So what is it that makes someone healed or not ? I'm having a hard time accepting the 12 steps maybe I just don't like the fact that ill be an addict forever, but regardless how can I be healed ? I recently had 3 weeks and then fell I used the taphsic method. If I were to use the taphsic method for lets say 3 months would I then be healed? 6 months ? is sobriety the answer ?

I heard something great tonight, the 90 days is something that is good because it sets our brains in a path of not acting out. So even if we mess up once after a few weeks so instead of 90 days it'll take 97 days to reset ur mind but it surely doesn't erase everything. So the healing continues

It depends.


If your problem is that once you think a little about how nice it would be to masturbate or use some porn, or fantasize a little about a woman you see - you eventually go too far and end up acting out your desires and masturbating or using a bunch of porn...then 'healed' would mean that you gain the ability to fantasize a little about masturbation, porn, or a woman you saw - and yet not act out your fantasies.

Now, you may think, "What the heck is this guy saying?! Is he advocating hihurei aveiro? I thought GYE was about being a better Jew, not a Jew who fantasizes but just does not act it out!" - and the answer to that would be, "No. I am not advocating lust, nor is GYE only about being a better Jew."

GYE offers tools for many people: those who are sinning but not addicts, and those who are addicts and also sinning, as well as the many who have no clue what they are but just know they need help and a place to open up (namelessly) and get rid of a touch of their terrible isolation. It also offers some people recovery groups, support groups, and shrinks they can try out.

There are many frum people who come here sincerely, but are not nearly ready to give up their lusting pleasures. They may say they are, and feel like they are ready 'to finally become a kadosh and stop hurting their Neshanmos', etc, etc - but they are really mistaken. Surrendering the opportunity to enjoy the old, dear friends of sweet fantasy and sweet orgasm on demand (masturbation) is way too terrifying. So instead they are really coming here to find a way to still enjoy the old friends when they will again feel they absolutely need them - yet somehow control it so it does not get too crazy.

I think the 'code' for those types is that they often say things like, "I am here to try and learn how to finally control myself better."


On the other hand, if you really are ready to absolutely surrender your right to be seuxal with yourself - just for today - then I will tell you how you know you are healed:

When you are clean and life is good - better than you expected - and you often feel G-d is with you, you are starting to heal. When you are clean and you do not need sex again to go to sleep and can hold your wife in bed and fall asleep with a smile instead of begging her for sex and feeling like you are being cheated - then you are starting to heal. When you are clean and see that you have not lived by being goneiv da'as of all the people around you at home, at shul, and at work any more because you are the same person they know and you have no secret double-life today - then you are starting to heal. When you are dying and know you are a sober man that day, you know you have been given a lot of healing.

Nobody deserves a huge gift like this from Hashem. Wouldn't that be enough for you?

I surely don't deserve those gifts - but I have most of them...and hopefully after 120, the last one, too. I want to die sober, don't you?

Unfortunately, there are many I meet for whom all that "starting to heal" stuff is worthless. They want 'to be freed from having any tayvos forever'. To be guaranteed 'to never sin with this terrible disgusting stuff' ever again. Their code phrase is when they talk of "Teshuvah g'murah" (complete teshuvah, explained famously in the RMB"M).

It's like Haman ym"s who said "I have so much, but since I can't have that - it's all not worth it." But since in their case it is for madreigos in ruchniyus, they think it is OK. Gevalt. It's just more self-absorbed lust, dressed in religion. Blechh.

Oy. So did I answer your question, give you any food for thought, or just make you naseuos, Mr Clean?

And finally, can you explain whats with the gold ear ring you are wearing on the bottle with the mop? And which ear is it in, again?

Wow so firstly its an honor to be speaking with you Reb dov now is my chance to say thanks for everything the chizuk the emails etc. THANK YOU!
2nd, I think I understand, your saying that true healing will be when I am not on the edge of my seat all day debating with myself if I should act out or not but rather have normal tiava and maybe even glance at that lady in the street but not feel anxious about it but rather always have a feeling of content a feeling of calmness, am I right?
Also can just plain and simple sobriety heal us? I myself have been struggling for over 2 years only recently I had 3 very good months bli eyin hora I guess I was away for the summer and busy so I had a 22 dayer a 25 dayer and a 28 dayer but then couldn't seem to get back up and had 2 straight months of disaster until these past 3 weeks where I made a taphsic shevua (for 3 wks) and that got me back on (until it ended). but if one were to just make a shevua for long periods of time is that just pushing off the inevitable fall or would he consequently be healing since he after all is sober? I don't know why I just don't feel like the 12 steps are for me I can't seem to get myself into it, to fully believe in it.
And about the earing, it was a gift from my mom mrs.Clean but since America became land of the politically correct I have been chosen to represent all men in showing that cleaning isn't a woman's job ... hope I didn't come off as a chauvinist I'm just kidding lol... thx again

mr.clean wrote:
Yes, but the main point I wanted to make was this: Though many here are addicts, it is certainly not the majority. Most people (Jews, goyim, etc.) with a porn habit are just guys who sin because they really like the way it makes them feel when they see porn and they just love the way orgasm feels when they masturbate themselves, plain and simple. That needs to be understood. The sweetness of taking in and using the schmutz is just a fact of life. Doing it is immature, silly, usually very destructive, and a sin - but it feels so nice, so people do it over and over. That is not 'addiction'.

For those people, I assume that just plain sobriety (meaning abstinence) will help them. For there is really nothing wrong with them! They are normal, and actually healthy. If they'd NOT feel pleasure from those things that would be strange, indeed! So as religiously wrong as it may be, it is healthy for a person to have a functioning yetzer hora, and without it we are not even in the game and probably mentally/spiritually ill.

So, for those guys, abstinence will solve the problem. Probably the entire problem. For their lust behaviors are not symptoms of a problem. They are bad, yes - but 100% normal. Chaza"l speak all over the place of the yetzer hora, and sforim number in the bazillions dealing with it. It is clearly normal.

Addiction, though, is not mentioned much is Chaza"l or sforim. Addiction is the phenomena of the alcoholic or crack user who wastes away his or her relationships by abusing the trust of others to keep their double life. Their real love is to the high. And though the sexaholic may be married and a father, his real love and devotion is to his erotic pleasure habit. That devotion and love is demonstrated by how much mesiras nefesh he does for it (spending money, tolerating self-loathing, and the many pains taken to protect it by hiding it very well). This is true no matter how frum the guy is and no matter how much he may post here that he is disgusted by the ugly terrible things he does, blah, blah...all silly. He loves it, that's why he is so devoted to it. It is a power greater than himself that restores him to insanity. And eventually, he sees that clearly. He may even teach it to others and sound quite the ba'al mussar!

But he still does not stop, often for years and years.

He truly believes that without it he will not be able to live. And the self-hate grows, the lies get more complex, and the frum rationalizations do, too. In the end, the frum sexaholic is the biggest liar there is, for he has such a good appearance to maintain. I know that prison well, firsthand.

The addict will probably not get well by virtue of abstinence, no. For - though it causes him much trouble and messes everything up - his problem is not really the porn and sexual dissatisfaction! His problem is the thing that makes him need the porn and sexual adventure. Alcoholics have taught us that - for the true addict - Alcoholism is merely a symptom of their disease, not the problem itself.

The problem itself is: an inability to accept Life as it really is. Therefore the 12 steps talk of accepting G-d's Will for us (Life as it really is). They do not talk of keeping mitzvos, or doing G-d's Will directly. It just happens to be that the man who trusts G-d and accepts G-d's Will for him (the way his life is) will naturally be willing to do G-d's Will - just as he is now willing to accept and live out G-d's Will by accepting his wife and kids as they are, by accepting people around him as they are, and by accepting himself as he is. There is always room for improvement - but acceptance must come first, otherwise life is spent fighting reality and G-d, and people, and everything.

Some people live to fight. They are victims. They live in the shadow of their mean parents, the mean 'goyim', the Holocaust, the guilt of their own sins...they just do not accept life. Amputees who do not accept their state as a man with only one leg have a very bitter life. Yes, they know they have only one leg...but knowledge and acceptance are two different things entirely. The happy amputee is the one who has accepted his self as a man with only one leg. He does not define himself as a one-legged-man, but as a man. Period. And he accepts that he is a man who only has one leg. That's just part of him, and it's OK. It is a challenge, but all people have some challenge, don't they?

The addict in recovery does the same thing. He identifies himself and accepts himself as an addict. He does not define himself as an addict, but accepts that he is a man who has an addiction, just as the amputee is mainly a man...and he is a man who is also an amputee.

This is a side point, I know, but there are many who are makpid to say things like, "Oy! You have a neshoma tehora and are a Yid! Don't ever take titles to yourself like 'addict' chas veSholom! The problem you have does not define you!" - and they proceed to use that as an excuse to keep the whole matter private from real live people and to keep hiding behind a fake username of course, and to deny the simple realities of the weaknesses they really have...all for the purported sake of not damaging their self-esteem!

I find it so ironic. For the reason they do that is because they are so afraid to admit defeat and the facts about themselves that they see them as disgusting. They are more disgusted by their status as an addict than they are with their actual use of porn and masturbation! For they are still acting out!

But the ego must be protected, nu. The religious ego. The real problem is that they still see their addictive behavior as something EVIL rather than as a failure or illness. It is they who are seeing it as evil, and therefore it hurts their ego. But an addict who sees his brokenness and admits it is what the posuk means when it says, "Leiv mishbar v'nidkeh Elokim lo sivzeh," etc.

The makpidim refuse to accept that even though they are good men and holy Jews, they still truly love their porn, depend on it, and are devoted to it in a religious fashion. Until we admit that clearly and simply, we will probably not quit using and recovery will probably elude us. It's a humbling we just cannot escape. It feels like an insult to yiddishkeit, but it is not. It is just accepting reality and as we know, Hashem loves Emess even more than He loves 'towing the party line'.]

Back to the discussion now...

If you are not an addict but just have a yetzer hora, then staying clean for long periods of time will help you quit getting distracted by the stupid schmutz and fantasy. You will naturally get more and more involved in real life and things will be slowly better and better. You may need a little help with some of life's rough edges...maybe a therapist, maybe a parent, maybe a skilled and trusted rebbe can help you deal better with that. We all have that and all need some help sometimes. Please do not fear opening up all the way with a trusted person. Get help if you need it. Chaza"l call that 'doing chessed with yourself'.




Well, some of the above dealt with the good issues you raise. And I'd like to point out that you are probably 100% right: Taphsic will not save you if you are an addict. It will just put off the inevitable, then. It may be a nice tool for an addict to use once in a while, but is really for non-addicts. If an addict relies on just abstinence (sobriety) then he will have a long time clean - but still be dirty and crazy. And eventually it will burst.

And whether you are an addict or not, there is an observation I have that may be valuable for you:

You "had a 22, 28, and 25 dayer"...and then took a shvu'a for three weeks. Do you see a pattern here? Why the 3-4 week relapse? When something like that happens, it means to me that there is something about '3-4 weeks without it' that is just unacceptable. It also means that this entire business of counting the days is working against the person. PLEASE STOP COUNTING AT ALL. It's bad for you, obviously. Just quit counting.

And notice that even if you do not count, there is something meaningful to you about 3-4 weeks clean. Something becomes unacceptable to you around that time. The itch gets too great.

Now, instead of wasting time asking "Why 3-4 weeks?," I will suggest simply accepting that you have this image or faith in your head or heart that a man should not (or cannot) go for too long without sex with himself (masturbation). Why that is, is irrelevant. We are not such geniuses that it would matter if we figured it all out, anyhow! So instead, you can just accept it, and get help to let go of sex and lust completely. We can live without it, man. Do it just today and do not be concerned with tomorrow, for tomorrow is not yours - is it? This is not a mind-trick or gimmick, but an honest acceptance of the facts that: 1- I do not really need sex or lust today, and 2- tomorrow cannot be dealt with today, only tomorrow.

If you see that you keep acting out your lust around 25-30 days, then you know that you have some sort of real belief/faith in your gut that something terrible will happen if a man goes longer than that without sex with himself (or with his wife, if he is married). I am dead serious. That will need to be faced and discussed openly with safe, wise people. But that is not for today, right? Please try it and tell us what happens in a few months.

And along the way if you want to use Taphsic, then at least completely stop doing 3-4 week shvu'as. Either make daily ones, or drop it completely. Remember, for you, the counting is your enemy not your friend. It may help you for the 3 weeks...but then it bites you hard and makes you fall.

And finally...you


Very funny!

Ok so I think I'm understanding a bit better now. just one question, u said that its normal for people to do this aveirah and that many people do this for a long time without being addicts, so how do we know if we are addicts or just need a good escape?
I keep falling and I don't want to, but the urge gets so great that I can't help myself at times, regardless of how much I knew 30 min ago that I didn't want to, I know that if I make a shvua I can stay clean, would a true addict be able to stay clean with a shvua or they would ultimately break it because their addiction would overpower them? Or maybe not, maybe they as well can keep a shvua?
Thx again!

Why do you keep falling if you can stay clean with shvua's? If they do work for you as you say, then can you just explain why u are not clean since you started using shvua's please?

This is not a hypothetical or rhetorical question.

I think that all of us who post here are in the same boat-whether we "only" or "merely" have porn and masturbation habits, whether we are addicts, whether we have gone R"L beyond porn and masturbation into actively acting out fantasies, etc. Obviously, different people whose problenms are different require different approaches.

1- Viewing porn is real and not a fantasy.

2- Masturbating is having real sex with yourself and not a fantasy.

3- There are certainly different approaches. The point here is that his approach is not working for him. That is why he is here.

Just because someone is using an approach, does not indicate that the approach is the right one for him. In fact, when it comes to what people actually choose to do rather than what they just talk about or study, people usually gravitate to the exact wrong approach for them.

Is this making sense to you so far?

I should have mad myself clearer-You differentiated between habitual viewers of porn and engaging in masturbation and addiction, where the person thinks of where, and how he will get his next fix. Porn and masturbation are substitutes for real sex between a husband and wife which have various root causes, and require different approaches, based on the root cause. You set forth various approaches, which you thought were applicabkle to people with either a mere habit or a full blown addiction. I think that the key is recognizing that what you deny as an occasional habit may very well in fact be a full blown addiction that requires a very different approach than someone with just an occasional problem that he thinks is "under control." I can testify that until I arrived here I mistakenly thought that I could control my resorting to porn and masturbation.

SIB101854 wrote:


I could not disagree more with that statement. The troubling implications with this assumption are many.

What in your own experience gave you that idea? And have you seen it anywhere else outside of your experience, such as in a book or sefer or heard it from a speaker, for example?

Thank you

To answer dovs question, I only made a shvua once. During those first three "good" months I had, there was no shvua. I was in a happy place and I was almost always busy so I was ok. Then after the next 2 months were terrible I decided that I gotta do the shvua or I may just stay in this rut, and it helped. I can't say there weren't tough days, but never to the point where I would break it, simply because it wasn't worth the big knas to me (which I made for 300 dollars) then after it was over I was willing to fight with myself but for wtvr reason my internet was unlocked and so coming off 3 good weeks it was to tough of a fight and so... and I haven't made the shvua since which ended about a week ago bec it may keep me sober but I don't know if its kedai cause I may just have an insane binge when it ends. which comes back to our previous point of just pushing off the inevitable... what do u think I should do?
P.s. not sure i understood ur question so I thought this is what u wanted to know but if not lemme know

If you want to respond that you 'hold these truths to be self-evident', then before responding to my post above, could you just read the section in the SA White Book titled, "The Problem", please?

This will clarify where I am coming from and why marriage and sex are not the solution at all, and the actual problem has little to do with 'The Imperious Urge' or the yetzer hora, for that matter.

And reading the section titled, "The Solution", will clarify even further.

Each of those is just a single page and easy reading.

Hatzlocha!

I'm assuming that was for sib101854?

Look at the simple definitions of:

(a) masturbation -sexual self gratification that leads to sexual pleasure without a partner.

(b) Pornography - the printed or visual media rooted in reading, watching and deriving pleasure of others engaging in sex .

I would tend to doubt that many people on this site have ever masturbated or watched or read porn with their spouses.