cellphone browser. This tells me that in our disease we relate just fine.

And if you want to say that in the recovery the journey must be qualitatively different for chassidim....then I ask you one big question that is not an argument at all, but only a question:

What evidence do you personally have for that? Not a sefer and not an assumption - what actual experience in recovery have you had with other chassidim that teaches you that?

Please let me know, it makes a big difference to me, and I want to learn.

But I will still wonder how it is then, that I can successfully sponsor chassidishe yidden?

I also believe that when you say 'modify our mesorah', you are missing the issue. I can refer you to a number of great chassidishe yidden who are sober for over ten years each to discuss this with, if you think they are safe to talk with. You may know some of them already and one of them may be a Ruv or friend of yours - you'd never know, because we are anonymous. I am serious.

The reason it is not a modification of any mesorah is because the Torah itself is not referring to addiction when it talks of the YH, and is not a tool for fixing addiction. Torah starts way after the 12 steps.

The 12 steps are about finding a G-d of your personally relate with - Elokai. Making Hashem my own G-d. And it is not for normal people, because the first step is accepting that the addict is a sick person - whether he is a rosho or not is not the point.

And the steps are very simple and very basic. They are not about how we serve Hashem, at all. Tjis is why they are equal for chassidim and for goyim. It must be that way. For (as the chassidishe yid I mentioned above explains to anyone who wants to know) the basic recognition of the Borei Olam of the steps has nothing to do with religion - it is secular. It is mainly about me not being G-d, rather than who is G-d. From there, the rest is all about self-honesty and shedding the yeish that is mavdil between us and other people and between us and Hashem. It's the same yeishus. Not one ego that separates me from people and another one that separates me from Hashem. If chassidim are human, they can relate to other humans in the 12 steps - it is addressing our humanity and will to live - not any other part of self, like chassidic, male, female, Jew or anything else at all. Just like alcohol, porn, gambling and the rest of our addictions do not address that aspect. They kill us all the same, without regard to any particulars that define us.

Now can I have that hug? I love hugs.

chazak why did u not share this whole story on the Yiddish forum?

lo yichra wrote on 08 Aug 2011 19:53:

there i want to be helped with my bad part why souled i say my good parts. the Yiddish forum is like my wife where i pour out all the bad part.
Here i was asked a fair question which i had to answer. so i had to give out my positive side which i truly take no credit for any of it its all hashem and not me. i really want to shteig on the other side and get out of the second me. so i only describe my negative there.
Thank you for all the chizuk you give me and for helping me in so many ways.
i want to take this opportunity to thank yosef hatzadik for all he has done for me.
and now i feel that i must really thank from the deepest of my heart to shteig hecher who has e real chassidisha heart and he took me on his wing and try's by all means to fly high with me and really help me out of my struggle over the phone. thanks a million.
i can encourge anyone to take a budy who understands you and call him daily and grow together. i found shteig hecher for me. don't take him away.
i also have a close relationship with yosef hatzadik who is allways ready to help anyone and everyone with an open hand an heart.

Dear Chazak chazak,

Thanks for explaining so much about chassidus but much more thanks for sharing your story here. You do not know me (perhaps you can ask Yosef haTzadik about me, we know eachother a little). I was never interested in discussing chassidus - the only thing I was ever intersted in was you. I do not believe that my way is right. I believe it is completely wrong - for some people. But for me and some others, it is excellent. I never push others to do like me - but am often misunderstood that way.

Why do I care about you? Because if there is a way for me to be of some help to you, and to anybody else on this forum, I am given to them - if they are addicts like me then I have experience to share. Not to tell them what to do, and not to teach them - but to share. If they want it, great. If not, fine. In the end, Hashem is the One who helps people, not me.

And the same is true for any moslem, christian, mormon, atheist, Jew married to a shiksah R"l, or whoever - if they are addicts like me, then I am given to this person. And this is with good company, for haKodosh Boruch Hu is given to them, too, and is even given to the animals to take feed and care of them beChasdo. As many Ba'al Shem Tov stories teach us to love all the b'riyos and be concerned with tenderness for His animals, too.

It's a good thing cows can't be addicts....my wife reminds me that I do not have enough time for any more phone calls! As it is, I get calls every week from another GYE member who is admitting they do not have tools that really work and their lives are falling apart.

If there is nothing I can do for you, then 100% gezunderheit! Still want the hug, though I wonder if you will ever be OK meeting me in person. I'd meet you (and anybody else on GYE) anytime!

Love,

Dov

i will PM my answer

chazak chazak wrote on 09 Aug 2011 20:44:


PM=Pre-Meditated

Haloooooo?

Hello!!!

Hello.





and also:  Hi  (But that is for a different thread....)  ;D ;D

Hello!!!
ok i'm going to the other thread to say hi,
will u meet me there?
;D ;D :D :D