Thanks all for explaining, I guess thats pretty obvious that sobriety comes from honesty.

Fb: Thats great to hear that you enjoyed your purim & your back on trucking!

cordnoy wrote on 25 Mar 2016 18:46:

Listen, first of all I do read your posts.They are smart, sharp and inspiring. You have been a source of inspiration to me. I one time spent who knws how long reading your entire thread because I was so intrigued by the emes of your journey. I was also particularly inspired by the humility that you entered this site with [something i still have to learn from]. And I know and appreciate that you are [brutally?] honest. I am just concerned that people that are using this site as is should not feel that its not kidai because Cords says that the first - first!! - step is to talk to real person. And yes, I felt a little sensitive about it myself. I have real people that I speak to. But I am not comfortable reaching out without anonymity to the oilam on this site. And I felt - and maybe I am too sensitive - that your post was a backhanded way of telling me - and people like me - that our journey is simply not honest. Trust me. You have no idea how honest I have had to get. 

In any event, I am sorry for writing sharply. It was my honesty. But maybe some kaas crept in as well and thats on me. I hope we can keep interacting.

no problem at all.
on your account, i added two words to my original post.
i did not mean that step one in recovery is openin' up to another, for people are naturally scared of that.
the thread was discussin' honesty (in sobriety or recovery), and there I feel it is necessary to speak to another (anyone). One cannot be honest with himself, for we are da same guy who got us into the trouble in the first place. Now there are levels in that as well. some post on the forum and they say that they are sayin' their true feelin's; perhaps; I would be skeptical. Others do email. Some even go as far as speakin' on the phone, which is a higher degree, but once again, from experience, and from what i have heard from others, people do not break thru (in honesty and recovery, especially from addicted states) unless they truly open up to another.

Sorry for the length.

Thanks again.

and by the way, regardin' your journey, I wasn't 100% sure from your last post, but speakin' to others does not have to be from this site; agreed completely. Some might even tell you that it's preferable that they shouldn't be from this site.

I'm having trouble understanding the pshat in why opening up with someone helps you stop. Is it a guilt feeling you have and now that you're ashamed you will stop doing it?

Fb2016fbt wrote on 27 Mar 2016 04:12:

no; but do me a favor please; if youre interested in findin' out the answer, read the white book.

Fb2016fbt wrote on 27 Mar 2016 04:12:

Guilt does not stop a person from acting out. If utilized healthily by a healthy person, a simple sense of regret and guilt can help them realize they want to change course and change their behavior. But ffor me, and I think many addicts on tbe site, guilt can be toxic. 

I find talking with others helpful becauseit makes me realize I'm not the only one, helps me get different insights and ideas on what to do and helps me clarify what I'm thinking or feeling. That's mostly what the benefit ois for me 

OTR wrote on 27 Mar 2016 05:48:

Those are all good and it may be what works for you. Your first two things that you benefit can be done by simply listening to others. I don't think the third item is the key to "opening up." But again, keep working what is working for you.

shmirashachaim wrote on 24 Mar 2016 17:19:

It might not be conventional to quote myself, but I wanted to continue on my two cents for a while on on Kovod and emes. I was going to write about being honest with myself was a huge step for me as RS said- about being honest what state I’m in etc. and I was going to say how my addiction feeds on me lying to myself in other ways as well. For example  There were many times that I would tell myself i could do a particular activity even though that activity can easily lead me to inappropriate material because there is nothing wrong with it.  I know I'm only doing it so that I can just "slip" into whatever I'm lusting for but I tell myself this anyways. I simultaneously tell myself i'm doing something for innocent reasons and for not innocent reasons. Also, sheker places a role in the many ways my mind tells me that acting out will solve the many problems I have in life.  No matter how many times I tell myself and no matter how obvious it is that this is not so, when im lusting this is what my mind tells me. The working of my mind when it comes to lusting is the epitome of sheker
Now, I wanted to say the connection of kavod to addiction I have found by me:First of all, I found that being more emestic in general helped me to be more emestic with my addiction. Training my brain to be emestic with other people affected my ability to be more emestic with myself regarding my addiction and the chasronos I have that led to my addiction. When I obsessed with my kovad and did things with alternative motives and stressed what others thought of me, I trained my brain to not be yasher, which affected my ability to be yusher with myself as well. Second of all, there is only so much I can put my focus on. Being so focused on what others thought about me took away my ability to focus on what I think of me. My being outer focused of thinking what others think took away my ability to be inner focused to figure out how to deal with this addiction and why I have this addiction.  Furthermore, for technical reasons my worry about what others thought of me got in the way of what I needed to do to help staying sober. For example, I never left Yeshiva to do anything recreational. I learnt most of the day and maybe schmoozed a little by meals. I found that relaxing more helped replace the “excitement” of acting out with healthier “excitement”. The daily grind of each day made me restless until I acted out. Incorporating healthy activities helped me. However until then I refused any offer of friends to do anything because of my “shtarkness” and therefor let my need for relaxation fall to lust. Again, I wasn’t doing this completely to hold up a fake image. I held of myself of being “shtark”. But I struggled with this even when I knew I needed to get out and do healthier things because of my image and convinced myself to continue being “shtark” and I’ll prevail. I was not only lying to others but to myself as well.  Hope I wasn’t too confusing and I realize much of this probably only pertains to me, but in any case love to share about myself and connecting… I am still a newbie and desperately need it!

I definitely can relate to that somewhat, definitely not as extreme about my self image, but I do care about that, I mean opening up with another person is really embarrassing so I'm not ready for that yet. I don't understand step 3 about turning our lives and will over to HaShem as we understand it. This is as opposed to what?

Fb2016fbt wrote on 28 Mar 2016 23:14:

As opposed to continuing to try to run your own life- there are two issues with that according to the 12 steps.

One is that if you're life is unmanageable and that only a higher power can restore you to sanity, hen you have to let HIM run the show and stop trying to run it yourself.

The second problem is that according to the 12 steps a major issue of addicts is self-will run amok- they try to control their lives and when it becomes unmanageable they end up acting out, so to make life manageable they have to take their self will out of it.

Fb2016fbt wrote on 28 Mar 2016 23:14:

As opposed to our own will which is what we who are afflicted with addiction tend to try impose on the world. 

Ps- Opening up to others is the first step toward recovery from addiction (if one is addicted). It's not easy, and not always pleasant, but it does seem to work. 

OTR wrote on 29 Mar 2016 00:37:

Opening up helped me get out of my head and into reality. Although one has to be very careful about to whom they open up to.

There are people that you can open up to anonymously, like I've done, he didn't ask me one personal question and it was the first time I have ever seen him in my life and the 2nd to last too! (I went to say bye as well) although I keep in touch by email.
It changed my entire recovery, It's not like I don't understand how you feel because it took me a whole year to finally do it!

Interesting,  how'd you arrange that?