It could be that part of the push to work on lusting comes from striving for kedusha or staying away from issurim/tuma.
The actual method for recovery is not kedusha. The method has to be the 12 steps, coming out of isolation, and doing all the stuff we discuss here.
Kedusha won't keep you from acting out (otherwise many of us wouldn't be here) It can only push you to want to stop acting out. (Or looking at women - Lusting in general, I guess)

It could be, but to some - that isn't the case either.

the point that i (and i think also cordnoy) am making is that its dangerous to say that kedusha and god, etc. is the path out of lust addiction.

it may be for some, it definitely doesnt work for me.

dont get me wrong, i love yiddishket, and God, and torah, and chassidus, and mussar and all that, but i cant use it when it comes to my condition with lust.

i am not trying to say its terrible for anyone to use torah to help their issues,
but many have found that using torah didnt help at all and actually caused more confusion, and lust!

to say that one way is the be all end all is not helpful, to say that a person's sensitivity to lust is really because he is so sensitive to his holiness may be true, it also very well may not be, and if its not, and he still follows that path, and keeps going along believing that the problem is that he is not doing teshuvah enough, or he is not behaving like the gedolim enough, he will become very frum and "Holy" and still be with his porn. (he is really me!)

then again, it may help you to use torah and kedusha,

the main thing is to be brutally honest with yourself, and be brave enough to say, "well, the torah thing isnt working for me right now, i need the 12 steps", or the flipside "i really see that torah concepts are helping me"

it comes down to honesty, plain and simple, which also happens to be an addicts weak spot.

History has proven again and again, that there is no such thing as one way to do something, every time someone tried to do that, it always fell apart,
in education, in business, and in government, they always fall apart.

within yiddishkeit itself there is no one way to become an eved Hashem, we have the same mitzvos yes, but the way we express them is very different,

if it works for you great, but we cannot force anyone to accept one way to do this!

i really feel this is a very important point, that is why i keep at this
i and others, it seems, have had terrible experiences with trying to use torah to cure our sickness, we need a different way to d this, so that we can come back to our holy torah, and enter in peace.

bigmoish.
questions for you.
if all steps were somehow rooted in torah, would it bother you?
if all steps in recovery area step towards kedusha, does it bother you?
i'm not saying that the focus should be the torah or the kedusha thing, but does it bother you if recovery helps you in religion?
i know that cordnoy says that for him religion plays 0% in recovery. do you think the same way?

Afreshstart39, I agree with you EXCEPT I have a certain amendment. There is a difference between religion and God. God is the complete basis for recovery. We can't remove him at all because we need to turn our will over to him. There is NO Recovery without God. God is the one that saves from the depths. So we can't say we can recover without God.

We can say that we need more than religion and kedusha etc but we need the "higher power" as it's called in AA To help us recover.

dms1234 wrote:


if you are sayin' halachah l'moshe mi'Sinai, I will not disagree.
But how can you bring a rayah from the white book?
Granted - that is what they say, but as afreshstart has been sayin', there are different strokes for different folks.
Additionally, AA is very clear in their meanin' of God; they speak to atheists as well.
so what does 'higher power' mean?
Perhaps it is the drive in oneself to be sober.
Maybe that drive is from intuition; perhaps it's from thinkin', and it can be from other stuff.

I am tempted to cite the Mesilas Yesharim in perek 19, but I will be koveish.

Thanks

b'hatzlachah

%100 DMS! we need God in recovery, but what does God mean?

the Word God itself derives from a pagan idol,

the God i have been praying to and getting upset at and having total confusion about is probably not really the one true god, but my projection of my broken self onto what i think a god should be, and then i get upset when things don't go right according to the way i thought god should do things,

it is that same god that i made cheshbonos with, and said things like "well He understands, He loves me anyway, everything is for the good so that must mean that my acting out is also for the good, (which may be true on some level, but definitely didnt help me at all)"

it is this god that i feel guilty from everyday, for not doing the best i can, and it is a guilt that hurts me and pushes me into more dark places.

i know that what i believed about god is wrong, but thats what i warped myself into believing, and it has destroyed my ability to use torah to help me out of my addiction.

the God that the 12 steps talks about is the higher power we let ourselves go too. it doesnt have an explanation, it doesnt have desires or wants that i warped and perverted, it just is, its unknowable to me, and i cant project any of my crazy thoughts onto it, because i dont know what it is, only that it just is.

it is totally unknowable to me, and that is just fine right now, because in my state if i think i know who god is, i will revert back to the pagan god i created for myself in my head, using the torah in a messed up way,

i do believe that this unknowable higher power is responsible for history, and the giving of the torah, but i dont know how or why, and i am happy that way, perhaps when i get more into recovery i will be able to bring Him more into my life,

until then, He is just an it,
i know it is here, i know it has a plan, i know that as a jew i have guidelines i need to follow,but instead of trying to put Him into a perverted little box, i leave him be and stop trying to figure Him out,

my first priority is recovery, i need to let go of my preconceived notions about everything, and i hope that one day i will come to Know Him as i should

until then, i just do what i need to to, and stop blaming him for my recovery, or lack thereof

i hope i was clear, it got a bit abstract back there!

lavi, I am flattered that you wish to hear my novice opinion on this subject. Was there something I wrote that indicated that I lean one way or the other? Just curious. (Add that to the curiosity list.)

lavi
It would not bother me one bit if all steps were rooted in Torah, although I'm not even sure what that means, seeing how so many different things appear to work for different people.

lavi

I do believe that all steps in recovery are steps towards kedusha, but that's a side aspect that I feel comes automatically, and most people here should probably not be thinking about kedusha at all. It is not something one can generally feel very easily, and in my case, and I assume many others, it plays no part in actual recovery. It's something I can hope to have a stronger connection years and years from now, but even thinking (AHHH!) about kedusha now feels a little counterproductive. But, yes, recovery does help me take steps toward kedusha.

lavi

Why would it bother me if recovery helps my religion? The fact is that I have been learning better over the last 2 weeks, as well as finding more interest in listening to shiurim during my commute instead of the radio. But if that becomes the focus, it is a distraction. Then, when I don't feel like learning or davening again, I'll feel yiush and go back to masturbating.

lavi

It sounds pretty harsh the way you phrase it, but, yeah. I was a top bochur in yeshiva, learned in kollel, I always had religion, and it was never enough motivation to want to stop. I'm still a pretty "ultra-orthodox" guy by most standards, but the only thing I can use to control myself (so far) is the desire to enjoy life. I need to counteract the fleeting pleasure of lusting with the long lasting enjoyment of yishuv hadaas and a happy marriage. I really wish I could use religion as a motivating factor, and if there are people who can, kol hakavod! I'm personally a little jealous.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to voice my opinions here. I was just starting to need to hear all these things again, and talking to myself just doesn't have the same effect.

also cordnoy is right when AA talks about God, it may just mean ones inner drive to be sober, or some other force,

whatever it is, its a place i can let go,
forget all my silly cheshbonos,
forget all my manipulations, i am such a good manipulator, so good, i even manipulated God Himself!

i need to stop that and recover

also to mirror what Bigmoish is saying, its not about bother or not bother,
if the 12 steps are in torah or not makes no difference, hafach bah vehafach bah, its all there,
the problem is (for me) going back to the lie i have fabricated for myself about what torah is or isnt.
the problem for me is that it never helped me get clean, so i need something else

cordnoy wrote:

You had to pick the longest perek. I can't figure out what you are referring to. You made me very curious. maybe pm me the remez or at least a more specific remez.

I don't want to get Into a philosophical debate, I'm sure you guys don't either. Too much thinking.

My definition of God right now is a Being that loves me and knows I have incredible potential. He wants me to be clean and for me to do what He wants not what I want.

That's basically what I mean. It's a very elementary definition but I think elementary is what we need at this point. After all, we kinda are like in Grade 1. Just learning how to live.

And that elementary definition is precisely the point that some of us are havin' issues with.

we have not/are not/and will not stop, in order to do what He wants.
That didn't/does not/will not (perhaps this will change) work.

thank you for that basic definition, for it makes the battle lines (an expression) extremely clear.

As Dennis Prager says: We aim for clarity, not uniformity.

unanumun wrote:


Add that to the curiosity thread.

God for me means the 13 ani maamins.
the road with the most roadblocks (not sure what number it is) is the one between the brain and the heart.
My problem is living according to my beliefs. And along the way of not living according to my beliefs, i got hooked into an addiction that makes it even more difficult to control my actions.
I realize that i cannot fight this lust alone, due to the lack of internalization of my beliefs. I need his help. that his how i relate to that step.

the problem for me is that it never helped me get clean, so i need something else. -afreshstart.

interesting. your point about Hashem and torah not helping until now, has been mentioned several times by our friend cornoy.

i would like to think aloud. i am aware of my limited understanding and i just want to share the following,
if Hashem and torah hasn't been working, there are let's say, more than 1 possiblity there is, of course, a need for something else, and there is, the way of understanding Hashem and torah in a different light, a new look at the picture.
i know it sounds a little chutzpahdig to suggest to anyone frum
that their idea of something that they lived their whole life with,
is off, but it is a possiblity, i think that should be considered,
and this can be verified by going over haskafic issues with someone greater than ourselves, and someone who we can relate to.
and the reason why i would suggest to someone this idea, is because our religion is an all encompassing one, and addiction etc. seems to be a tremendous issue, and it is quite in line, if we could find the solutions there. in fact sometimes it doesn't have to be a direct chazal, rather the idea that torah is call "toishia" see the mishna is ovos, the the torah gives "eitza's" how to deal with problems, although i have seen with my eyes, big rabbis send people to therapy, and admitting that they don't have the answers to everything, and they recognise the value of professional help, it would seem that at least it can be worthwhile trying to see if ones hashkafa is in line with a valid source.
after all what can someone lose by checking if his hashkafa's are alright?