Rebereber, u know I just needed to show that I know something:)

You know a sachhh...we all know a sachhhh....we love you a sachhhh...have a guteh voch reb yid!!!!

YVY.  My favorite nigun.  Elu v'elu oymrim, ashr...ok ok.  Nudging's a good thing.  It has its place, especially to "hit bottom from on top".  There are other ways.

You could let yourself keep going and find out if you can stop acting out on your own.  It's been known to happen.  Maybe you're not really an addict.  Lot's of guys here, sex and lust addicts, will tell you they were pretty sure at some point or other that they weren't addicts.  For themselves they either changed their minds or had their minds changed for them.

You could poke around the different levels of work discussed in the Handbook, maybe taking them one at a time, and see at what level you come to experiencing a living, day to day, relationship with Hashem, where you know, from the scabs on your knees, that you're turning to Him to help you stay clean and alive, and that you are no longer isolated and living a two-faced life.

You could give 5 minutes a day to GYE or working steps, or davening for help.

You could, you could, you could.

Are you sure you are indeed addicted to lust?  Maybe for you it's not such a big problem, not such a big yetzer. 

Can you stop?  An addict can't stop...at least not alone and not without Hashem in his life, "on a regular basis" as the saying goes.

There are gidolim on this site who went cold turkey, never looked back, and never worked a 12 step, and there are those whose lives depend on working their program.  The love and respect these guys have for each other is a blessing to us all.

My two cents is that this is between you and Hashem.  Period. 

I wish you that you find your way with Him.  Clean.  Today.

Youre doing a great job by reaching out!  Only when we realize that we can't do this alone, and have the HUMILITY to accept that we need others to help us, can we get better.  So keep it up, you will succeed with our help!

1daat wrote on 21 Nov 2010 03:30:


Yeah - one of my favorites also. It really sums up the Baal Teshuva's (not BT, but it's real meaning) experience.




I stop for long stretches at a time, and then when I've fallen it happens a few times in that week or so and then I'm back on track. I'd say it's a mild addiction, but I'll do anything to remove the temptation to escape so I'll treat it like a real addiction.




Yeah - I don't know which category I'm in. I see much benefit in the 12 steps. Even if I had no addiction I'd want to go through them. What I really wish I had was the motivation of a true addict - one who has hit rock bottom is choosing life over death and would do the 12 steps as if their life depended on it. I know that for myself my life, B'emes, does depend on it, but I don't feel that in my Kishkes since my addiction is not progressed (BH!). I'm trying to hit rock bottom while on top as is the motto of GYE, but it's not so easy. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for your help.


Amain!! VChain L'Mar and all the Heiligeh GYE Yidden!

Yashuv-VYashuv wrote on 24 Nov 2010 15:21:


Yashuv-VYashuv wrote on 24 Nov 2010 15:21:


That's a great way to express that.  Getting it in your kishkes isn't really necessary at this point.  Just keep poking along. you're doing great--acountability groups, picking yourself up and keeping right on trucking, calling in to phone group.  KUTGW!

Only you can decide whether or not to keep up your present pattern.  Everybody gets serious about porn and masturbation in their lives in their own way, since getting serious is between each of us and Hashem individually.

Thanks for the vote of confidence 1daat.

                                                                                                                                                                     

if you can do it great 
and fully understand the chovos halevovos and my guess hundreds of thousands of yidden did just that they just may not know exactly what it saved them from 
we yidden believe that without torah and tikkun hamiddos to some degree we don't stand a chance not in this world or in the next
if you can understand how the information pertains to you on a personal level kol hakavod and my guess is it worked for many people already (and i am not sure everyone is recovering in sa
and they will say it's because they're not doing it right well guess what it could be that many people are not learning mussar and chassidus right either)

if it works great 
by the way the sefer cheshbon hanefesh has 13 ateps

wow! thank you for  this answer, i was just  getting nervous from what i was reading from some posts which were written here as if there was something deficient in musar or something, i think that point should be made that if the sefarim are not working the fault is in him!(me!)what i mean to say is the view is that addiction is a sickness and go ahead and learn c"h instead of taking antibiotics or chemo ,but what im hearing is  the 12 steps are basicaly things that are found in the musar sefarim ,why wold someone say"musar is poisen for me?"  " i wont get any benefit "true, the Torah IS compared to a potion of life or a potion of death(zoche sam chaim, lo zoche sam maves) but thats not to scare us off and not take it ,its to tell you to search how can i be worthy to be zoche?is it so hard to be zoche ?does one need to be a tzadik to be zoche?dont think so, never heard THAT,. if someone opens their heart before learning a sefer musar , thinking "i want to be  a mentsh that my Neshama is in control of the body, and not the body being in control of the Neshama, i DONT WANT lust ,tayva, i DONT WANT tremendous wealth , i DONT WANT vain glory ,that i should find approval in the eyes of men even though it might not be so pleaseing in Hashems eyes,these things come from my animalistic nature the body , and im not an animal , im a Neshama inside  a materialistic body and i essentialy want to do His will ,and not the bodys will, and this Holy sefer is going to instruct me how my Neshama can take control over the body AND THEN he learns the sefer,i think that will have a tremendous impression on the person and will work .im not belittleing the 12 steps and those who need them (maybe i  also do )it be litaraly saving lives!not to mention saving people from destructive behaviors like molestation C"V or C"V prostitution,far be it for me to give people bum advice especialy from the fact that im not a Talmud  Chacham ,never finished a mesechta in my life (yet), not a posek etc.just a yid who it was drilled in his head that musar ,or even sifrei  chasidus(im  a litvak) CAN change a person , just the problem is that theyre not working the sefarim right ,SO WORK IT RIGHT! DONT GIVE UP ! you dont give up on the 12 steps, dont you think that our sefarim deserve the same amount of respect! i think that there is alot more to say but ive got to run .thank you tzomah for the validation.

Sometimes mussar can help. For me there were times I kept to a clear mussar schedule and I was fine with porn and acting out until a few weeks went by and I slowly slipped out of the mussar Seder. Particularly, often the reason would be for the same stresses and pressures that led me down the path of escaping to porn.

I myself never went to a twelve step meeting and didn't work through the steps in a clear answer systematic way. I have been clean thought since I joined gye (I think it's going on 4 years now).
However, what I learned here was to acknowledge the fact that my escape (and bad habit or perhaps some sort of addiction) was the solutions to my problem and not my problem.Understanding addictions and how the twelve steps helps, opened up a new way of looking at things. I definitely read through the twelve steps and put lots of thought into them. Especially the first few steps.

After being clean for a few years and retrospection, I think that perhaps yes I would've been able to stay clean had I learned mussar every day. And then I would have been able to live my entire life fighting this yetzer hara, perhaps winning more perhaps not but definitely through fighting for the rest of my life.

What I really needed was to understand my self better, understand my marriage better, understand the idea of giving to my wife in our intimate relationship and not taking. What I needed as well was to be exposed to raw honesty. (the kind that was basically demanded from gye members back when Dov was hanging around) to be honest with myself about where I was really holding what was really bothering me and what I really needed to do to change.I am not sure I would've have ever gotten that through learning mussar.  And I am pretty proficient in many of the classic mussar sedarim.  Perhaps if I had joined a group of mussarnicks (but that would've never happened).
Yes there are plenty of people who just have tayvas nashim on some level and by learning mussar they are able to keep it in check. But someone who is living a frum life externally but behind closed doors escaping to porn, obviously has a deeper problem than tayvas nashim. Had he learned mussar properly until that point, perhaps he wouldn't have ended up in such a place. But by the time someone reaches such a place (whether it is the age of 9 of the age of 50 ) there are deeper issues that need to be dealt with.

Once he picks up the yesodos of addiction and recovery and puts in the hard work to fix the main sources of his problem, then yes he can probably go back to learning mussar and know how to apply what he is learning to what he actually needs in life.(Sorry for the long post. I have a lot of catching up to do)

                                                                                                                                                                     

unanumun wrote on 15 Jan 2018 15:53:

i think there is a huge difference between learning mussar and mussar sedorim and working on living it
mussar and chassidus is all about self awarness not shuckling and crying or singing over a sefer