Wow, I hope you appreciate all the feedback you got here, Nachshon. So much great stuff...

Surrender is only in the heart - but it only happens with taking real action. And the first real action may be reachin out, but eventually we get snagged...till we take that action called 'getting rid of our bottles'. Alkies who want to quit usually still hide bottles so that they'll still be able to drink when the going gets really, really tough. It's subconscious. We deny our bottles. Sometimes it takes weeks, months, or years to admit they are there. You may think it's strange to compare that to this, but it is just as many tzaddikim and good Jews have done with respect to Bitachon (Gm' Brachos) - but the difference between them and R' Shimon bar Yochai was that he did not take sandwiches into the cave with him for when the going gets really tough and it seems really gets ridiculously impossible.

Incidentally, being 'future-focused' may not work for you. It works for some, but not for me or others. 'One day at a time' is a double-edged sword: I cannot afford to wallow in my failures of the past - but I cannot rely at all on getting strength from the past or future, either. Counting really does not work for me, and for good reason:

Because neither of them are reality. Both are as false.

The core of the probelm here is not 'yetzer hora' or erotica or evil, but living in pretend. Whether the fantasy is sexual , religious (madreigoh) or recovery, it is still the same basic problem: Today as it really is (reality) is just unacceptable to me...I'd rather plug into a fantasy like "I'm in the epic battle of sinning/not sinning and may bring Moshiach!", "I am a bad, disgusting person trying to be really, really good once and for all!", or "I am clean for 90 days so I am healed!", "I am clean for only 90 days and that's nothing!", or "I have money(or no money), so I am valuable (or garbage)", or "He won that argument and it kills me"...all nahrishkeiten.

Try reading the Member Stories in the back of AA. The last one is good, about Acceptance being the answer. It says it all. Acceptance means living in reality. When the 12 steps talk in step 3 of accepting my G-d as the One who runs my life and takes fine care of me - that means only one thing: Truly living Life on Life's terms...for a change. It's rare.

Hayom is my emotional and spiritual reality - yesterday is dead, and tomorrow is not reality bichlal. All fantasy. Like the usernames, the keeping-up-of-appearances we all do to everyone around us while not opening up to anybody safe about the truth...'not to make a chillul Hashem' - sure. We are just too shamed to admit our true reality to anyone REAL. It's sitting in comfortable, warm fantasy-land. Yechhh.

Sorry this went too long (again).

Just to agree with Dov from a bit of a different perspective...

I'm a newbie when it comes to controlling sexual stuff, and I can't really speak in that area from successful experience yet.

But I do have a strong track record of experience dealing with drug addiction. I'm many years clean of drugs and used to be addicted to all sorts.

Believe me, I've thought often that after all those years maybe it wouldn't be so bad to take a trip to Amsterdam and just do something light, some pot, maybe a little mushrooms... like a vacation... after all, I don't even have much of a desire for it anymore, and I'm a trained "master" of resisting it now, so of course I can control it and just have some safe temporary fun right?

That's completely wrong, for me at least. At the end of the day- and I hope nobody takes this the wrong way, the number of days clean doesn't really matter. If I took some drugs today, it could instantly set me back to the state of mind where I was all those years ago. But that's actually a happy thought, because the opposite is true as well, that by consciously abstaining and feeling even for a moment that I don't need it, it's as though I have a 1000 year track record behind me. Mamash Hashem accepts our teshuva from where we are in the moment.

I think that's what Dov's saying in other words. By taking real action and making a conscious choice against your yetzer hara, feeling free for one moment, you've won! You've learned how to do it. Most of the world is not on that level by the way. Then it's just a question of practice and patience as you (and all of us) train ourselves in making those moments more frequent and longer lasting.

Don't get me wrong- that training is critical and a huge battle. In that sense, number of days very much does matter and accumulated experience is very important.

It's like training in anything. Reviewing a mishna 101 times is not like the 100th. Trying to do pushups on day 1 is not like day 100. Getting through a daf the first time is not like the 10th, etc.

With more training, I am sure it does get easier, at least I hope so!

Yet at the same time, the difference between 1 and 1000 is really a very different thing than the difference between 0 and 1, if you catch my drift. And it's total truth to view each successful day as making that giant infinite leap from ayin to yesh. That's really the ikar. As those t-shirts in the 80's/90's used to say, "the rest is just details"

kavanah wrote:
Did hillel sue them? He came up with that a couple thousand years earlier... and he did it standing on one foot .

I think he had it on his bathrobe, not his t-shirt.

kavanah wrote:


Very clear post, thanks!

Now that you've cut through so much mush and clarified some really great points, I want to describe in what way I do see things from another perspective, as you mentioned. I do not consider this disagreeing at all, as you will see, just another perspective that works for me and others I know.

First, Happy Chanukah!!



OK.

If my attitude is that I win, then I lose. If my attitude is that when I give up, then I am a winner by default - because G-d allows me to be free of it at the moment and I am comfortably clean. For me, that's recovery.

And incidentally, if I deserve schar for any of this, then it's not recovery as i see it. For then I did it. Rather, all I did was choose to allow Him in. Yes, WE let - or do not let - Haswhem in. As the Kotzker put it so well, Hashem is only found where people let Him in. This is practical, not theoretical.

This is not semantics, but a different way of living.

It is Noach (walking with G-d) - not Avrohom (walking before G-d).

And that is not to say that there is no schar for being clean, or for choosing to surrender my right to lust because I can't afford it. There very well mey be tremendous schar. But it is none of my business at all and never will be. It's entirely G-d's affair. All the old schar v'onesh thinking - both the onesh as well as the schar parts - twist me. And I know I am not alone in that.

So I say: drop it.

And anyhow, with the exception of great tzaddikim, it is no service of Hashem at all, to think in terms of schar v'onesh. It is truly and only service of self. Spiritual selfishness, spiritual fantasizing - in other words, spiritual lust. I have no use for it, b"H.

By the same token, the wordly schar of 'becoming a master' is a thing I can do without. I certainly agree 100% with you, that if I am struggling with my lust as painfully as I did years back, there is something very wrong with my recovery. But 'a master'? All I do is surrender my right to it! I get no feeling of mastery, just freedom granted by G-d even though I don't deserve it, at all.

And speaking of Yiddishkeit, I believe not a single person on this planet can be frum enough or good enough to deserve closeness to Hashem, at all. Same for recovery. It is based on humility, acceptance that no matter how long I am sober for, I am sober because I am by nature unable to stay sober - if anything, I am a loser, not a winner. G-d puts me in the 'win' column.

Do you need to say then that this makes you a 'winner'? Fine, gezunterheit. Maybe some need that. Not me. Labels do not matter to me so much - not as 'addict' and not as 'winner'. That's part of really living one day at a time.

It's good enough for me that i am sober today and it's good enough for me that my life is totally different than it 'should' - by all rights - be. Hashem is indeed very, very Good. Am I? That's not my business, but His. And Hashem is definitely enough for me to actually, physically smile about - and I do!

Thank you all for the chizuk, insight and caring...I have not posted in a few days (a couple of holidays...and a lot of work)...so I wanted to keep at it.

As Dov and others have said important to stay out of isolation....

I need to internalize a bit more the last several posts...they were all very well written with a lot of insight.

The first point regarding keeping track of days for me that is helpful (Day 3B)...as it challenges myself to keep at it. I just don't have that person in my life that I could really open up to that would understand the battle I am in. You (this forum) is that person. My closest friends would think I am nuts...Rabbi (would shatter his image of me...plus he relies on me for so much)...perhaps these are just excuses and I have to think deeper on this.

Both of you (Dov and Kavanah...in your previous posts)...focus on the difference between counting days vs. a paradigm shift of unnecessary (to count days) as the person see things from a much different perspective. The critical question is how to get to that place. My first 14 days I was definitely fighting it...winning a bunch of battles and then finally succumbing. If I am 100% honest with myself I was playing around the edge during that time period and then pulling up before disaster (until I couldn't). Excellent point about hiding the bottle...and no sandwiches for Rabbi Shimon Bart Yochi...all of these examples are more of the same idea (need for a change in the brain then the daily battle) I really do get the difference...just not sure how to get to that place?

Dov, I did read the AA story (last one)...but wasn't clear what got her to flip the switch after all those years of drinking and tragedy.

Regarding points of let god in...and happy/unhappy with reality. I know what the words mean but how does that really apply. Of course I love god and "let" him in my life...as I stated in previous posts...think I am overall a pretty good Jew (doubt anyone thinks they are a bad one)...so back to the elephant on the room...WHY IS THIS BATTLE SO HARD...I know its wrong...goes against my understanding of what a good Jew is...if I sit down and think about it know its VERY wrong...corrupts my relationship with god...will someday have to answer for these things...so WHY???

Overall pretty good life...great wife...children...career...etc...is it my escape from reality and I just crave the excitement of another? PN...etc...seems like a crazy trade for a few minutes of pleasure. After connecting with old friend(s) can feel in my bones the disappointment and self loathing I feel....So WHY...cant I make that calculation before?

I believe you will answer with should not need to make the calculation...turn to god...etc...On a conceptual level understand that and this streak is much more along those lines...just not sure I have the tools to fully make the jump from fighting it to abandoning it and turning to god....

Thank you all for the posts and insight...and sorry again for the long posts


A Happy Chanukah To all...Shabbat Shalom

Nachshon wrote:
Would it shatter your "rabbi's" view of you or "your own" view of you?

Have you read the captain kirk post. If not, just click on the dov quotes link in my signature. It's the very first one.

I had to face my Rabbi. My wife found out and she needed someone to talk to. I was quite embarrased. He reiterated that he in fact respects me more for facing this difficult issue.

If you have a good rabbi, he's heard this hundreds of times. He will not look down on you at all. Our Rav told us that he deals with this a lot, even with very chashuv people. It is quite common today.

Have a wonderful Shabbos Chanukah!

Dov wrote:
Love the smiley menorah! Why such a loud shammas?

gibbor120 wrote:


Is this better?

Pidaini wrote:


Cool, but why is the shammash blushing?

gibbor120 wrote:


He's embarrassed because you said he was too loud...

Solid week...on Day 6B...definitely a better run than the last one...have really stayed away. Just not sure what my next step is. I hate to admit it....but at times I miss it. It is strange because it has gotten easier each day...but can feel temptation around me. My job requires me to interact with a lot of people...feel as if the tests are getting thrown at me. So far so good...

I ask myself what exactly do I miss? Is it the brief excitement? The escape from reality (as mentioned my reality is not bad)...steal away a few minutes for myself? Cant put my finger on it?

Really thought about the Rabbi...actually made an appointment and met with him...before I could get three words at...hit me with a ton of community issues/Tzedakah projects...never did quite get to my stuff. I did realize that he is not the person for me to discuss this with.


So what's next...feel like am at a hybrid step away from White Knuckling it and not quite at the paradigm shift that others have made...how do I take the next step forward so I don't regress?

A hopeful soul marches on....

Have you spoken to Dov, or gibor120 (the two that offered)? It's a step more than what you ahve been doing until now, no?

Solid Streak...on Day 8B...definitely different than my last streak...have really stayed away from triggers.

I feel like I have peaked in my "recovery"...what are my next steps moving forward? Where has Dov gone? Insights have been extremely helpful. I don't believe Dov offered to be my sponsor...would love to talk if you did?

I did try and read others postings...read Dovs story...Amazing.

I just get the sense that I am not really taking any new initiatives or steps to stay clean and that over time my resolve (not sure the right word...since have felt less a need with each passing day) will weaken.

Other ramblings...am I an addict? Not sure based on what I read? Was able to function even at my worst...felt horrible inside for what I was doing (more to wife) than to God....not sure why I don't realize (or I choose not to) the severity of the sin...

Onward....

Nachshon wrote:

What do you mean?

Nachshon wrote:

???

Nachshon wrote:

He's still around. Sometimes he posts more, sometimes less.

Nachshon wrote:

Why does someone need to be your "sponsor" to talk to them. Sponsor is an AA (or SA in this case) term. It is a person that helps you work the 12 steps. You are not working the 12 steps, so why do you need a sponsor.

If you want someone to open up to, you just need a friend, or rebbi, or someone from this site who understands what you are going through.