As it happens, I believe like MT, that the handbook's got it right and there are stages/levels of one's involvement with this thing, and everyone need not be labeled an addict just because they stumbled and liked it so much that they keep coming back for more.
At the same time, once the diagnosis is in, I cannot imagine staying sober for the past 326 days without the help from the proven system of 12 steps. I stayed sober with GYE and the handbooks etc for almost ninety days, before I was ready to either kill myself or act out again. Only by dragging myself to live meetings, I was able to maintain sobriety.
Of course, different strokes for different folks (please pardon the pun, all you habitual masturbators out there).
Also, MT, writing down your sexual misbehaving history may shed some unexpected light on it for you, as well as allow us to know where you are coming from and relate to you better.
Just a thought. And you're right, we don't need the juicy details, we can picture it quite well even with a dry description.
Mottel

obormottel wrote on 26 Jun 2012 14:25:


Sorry for totally disagreeing. I fail to see any advantage in sharing such negative behavior. Maybe I'm a strange bird, but this concept (fom AA/SA) is strange to me. My logic tells me that I must keep such thoughts out of my mind. The Holy Piaseczna Rebbe zt"l writes that when one thinks about such matters, even if his intentions are for contructive purposes, he is nevertheless thinking about shmutz - and that's no good. So for my sobriety and recovery, I need to be vigilant and not think about my (or other's) dark past. My (strange) philosophy says: Instead of hitting "rock-bottom", hit "heaven-high" and just keep going - a day at a time - and don't look back.

Respectfully submitted

MT

We are only as sick as our secrets. As long as I am hanging on to those thoughts, memories etc they are living comfortably in my head, and can come to the surface at any moment. Once I verbalize them and give them up to others, I "send those away".
One of the promises of SAAA recovery is "we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it".
I would like that for myself. It would be devastating for me to pretend last 20 years of my life didn't happen.
Kol tuv,
Mottel
P.S. I am a chossid, so I appreciate a value of a Rebbe. It is unfortunate but I don't think our holy leaders have an inkling about addictions, certainly the brand new porn and sex kind. At the same time, we are incapable of internalizing their holy advice because of our sickness. After working the SA program, I am finding a ton of related advice in Tanya Kadisho, the book I've been reading daily for twenty years all the while masturbating and porning. Leider leider I needed to hit rock bottom to be able to get any insight from sifrei koidesh.

If I can stick my 2 cents in here, I think it depends where you are holding. When I first came here I had the need to spill out all my darkness, both as a plea for understanding and as a way to start my own recovery by admitting it all in writing thus making it "real". I laid it all out, the whole progression of my life and how I got this way, and how I finally was forced from Above to confront it. And I would share the details of my daily Nisyonos and get support along the way. Yes I was actually triggering myself just by the act of remembering and writing it down, but it had to be done.

But as time went on I found that it was actually becoming less constructive and just harmful to keep writing with that level of detail. I am still faced with the same level of daily challenges and frustrations. But I noticed that when it was happening i would be thinking "I need to remember this so I can share it later". And i realized that I was actually doing exactly what i used to do in the old days, except that while in the past i would save the memories to act out with later, now the YH convinced me that it's "L'Sheim Shomayim"! So lately i just try to put it out of my mind as quickly as possible and move on.

So I think you are both right, when we start we must be open and honest about exactly what our issues are and what it is doing to us. But there comes a point when we need to stop looking in the mirror and just concentrate on the present and future.

All the best and Hatzlacha to everyone.

Gevura!

It's so true. When we deal with schmutz, for whatever excuse, we get dirty as a result! But it depends - are we already dirty? Am I coming to shul stinking from the excrement of my lusting and acting out - sobriety is vatilbasheyhu machalatzos. The one who turns his head from the truth in order not to c"v 'get' dirty - but is still holding his sheretz tightly in his hand, will not get tahor in the mikveh. Plain and simple. Turning the head from what is really going on is not a 'madreiga' in kedusha.

Once someone is clean for a while - it's individual - then it is time to put all the energies into ignoring lust in any form. But getting there typically only happens as a result of learning how to rise above humiliation and face the truth about our behavior. And the only way us frum hiders and liars learn to become honest with ourselves is by first being honest with other real live people. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai taught his talmidim this when he was dying. Speaking to Tanna'im, he said, "Let your fear of heaven be as real to you as your fear of real, live, people." They did not like hearing that humbling statement, either! And they were not even addicts, but real great men and tzaddikim!

The guy who cyclically, repeatedly and predictably still falls - is still holdong it. Even when he stays clean for 'the 90-day chart'. He is still holding it tightly in his hand. And the fear of facing it openly with others is why he does not face it himself. So he will stay dirty, no matter how much he ignores it 'not to get farschmutz'. It's pride, just plain pride, that's all. The principle as it stands by itself is Torah-true Yiddishkeit - no shayloh.

Would he come to know the guy over the long run, I believe the Piacezcner zy"a would see right through the dogma and recommend a yeridah letzorech aliyah and advise the man to "do his 1st and 2nd steps right." This is one of the hallmarks of great chassidishe rebbes and tzaddikim. I admit it is not perfectly in line with the "Agudath Israel Handbook" - but when we are talking about men and women who are sex addicts engaging in secret destructive behavior, it is time to remember eis la'asos laShem! And everybody does this according to his seichel, v'leiv yodeya moras nafsho, as R' Tzvi-Meyer frequently says. If we had to wait to ask a psak from a gadol before going into real recovery, there would be so many more frum yidden sleeping with the real and imagined 'koorves' than there are already!

That's why almost anyone in long-term 12 step recovery will tell you that recovery has nothing to do with 'resisting addiction'. The steps are all about learning to accept G-d's Will for me and become a truly sane person. Only a sane person can serve Hashem. The people who twist the steps into 'powerful spiritual gimmicks to resist temptation' are making the program into something it is not. Same for those who twist avodas Hashem into 'a struggle with the yetzer hora'. Excuse me, but sur meira is not identical with asei tov. That's negative sobriety and does not typically work. Or seeing the yetzer hora instead of Hashem.

R' Zeidel Epstein zt"l once said when he was told that a certain (very) famous tzaddik and odom gadol asked for all the telephone poles in his town to be taken down because they looked like crosses, "If one sees crosses all over the place, then something is wrong with the person."

Only working the 1st step (and part of the 2nd) requires the kind of thing Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk taught in his Tzetel Kotton (#13)...admitting all the dirtiest and most humiliating details to another person - even though, of course, he was not referring to addicts but to all people there. 75 years ago, the alcoholics learned that only when they took real action and were fearlessly open about the truth to other understanding alcoholics, did they get the ability to stay sober. And instead of pridefully calling that "hisgabrus over my yetzer hora", they called it "Chessed Hashem (G-d's Grace)". So they remained sober and be"H passed their message to millions including many thousands of frum yidden like us, who are addicts...including many hundreds of chassidish and kolel yidden who are sex addicts - and we here are sober this very day as a result!

Boy, is it true that waddling in the mud makes a person dirty. But the ikkar mud is when I am living in temptation and struggling against it. The clean life is being free of it one day at a time and struggling with real life.

The honesty I learned from opening up about the terribly shameful truths of my sexual acting out, was the kli that Hashem used in order to teach me to be fearlessly honest about the real challenges of real living: Jealousy, resentment, fear, desire, selfishness, and good desires, too, like being free of those things and pefectionism. That's real life.

The holy Piaseczner zy"a would certainly listen, listen, and listen some more to an individual's struggle, before advising what behavior is right for them today. He was a master of not generalizing. Then he would be ready to say to the man or woman who is sober for a year or so, "Hey sweet chaver, it's time you started practicing a positive, not negative, sobriety, and grew up some more."...or something like that in yiddish...

Just a quick respond to Gevura (as I think Dov's point is well-taken):
in the course of writing my first step, I became very triggered by memories, and had to call my sponsor to make sure I'm doing it right. He assured me I was, and you know what? After "making it real" and admitting it to another person, I now look back at those same memories and they have no effect on me (or little effect). I just feel sorry for that guy (me) who had to suffer thru those escapades. They lost their allure and excitement after I said them outloud (wrote them on paper first).
As for daily temptations...in Elyah's additional tools he says: call someone as soon as you get triggered. And the rational is, if you let it sit in your head and brew, it will take you bad places. So of course, making yourself "remember" the temptation is counter-productive. But when I call someone and say "I just passed by a strip club and had a strong desire to go in" this admission relieves me from obsession and puts an abrupt stop to fantasizing about "what would have been if I went in".
That's all.

Machshovo wrote on 26 Jun 2012 14:43:

What you think ought to work and what does in fact work are not neccessarily the same thing. I, like many others, have shared a "first step inventory" with others and found it to be incredibly liberating. It forced me to look at myself very honestly. I always thougth I was honest with myself, but sharing my embarrasing secrets with others showed me that I wasn't. We can lie to ourselves (you can call it rationalization) really well in our own heads. When we have to share it, suddenly we see it for what it is.

It also enabled me to accept myself as I am (do not read this as condoning my past behavior) and move on. Sharing it, helped me leave it behind.

It's one of those things you can talk and philosophize about, but won't really understand until you do it. Many aviod it until they run out of options. Experience is the best teacher. Ask those who have experienced it.

Oh, and one more thing. I tried to "understand" my problem for years and it didn't help. I learned here that I don't have to understand it. Trying to understand it - is trying to remain in control. Maintaining sobriety is all about surrender not control. Trying to understand for me was very counter productive.

I modified my own post above...rare occurence....should the wife and I sponsor a kiddush in MT's shul?

dov wrote on 26 Jun 2012 16:51:

I'd rather you sponsor in my shul .

dov wrote on 26 Jun 2012 16:51:


That would give me the opportunity to get up and say a few words about myself and my illustrious past .

However, please leave the wife out (i.e. men only), cuz the wife at this end does not (yet) know, and it may ruin the kiddush (kiddush'in may turn into girush'in ch"v).

MT

i heard about a kiddush somewhere....
there is still time to travel before shabbos. can i get longitude and latitude coordinates please?

Just type 'Woodford' into your GPS.

Which reminds me of a joke: A fellow alcoholic comes out of the bar. It's late at night, but he just stands there holding on to the lamp-post. "Why don't you go home?" they ask him. And he replies, "The world is turning round and round. I'm waiting for it to reach my street and I'll get off."

Lechayim!

MT

Ein Mafligin B'Sfina Gimmel Yomim Kodem HaShabbos.
Time is running out, you better leave now. And you'd have to be meikel, one shita says Tuesday.