I'm still new around here, and I haven't made any great strides with my issues. Still not sure where I fall out on the spectrum of issues. However, I'm curious about peoples successes or failures with Sexaholics Anonymous. If you have some experience to share with the rest of us, or just me, I'd really appreciate it.


thanks

Yaakov, this is not my expertise, but there are many many many great guys on the forum that have had very much success, to the point where it became for some sex un-anonymous.

If your name is actually Yaakov that's great, you're a step ahead too.

Unfortunately too many guys don't have time for theorising whether things work or not. The motto here is "do what works". I try that too, and it brings us great places.

Need GPS? Click on the S in my signature

Markz, not to be rude, but your message was pretty incoherent. Did you answer my question or say anything relevant about Sexaholics Anonymous?

And what does it mean they had so much success it became sex un-anonymous? What does that even mean?is that good or bad?

no offense buddy, but anybody else have some coherent insights?

I only picked up my pen to answer you b/c apparently everyone else is on vacation, and I didn't want to leave you totally unanswered
When someone else comes in they will add what they have to say.

Sorry I'm not always coherent. This is why I have an o-Fishel personal Gabbai on this forum, and hopefully he'll pop in soon to decipher my words for you

Hatzlacha

markz wrote:


yaakov, my man, this is what the rebbe reb mark shlita means, in lay man's terms:
we are sorry that no one is available to answer your post. your post is important to us. please continue to hold for the next available addict. all posts are answered in the order in which they are received. please enjoy the answering machine music while you wait.
now, imagine some bad music. or whistle.

if you prefer, you may visit my blog and view some free hard-core cornography:
guardyoureyes.com/forum/23-Just-Having-Fun/261537-FREE-HARDCORE-CORNOGRAPHY

thank you, and have a corny day.

I am having an incredible experience in SA. it has given me life again. i have found that certain things that were impossibly hard are so much easier now. this is a quote from the big book (alcoholics anonymous, the spiritual literature from which all anonymous programs are based on), called the 12 promises:

"We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity.
We will know peace.
No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.
The feelings of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
Self-seeking will slip away.
Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change.
Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us
We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves."

i have found all of this to be true and i am only in early sobriety.

BUT, sa is not for all. it is a program for addicts, and it also must be worked diligently for it to work. a lot of effort is required, it is a simple program but work must be done.

SA works for me. You may read through my thread "Glad to be here". There should be much about experience in there.

Hatzlacha!

I tried to control my acting out for years before joining SA. Almost 2 of those years were right here on GYE. I couldn't manage to stop acting out no matter what I did. Now I'm an SA member and things have greatly improved b"H, not just sobriety but how I feel, my connection with Hashem and yiddishkeit, my relationship with my family and my performance at work. It's a program that works for anyone who puts in the work.

I attach an SA pamphlet for you.

9494 wrote:


well.... i know when i'm not needed.

My story is that I've been in SA since 1997 and sober one day at a time for 18.5 years. That's when I just couldn't take it any more and decided that after over 20 years of bitter struggling with masturbating and doing massage parlors, porn, phone sex, etc, I just couldn't manage living while fighting it, any more. I called a shrink and met w her, spilling all the beans without shame cuz I knew I was broken. She suggested I go to an SA meeting after I called and spoke with an SA member. I did. Met the guy at the meeting the next day and walked in without a paper bag over my head...and have been going ever since, and I have been sober since. There were rough times, without lusting as a relief valve certain things in me blew out...thank G-d there was the meeting and the sponsor and G-d. For at least the past 12 years or so there has been no daily bitter struggle with lust, b"H. I learned many tools to make living with myself and with Life, easier...and even nice, at times.

Not a single one of those tools could have been learned by me from a book or a website. As Chaza"l so beautifully put it, "gedola shimushah yoser milimudah." I had to see real people actually living these principles. And I had never actually noticed or seen them being lived out before, even in yeshiva, nor even from my rebbeim and friends.

Now, many dozens of times over the years, I felt sure I was finally ready to quit and finally ready to do whatever it took...but I was wrong. It was false alarm! I was not really ready to go without the sweetness of the porn (boy, it's sweet!) and the orgasms of masturbation. So I was ready to do only half-measures, like 'Teshuvah', therapy (w people who knew nothing of addiction, only self-control), medication, rabbonim, etc. Even tried getting married to finally just have all the sex i needed, but that never works, so, whatever. Things just got far worse (slowly) after marriage. Finally, I hit bottom and desperate enough to get real help. Boruch Hashem there were other brave people who were sober for years - and still willing to come to meetings! They didn't just feel they were potur now cuz they weren't 'sinning any more'. They lovingly and respectfully stayed for me, week after week, as I do now. So that's why there was a healthy meeting there for me when I needed one, rather than only finding a place for a frantic man like me to come and meet with other confused, frantic people. It was a great meeting with sober people who were clean and living a new life working these steps. And it still is!

In the meantime, I hope you have lots of fun on GYE! You are certainly sounding to be off to a good start, chaver.

peloni almoni wrote:


Your'e needed, your needed!!

Dov wrote:

I second that!!!

This is my first time replying to a post. However out of my gratefullness to sa I feel a need to reply. Sa is not for everybody. It is important to be absolutely certain that you are willing to do absolutely anything to get better before joining sa. You get new ideas and you"re acting out can get worse. However if you will do anything to get better there is nothing like sa.

Beautiful post, man. And I'd like to clarify what guarding613 refers to...

The danger in SA is not from 'SA' itself. Rather, it is from the honesty of the people in the rooms. What the Kotzker would plotz for a crumb of, is in plenty in SA meetings.

And that's actually poisonous for many people who don't really need to be honest with themselves. Some may say that's bad, some may say it's good, some may say "They ought to tone down their honesty in meetings so that more of us normal people can visit." But normal people don't come to SA meetings. Normal people really don't need the honesty. Being open about exactly what they have done is unnecessary! Since they are not addicts, they can actually get along OK by sweeping it under the rug...until Elul and Yom Kippur comes along, at least. And I am happy about that. It works for them.

For addicts, it just does not work. That's the only reason we do otherwise - we are not in recovery for Hashem. We are honest and know we are in recovery for our own sake. Even if a proven Novi came and gave a hora'as sho'oh that we should all masturbate or use porn, recovering sexaholics like myself would not do it. We know we'd be completely p'turim from it. Sure we may have as much yir'as Shomayim as a non-addict...but the tum'ah or sinfulness of it is not what we focus on any more. That's for normals. For us, we know we did it for years over and over even though we knew it was assur! And we knew that using the yetzer hora/Teshuvah model we stopped successfully!

...hundreds of times.

Torah was definitely the way to stop, for us.

And to stop again.

And again.

Finally, we had to come to terms with the fact that playing a 'yetzer hora game' was a thing we had to outgrow if we were to have any hope of staying stopped. That is why even if porn and masturbation were somehow mitzvos, we addicts alone still couldn't use them. For a real addict, stopping cannot be for G-d. Even if we'd be doing it for G-d, it'd still be for someone else - sorry. It only works when it is for him or herself. Enlightened self-interest, as the Big Book calls it.

The 'dangerous' people they refer to in SA meetings are just honest people, bH. We sexaholics who attend those meetings every week (or more often) have finally found a precious place where we can practice self-honesty by continually opening up truly to others. Can't do that in yeshiva, can't do it in shul. We found a place to tell the truth without shame and judgement by others, b"H - as the Rebbe R Elimelech of Lizhensk suggested to all normal (non-addict) people to find for themselves. Most of us tried that...and just found people even more confused about lust and sexuality that we were. We found well-meaning people who advised us to 'grow up already', to 'use our self-control', to 'learn more Tanya' (I was advised that), to 'distract ourselves', etc., etc. All the while protecting us from ourselves by encouraging us not to be fully honest and open for concerns of nivul peh, 'tzniyus', etc. They let us get away with just describing our problem as 'shmiras eynayim' or 'zera levatola'...in the mean time we were busy having trance-like, ritualized love affairs with naked images, fantasy sex characters, or real ones...or at least, completing the fantasies using our hands. Things were far uglier and bigger than a 'wasting sperm' issue. Nu. Some even encouraged us to keep hiding behind fake names, usernames, or told us that remaining completely secret from all real people was called 'anonymity', when it really was something else. It was hiding. Only by coming out in a safe place did we find we could start getting free, be"H.

So SA meetings are not for anyone who still needs to hide - or can tolerate hiding. I figure they should probably keep doing that...till they can't any longer. Then they will be ready and will go to it and be fine.

WoW, thank you all for the input from your own experiences. Since I started this thread a couple weeks ago, I've actually been to two different SA meetings locally and am trying to find the right meeting at the right time for me.

Dov, how you describe the issues we face really hit home and help me come to terms with the fact that I don't just enjoy sex/masturbation/porn etc, but I've got a dependence on them beyond the normal that is affecting my everyday life. Another filter on my phone, learning mussar or the GYE website doesn't just work for me, this is an issue that needs to be solved by me and not just have a preventative measure that makes it harder for me to access porn, because I will get my fix one way or another. I always have and I always will unless I stop it.

Thanks again.