All great advice Chevra,  thank you!  Already have good chavrusos and exercise - so Date night here we come!

It continues to be such a big help to get guidance from those of you who have dealt with this struggle and learned the best approach.

For me right now - its recovery hishtadlus - reading, posting, and finding a good weekly SA meeting.  Sponsor next?  And i think TaPHsic shavua (although I've been saying that for a week and didn't make it yet . . . )

One thing that is weird - I feel like i still have a big secret from my family - that I'm "in recovery" and making all these changes without letting them know.  I think that must be the only way for now.

thanks and regards

H2CNOW

Sounds like everything's in place for continued success!

Have2changeNOW wrote on 07 Feb 2012 19:50:


Here's a quote from the SA White Book:

A Caution
We suggest that newcomers to Sexaholics Anonymous not reveal their sexual past to a spouse or family member who does not already know of it, without careful consideration and a period of sexual sobriety, and even then, only after prior discussion with an SA sponsor or group. Typically, when we come into the program, we want to share our excitement with those closest to us and tell all right away. Such disclosures might injure our family or others and should be confined to the group of which we are a part until a wise course is indicated. Of course, if there is any chance we have put others in danger, we take immediate steps to try to correct that.
Few things can so damage the possibility of healing in the family as a premature confession to spouse or family where sacred bonds and trust have been violated. Unwittingly, such confessions can be attempts on our part to dump our guilt, get back into good graces, or make just another show of willpower. Great caution is advised here.
Amends to family must begin with a sexually sober, changed attitude and behavior on a daily basis. Then, as we grow in recovery, we will find how to make direct amends.
Help from sponsor and group is indispensable here. There's always a way, if we really want to make things right.

BTW, the White Book might be a good way to spend some of your "seder." You can download it here:

www.guardyoureyes.com/ebooks

Thanks Alex - that's enough for me to rely on.  So my secrets will be told this Chevra family only - not the one in my home.

Is it an ok practice, without getting explicit, too get off my chest some more of my really lowly and stupid addicted moves over the years?
I think that will help me just let go.

Baruch Hashem  that i can say this to you all for the last few weeks:  THANKS FOR THE CHIZUK and LIFE HEALING ADVICE

Have2chagneNOW

I don't think it's a good idea to post your lows on the forum unless you are sure that those details will not be triggering to others. If you want to share it arrange with somebody to PM it to them (Just not to me).

Of course triggering is a danger, as it is in many posts on this site.  However, when someone gives some details of their lows, enough to make it real to me, then I get chizuk from seeing someone strugling like me, and I fight back harder with what I am dealing with.  Keep the lows coming!

Hello Chevra,

I see there is a split opinion on me describing a few lows.  I have been debating this also - on one hand feeling it will be cathartic, on the other hand maybe its dwelling on the past.  I think in the big picture - I am really not used to this current state of being really clean/sober and I really want to build it out IY"H, and one day at a time, but there's a part of me that is looking over my shoulder for the other foot to drop.  Certainly this sobriety seems real, great, awesome - different than previous times when i refrained from zonahs, but still involved in web porn and oogling and masturbating.  As i said this is different.  now I know I'm a life long lust addict, and as Dov so nicely said on a recent post - i have to surrender to Hashem.  This addicted stuff kind of forces us to do what we were supposed to do as frum yids anyway - right?!

Well- in order to show myself just how the addict has taken over - and how i really need to be 100% clear with myself that i am helpless in the face of lust, here's a few moments of shame.  The time i drove and drove just a few hours after yom kipper one night, left my kids home alone, to go find a zonah - HOURS after YK!
How many times have i been at the zonah's hotel door, knocking, and she is slow to answer, and I tell myself to run away, bit i didn't run away -  i just waited there.

I've acted out so many times, but maybe there is at least one pattern that is sad - after a big spiritual event - I have often frequented the zonah.  Twice (or more) the day after returning from an amazing trip to Ertez Yisrael - I am running to the zonahs.  Once i went to a gross city with gross street hookers and rented a dive hotel room for $15 with two fairly disgusting zonahs - the first day back from Israel.  I cried and cried after that - but then was back at it again fairly soon.  The night after my son put on tefllin for the first time.  Many motzi Yom Tovim over the years - one Rosh Hashona (!), one Shavuous, once directly on isha Ba'av (still can't believe that)!  How helpless mustI be in the face of a lust thought/attack??  So many times I would 'swear' never again.  I see every motzi Shabbos is tough for me, and now I need to be prepared and make a fence.  I have often gone right after shabbos to the bathroom and starting searching my stupid zonah sites. ugh.  Yech!

Last year - I got a call from some stranger on my cell phone - said i was calling his 'escorts' and not going, and he was going to charge me for all the hotel rooms and threatened  to deliver a big package about it to my office etc unless i paid him cash at Western Union.  Total Scam - he must have put on fake numbers on websites.  He kept upping the price and saying i had to pay for legal fees for a release.  He kept name different Jewish names for his law firm.  I was really scared and shaken up - i was mostly scared that everything would go public.  Should i get a lawyer? and have to tell him what was going on?  How would I lie and say that i never went??  In the end i left my office in the middle of the day and paid to western union 3 times a total of about $1,000.  For days i was so scared every time I  got a call that he would come back and keep the blackmail going.  I started to say "I do teshuva on zonahs"  every day 100 times a day.  But you guessed it - that happened in January 2011.  By May 2011 - I was back at it.  This time always careful to tell the zonah I am not coming to you, just in case, it was his fake numbers.  CAN YOU SAY ADDICTED ??

Well - I hope this was ok - and no one was offended. I'm just trying to make it so clear to myself how my only hope is really this type of recovery, and this group is the only way i can really tell the truth to anyone right now.  Thanks for listening.

Working it.

Have2changeNOW

Dear havetochangenow,

Did you get my pm?

- Dov

Have To, not triggered at all. The only thing that would have held me back from a zonah opportunity (which never came) was the threat of blackmail.
I think doing it on Tisha be Av was the most shocking thing you wrote. Two zonahs and right after Rosh Hashana I can hear, but Tisha be Av made me gasp.
I'll tell you part of my 1st Step: You can pour a bowl of soup over me in the Succah and call me Amolek Hitler and I will not get upset in front of the Shechina and the heiliger Ushpizin but I have lost count of the number of times I masturbated in the same Succah under the same schach a week after Yom Kippur. Same sickness, slightly different symptoms.


321 days sober. Im yirzeh hashem bei you.

Have2changeNOW wrote on 09 Feb 2012 00:17:

from the attitude handbook:


It seems that whenever your spiritual side was aroused, you were more susceptible to the yetzer hora, bezras hashem from now on those kochos will be used to help the yidden at gye!

H2,
Thanks for sharing that with us.  Not inappropriate at all.
It was a good reminder for me of just how powerless we really are over this, and how stupid we look, especially to ourselves, when we take just a small step back and look at it.

This powerlessness is the reason we must avoid it completely, and turn our will over to Hashem, begging him to intervene.  Again and again.

Have a great clean day!
Alex

lol did everyone catch the "Freudian" slip, H2 actually wrote "isha B'Av", not "Tisha B'av".  This is an allusion to the fact that a person who is with zonahs it's not only as if he failed to rebuild the temple, but it's as if he converted the days of mourning into days of festivities for zonahs.

i can only write this as someone in the same camp as our dear chevra.

i am in the same space of denial as H2 was initially regarding certain activities.  I feel, okay, i won't go for not-so-happy endings, but I'll still go for regular RMT's by women.  is this stinking thinking?  it seems I have tried this time and time again, and I always slide back into places where they massage inappropriately and cause emissions. 

I know my real task is to convert these emissions, and make GYE my e-mission.

Thanks for listening, I'm here monday and thursday nights, don't forget to tip your waitress.  er, waiter.

ontheedgeman wrote on 09 Feb 2012 17:38:

obormottel wrote on 26 Jan 2012 00:03:

Blind Beggar wrote on 09 Feb 2012 10:57:


Wow.... The Litvishers are so critical on the Chabadniks for not sleeping in the Sukkah but I see now theres a good reason not to ...  You get too familiar and the Holiness of Sukkah is out the window... or out the schach.....

Thanks as usual for all the good feedback!  And right on target, as usual. 

That exact  piece from the handbook - from TehillimZugger  - stood out to me on my first read about 3 weeks ago, very inspiring, but now  its not on the top of my mind enough...
and Alex -  as you said "the reason we must avoid it completely, and turn our will over to Hashem, begging him to intervene.  Again and again."  that so MUST be my modus operundi (sp?) these days.  There is a sense of achievement in looking away, in giving it up to Hashem, that i imagine gets deeper and deeper.

It was  probably lost in my long post yesterday - but all the recovery stuff is very similar to what a good Frum Yid should do/think anyway - forces us to excel in yiddishkeit thinking - right?  The urgent and concentrated version . . .

I  do realize there is some selfishness to tell you all some of my lows, and I'm grateful that i could share, that it didn't trigger - adarabba - it seems like it  was a reminder in its own way for you.  maybe also its helpful for you to think - wow that guy Have2chagneNOW  is really messed up, Thank G-d - I'm not that bad off  .  ohh I so lost my mind on my way to my addiction.

For me - i feel on one hand needy - just about drowning in a turbulent sea, and you all  leaning over the side of the GYE boat reaching out your hand for me to grab on.  And yes- i do want to help others - so glad to offer what ever i can - perhaps some of my recent changes to Addiction realization/ admittance can help others see their own addicted reality, and get hope to get it their own recovery more. 

I do have a few more lows, they are not coming up as guilty, but as little shockers as how much I can't lose focus on recovery - the tight rope picture above is good, as someone posted recently, IY"H.

That 90 day scientific study sounds good - but one day at a time  IY"H

Hatzlacha and thanks again

H2CNOW!

Have2changeNOW wrote on 09 Feb 2012 23:58:


True happiness comes from actively overcoming challenges.  So in my estimation, even with all the inner turmoil that comes along with initial withdrawal from lust, you should have a very real sense of happiness.

Have a wonderful Shabbos!