Sasha 2 wrote on 04 Apr 2016 18:17:

Some people go through the steps fast and others go through it slowly. I've been with my sponsor for close to 8 months and we are currently on Step 3.

Hi Fb2016fbt!
If you think you're an addict and want to try the 12 steps, i suggest you consider going to a live GYE/SA meetings. Good luck & may you see G-d with you

Is that the mehalech to go to live meetings as opposed to trying to work on it first by yourself?

Umm... i'm not sure. i guess that for an addict, that want to try the steps - live meetings are the best way to do so.
But, I have no idea whether or not you are an addict
if your'e not sure, i suggest start working with the GYE Handbook.

i might be wrong. that's just my suggestions

Hi, I apologize for what might seem like false pretenses, but I need help from you guys in an unrelated matter: The infant son of a relative has been found to have a very high eye pressure. I don't know if this is a classic case of glaucoma or if it caused by some other condition, but as you can imagine it is very alarming.

It would mean a great deal to me if you would kindly say a perek of Tehillim for Menachem Nochum ben Rina Shprintza. We are all a tzibur taking great pains to improve ourselves in an area that presents unprecedented challenges, and I believe that we collectively as well as individually possess a great koach because of our facing these challenges. Your Tehillim, I am convinced, will be a powerful force.

Even more meaningful, dare I say it, would be if the next time you are faced with a challenge you would use an extra modicum of self-control and dedicate that hisgabrus to the child. Imagine the koach of that!

Thanks
 

So I'm experiencing the same thing over and over again. I read up on the sa handbook the few days after I fall and then I stop and then I act out and then I read and I go in circles....
on one hand it's like a lack of will to fix my actions but on the other hand every time after I act out I do feel like I have to get it together.  In general in not a lazy person at all but when I get to this all the sudden I am the laziest person in the world!!!

What do you feel you're being lazy about?
I didn't get it

If I was working the steps I'd at minimum join a call, eg cordnoy (he may be away this week...)

No ha gufa, I don't join the calls out of lazyness and if I had a few good days, then I k'eelu make believe that I don't need the phone calls which is really just rationalizing and being lazy

Twerski has a book "addictive thinking",
Read a little,  looks like it discusses some of these mental quandrys.


 

Well can u shtel some of ur knowledge instead of referring me to a self help book?  I would assume that this is something that many people go through and not some obscure thing that I need to research

We screw with our own heads for a living

Fb2016fbt wrote on 11 Apr 2016 03:51:


If you're lazy, it's probably not a great idea for him to give you all the answers. If you want to stop this, it's definitely only going to come from heavy effort on your part. Not that effort alone works, but whatever you'll choose to do will probably take a lot of effort.

Are you willing to do that?

If you realize that you are going in circles as you described earlier, that cycle of act out- get my stuff together- rationalize that you're passed it- and then act out again- you have two choices,

Either you decide to commit to working a system to get off, or you stay on the merry go round. You put it really well in that post earlier summing up the cyclical nature very succinctly. The truth is though, that even when we 'convince ourselves' that we are past it, even at that stage- usually just below the surface we are brimming with self hate and loathing knowing that we are lying to ourselves.

At least that is how it works for me. Yes, I try to imagine myself as that 'clean cut guy' in beis medrash. His shirt is always pressed, tztitzis neatly together hanging at his sides at 180 degree angles. You know that guy? When he checks his email- that's all he does. Check his email. He'll maybe message his father about doing great in seder, or learning or whatever, and tell his wife his chavrusa is coming over after seder. Then he merrily goes back to his avodas HAshem. He sees those signs about internet asifas and dutifully goes as a good yid, to hear about how important it is to stay away from these dangers. At that time, he feels guilty for checking Yeshivaworld and voz iz news more than twice a day. With a sigh he resolves that THIS Elul he is REALLY gonna make that change and ONLY look at the kosher news once a day during bein hasedarim. He's got the device fitlered and shmilterd to the hilt- because that is what the rabbonim say to do. But really, he does not feel that drawn after porn. He may be tempted, in much the same way as when you smell good food from a treif restaurant. It smells good! But he knows- It's not for me. I'm a ben Torah. 

Yeah... lolololol.  That act can last anywhere from an hour to a day, to a week or two... I'll pass by the mirror a few times and actually believe I am looking at that tahara yid.... and somehow  then I usually find myself quietly locking my bedroom door, tearing my tzitzit off in the privacy of my home and voraciously devouring hours on porn and chatting.... At that time- Don't even talk to me about that clean cut guy. I'm not in the mood. I'm BUSY! 

Then once I'm done, I pay the piper again- I feel my guilt, I shed my little tears  and I'm ready to put my tzitzit back on at their respetvie 180 degree angles...  

While I was never that 180 degree guy, I found that after a while you become a little less clean cut, a little tougher around the edges, more cynical. 

I look at myself now and I remember the young man I was in the beginning of my struggles, and they are two different people. That young man had so much more purity and sincerity it's crazy, and he wasn't some naive little kid- just then the struggle was much more on the outside and didn't deep in as much yet. So sad. 

Wow OTR, u really summed it up well. That's exactly why it's a crazy cycle bec when I'm not acting out, I know I do want to do what's right and then I'll see a week of that mindset, so I feel like wow I'm never gonna fall ever again until that time where I let loose a little bit, bec I can handle it, I mean look at the last week.....and then it's an hr later and I got my friend to give me the password to my internet since he would never be choshesh me for anything like this and I've been watching and acting out and then I resolve to never dl it again and.....
so how do I get myself out of this cycle!?!?!?