Hey R' Desperate Jew,

We Kinda hijacked your place.... :-[ :-[ :-[ Sorry

Please let us know how your doing....

No apology necessary. I enjoyed the discussion.

B"H, I have made strides toward changing my life for the better. I joined the 90 day chart. I don't live for it, I live with it. I enjoy updating the chart but I don't think about what day it is every moment of the day.

I also had the password gabai change the passwords to several email accounts that I was using to communicate with 'friends' whom I realized were actually just fuels to my addiction. Great people, but not great for my life. I felt tremendously empowered when I tried to sign in to those accounts the following day and I was locked out. I actually threw my hands up in triumph.

For me, it has been great to realize that this entire ordeal will help my entire relationship with Hashem. I am working on not hoping to be 'done' with this avodah, rather living with this avodah. After all, it is not an avodah of 'sur meirah' as I have looked at it until now, but it is primarily one of 'asei tov'. And I have seen the past two weeks improve in several ways as a result of my developing relationship with the aibershter.

I used to daven to Hashem that I should be cured 'for once and for all', now I daven that I should be cured 'for once and for always'!

I hope my thoughts make sense as written here. It has been quite a long purim !

Glad you enjoyed purim!

It is a wonderful feeling when the fences we've set up work to keep us out, to keep us healthy! And it sounds like you're really working on making your life a lot healthier - keep up the good work!

Wow....

DesperateJew wrote on 01 Mar 2010 05:25:


Well said...


DesperateJew wrote on 01 Mar 2010 05:25:

So I've been thinking...

Over the few weeks reading the emails from GYE, I have noticed that there are many mentions of people who say just put your faith in Hashem (saying so in one way or another...). After reading today's email - where someone addresses becoming addicted to movies - I have come to realize that it is far from enough to simply put my addiction in Hashems hands.

What do I mean? For the married guys, imagine saying that to your wife. She says she wants you to treat her in a certain way, you find it hard to, and you say 'Dear, it's in your hands...'. I want to do it for you, I feel that I can't, but I believe that you will help me get through this. No, no, no... That ain't gonna cut it for her. She wants to see that you will make the effort to get the job done.

Same with Hashem. He wants to see me work on my relationship with him. So while I am addicted to lust, I still have many other aspects of my life that need improvement, etc. I can't hang my hat on my new approach to my addiction and say that Hashem is now proud of me. I need to change. Alot.

If I say that it is just a lust addiction that I have to work on, I might fix one problem, but end up with another 'addiction'. As a matter of fact, for the first few days that I discovered this site, I spent hours upon hours reading info on this site. I realized that it was a manifestation of my addictive personality. I needed (and still need) to get my life in order and not only the porn addiction.

The long winded point being, I realize now that I need to be a better Jew and this addiction has brought me to that realization. What gets me through my episodes is thinking that Hashem will get me through this. How? Not just by thinking about him, but thinking about my relationship with Him and how I will continue to work on it 'with Him'.

For all the mavens out there, anything potentially unhealthy about this approach of mine?

I'm not a mavan, but can you elaborate a little on some of what you said? A lot of the concepts in this area are very vague, in general, so for me to answer, i need to know what YOU mean..for example:

DesperateJew wrote on 02 Mar 2010 05:31:


And

DesperateJew wrote on 02 Mar 2010 05:31:


Are you saying that you don't want to JUST work on your lust addiction, but to work on everything all at once?

And

DesperateJew wrote on 02 Mar 2010 05:31:


In general, by the way, when we talk about giving our addiction over to god, everyone has a slightly different understanding of that...but it certainly doesn't mean that I'm leaving it up to god while i do whatever the heck I want! It means more alogn the lines of giving up my own control over the situation, and letting god have control of me - in other words, just letting myself act in pure accordance with what god would want, ratzon hashem.