Mazel Tov!!

gibbor120 wrote:


Thanks for informing me about the 50,000 cap in the dov's quotes link, but sadly my story would go longer than that. But I must say that a lot of my family issues were hidden from me until much later, and what I knew of I thought was normal (as misayin said for himself). My struggling in this area started before my recognition and before my family problems really affected me (I was extremely well behaved kid when I was younger so my fathers behavior didn't affect me so much). Is it really not effective to go with the "it's all my fault" complex? But what if it is really true that my lusts and addictive behavior comes from serous
character faults, whether I brought them upon myself or if they are natural?

Chiam wrote:

Hi Chiam (Chaim?),
Every single person in the world (not just the soldiers of GYE) have character faults - actually if we didn't that would be a serious problem, or we'd be dead. Are you worried that your character faults are serious? Relative to what are you comparing yourself?

The dichotomy of not effective but true always bothered me and for most of my life I couldn't get past it. It's only recently and with help from a therapist who is also a Rav that I have started to come to terms with it.
The bottom line for me is that if a thought process is counter-productive, I can well assume it's coming from the Yetzer Hara and should therefore ignore it.

Hatzlacha.

Chiam wrote:


And so you think.

Someone growing up in a hectic home it always has a serious effect on their behaviour whether he recognizes it or not.

You could be right about behaving well as a kid but there was a mole growing inside of you, you just didn't realize it till you grew a little bit up, and by then you already developed a lust addiction.

However, that is just my opinion based on experience.

Chazak V'emutz

Chiam wrote:


Your fault, not your fault it really doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is that from now on, one minute at a time to strengthen yourself to get rid of it.

Chazak V'emutz

I was just pointing out that dov has some reeeealy long posts and they fit .

Some things you may not have been consciously aware of, but very likely the "ruach" of the home affected you.

All I meant by "it all my fault" complex is having extreme guilt feelings. These are not helpful. Of course a person should want to do better now, but dropping the "guilty" feelings of the past, can help a person move on. Feeling guilty is not usually healthy.

gibbor120 wrote:


For me feeling guilty is NEVER healthy. guilt is one of my biggest triggers.

Mesayin


This is in interesting point. 12 step recovery emphasizes our need to take responsibility for our actions and recovery. And there's a line in the Big Book about how alcoholics believe that at some point they made themselves the way they are.

On the other hand, I find that the process of recovery, especially steps 4-9, tends to dredge up a lot of the forgotten past. Suddenly, I realized that certain patterns in my acting out might be connected to specific events of sexual abuse I suffered as a child. It's also interesting how my perspective on the health of my relationships with my parents and siblings has changed in recovery.

Finally, when it comes to the guilt that follows a fall, what about that? I asked several people in SA about that, and they said that we can only take responsibility for the present. Once it's happened, there's nothing more we can do about it. It's the past. It's over with. And we need to live in the present. I take responsibility to do everything now to stay clean, and simply accept the past for what it is.

Moshe271 wrote:


Read the last post on the first page of this thread.

You all are making good points (and markz a very good comic), but I don't think my question was addressed. Let me clarify: Regarding guilt the handbook differentiates between guilt and shame, considering guilt usually healthy, but I guess not everyone here relates to that. But I wasn't even referring to the guilt/shame that we tend to feel after acting out when I say "my fault". What I mean is that the causes of my addiction can stem-at least in part, from character traits. For example anxiety, selfishness, jealousy, temper, etc. I haven't really seen this stressed so much, but i'm curious if it has any role. I don't want to offend anyone, and i'm in the same boat (not a sinking one though;) ) as anyone else is in this matter.

Is it unhealthy to focus more on how I can fix what I consider something I should work on and what I feel is connected to my addiction than on my family dynamics?

and yes eslaasos, I misspelled my name... obviously I haven't had it for to long!

Hi Chaim,

What is your plan of action? Do you have someone you can talk to?

Chiam wrote:


I think i understand what you are saying and the books address it. we find that the reasons why we act out are generally a result of our charachter defects, if we dealt with the situation in a healthy way then there's a good chance we wouldn't have needed to act out. i once heard a speech from dr. twersky and he said all anonymous programs are about charachter defects mainly. i agree with him and i think that many others would agree with him also.

Chiam wrote:


It is blatantly obvious that character traits are a big cause to lust, whenever we feel anxiety, stress, ETC... our body tries to divert it away, and if the body is accustomed to distraction by lust, then it automatically diverts to lust.

For example:

I am a huge New York Mets fan, on motze shabbos when the lost that game in heartbreaking fashion I was eating myself alive, and at night in bed for one second a thought of lust came into my head and for that second my body felt relieved, but baruch Hashem I didn't allow it to come again.

Point being, it nearly impossible to get rid of lust if a person has problems with depression, low self esteem, serious anxiety, ETC... because the body will always need to divert to lust constantly.

So it is priority number one to get rid of anything that makes the person unhappy in his life, then the battle against lust gets %75 easier.

Of course, I'm not implying that someone who has an unhappy life has a heter to act out.