Dear La'ag,

I am assuming that these movies you are watching involve a dose of lust, porn, or such.

Jack speaks from his experience, not from any book. And it might sound funny, but Hashem does that too, you know. He never looks things up to check! He knows everything He says is 100% True because it is His 'experience' - it just is the way it is. Funny. Speaking from books (even from "AA"!) is not what really works (Contrary to those stuck up on darshening AA like a Rashb"a). Only speaking from successful experience helps, period. Drunks helping drunks is the secret. There are no 'scholars' in recovery, only losers who have suffered enough to give up and use tools stronger than they are, to win.

Winners (sober drunks) always seem real smart. But we really aren't. We've just had enough and gave up.

What are you ready to give up to save your tuchess?

Which brings me to your movie problem. Somewhere along the way here on GYE it seems to me that you got the idea that the 12 steps can get you sober/clean/whatever. You seem to think that using the 12 steps, you can 'beat this thing'.

You did not get that idea from me, as I never said that to anybody. It is sort of true, but it sort of isn't. Halt kopp with me for a minute please:

As far as I can see it, the 12 steps are wonderful tools for keeping us real enough, keeping us honest enough and keeping us comfortable enough in this goofy life here, so that we lust drunks/perverts/whatever will never need to go back to our brand of drinking. By working the 12 steps we get a relationship with G-d who helps us do what we cannot do: stay clean one day at a time. And many people have had this brocha for the remainders of their lives.

Some say that steps 1, 2, & 3 are the way to fight the compulsion to drink/use porn, etc. And they nemm that ois as a dovor poshut! I do not believe that way, and never have.

There is a thing SA calls "Step Zero". All the other programs have it, too, I guess. It is the surrender we come into the recovery with. It is the missing ingredient that even G-d does not provide in the program and steps: the beaten addict. The program is the water, we are the 'stuff' as in: "Pour in stuff from packet, add water, and mix!"

In Torah, this is the concept of hakol bidei Shomayim chutz miyir'as Shomayim. There is an ingredient that even Hashem does not provide. We need to bring something to the table. In addiction, it is our desperate need not to act out again for purely selfish reasons - we do not want to lose everything. We have to give up, so we do. But then what? We can't stay clean!!

I did not provide my emunah to the equation, not my chochma, and not my yir'as Shomayim - and I actually had to leave all my religious sentimentality in my pocket. For all of the above betrayed me hundreds of times already, no? Taking any of those 'powers' out to use them to save me would have screwed me up all over again, of course. They were the very same tools that made me the man I became to be! Sick (and frum)!

I arrived with complete hopelessness that I could possibly stay clean. I saw my life before me and knew there is no way out for me and that I had lost the contest. My lusting would eventually cost me my life. No one had to convince me of that. The sforim told me for years - but it did not really do the trick for me, did it. Nu. We all know it did not. And the warnings from the sforim are not doing any good for you, either, really.

Yet here were men who were clean, or so they said. I trusted that they were not lying.

There are two things that I credit with getting me a better life: Hashem, and lehavdil, my porn and masturbation use. I brought my obsession with women, porn, and sex, and Hashem added the 'water' (by guiding me to the program).

So. If you really want to stop, then working these steps can allow you to never need to start again. But they cannot teach you that you need to stop. If you are an addict like me, then you will keep trying to bargain with it - control it and use it. I believe that only two things can teach Step Zero:

1- enough failure,

or if you are really super-lucky

2- watching others around you either crash-and-burn enough, or get sober enough.

So I believe that if you are an addict like me the choices are either the way of humility (I lost! Help me!), or the way of humiliation (I am a loser! Help me!).

After that - not before, but after - begin these steps.

If when you wrote your sexual acting out history down and shared it with another person you still did not see how crazy - really crazy - you are, and you did not see how hopeless your life is, for you will definitely destroy all the good you have and lose you image totally - then you are simply not ready to use the steps.

That's my opinion. 

What will you bring to the table?

Do you have any despair? That's all the schoirah you really need.

The steps (taking actions to learn real honesty and a get a real relationship with Hashem and people) will turn all your despair into the greatest brocha: the Good Life! But you need to bring some despair and enlightened self-interest with you. That's Step Zero.

The reason I did not spell this out to you before was because you seemed to be interested in working these steps already. If you want to work these steps while still being able to porn yourself, then you are not coming with your shutfus in this deal yet.

laagvokeles wrote on 22 Jul 2011 15:26:


You know, this is the strange and sad thing, La'ag...  You can give those things up, and indeed be happy without them.  You just do not know it.  The only way to find that out for yourself is for you to actually experience it.  But you would find experiencing the happiness impossible to achieve, because you would not have the trust to give them up in order to see it.  Unless you get really, really desperate.  So you will instead be like the person on the edge of a dance, unable to give in and get on the floor, because you need the assurance that you can dance and will like it before you try...  But you won't have that until you do try...  It's chicken and egg.

Perhaps one day you will try it, but chances are you'll be so hung up about what you are missing, that you won't fill yourself with things that will make you happy, and then you will declare the experiment a failure, and snap back with a new relish.

yossi.. it is very true... im tryeeng to fugure a way out...

so dov lets see.
the part about that 12 steps helps me get real, i dont think its my case, cause i am very real and very honnest. i know i am jerk, i know this is very rough and tough.

now its funny u asking me for yirat shamayim before 12 steps or the knowledge that i cant go on like this and i must change.

both are very very hard thing, cause yirat shamayim i obvously dont have and its true i cant go on like this but i cant go on diffrently either.

im changing subject:

in case i manage to get a push (hard to believe) and i want to try for my 100000000000000000000000000 time to get close to hashem, there is one tool that even its very simple it got into me through GYE wich is: hour by hour day by day.

now dov let me ask you: im starting to understand that by the end of the day im gonna need my torah i mean to be close to hashem... and the 12 steps are only a goishe tool to make sure that the kesher to hashem should be a קשר של קיימא, now dov what in the world can u tell me in your post for a idiot like me whats the most important thing to understand to help me stay with hashem?

im very very mixed up and very broken cause im a sisey and i dont have real fight in me, i am now even thinking to my self ribono shel olam soon is coming tisha beav its so hard not to eat and drink, how will i manage to take my head away from the pain without movies? (i usually even masturbate in 9 beav)

any way dov, i dont know. i thaught u have a special way to make things, but u dont. in the end of the day its lot of pain. i am not ready for it.

so in short dov my main question to u in this long post is.

what do u recomend for me, in case i get the andrenaline to try to be good again, what is the main thing u think i must know and do to really succeed this time.

i am so scared i am masturbating for 20 years since i am 12 and watching porn  for 17 years, it looks like i will never end

laagvokeles wrote on 23 Jul 2011 23:35:


Dear La'ag,

So the things you wrote here are very precious. Whether you go on to eventually move into sobriety and recovery or not, you did something here. You opened up, you broke some walls, you did some anivus and hachno'oh. Your pride and shame are a little less than they were before. It will not leave you forever, and in the end it will come back to you when you really need it iy"H.

You make a good observation that any way it goes it is hard - not complicated, but just hard. Hey - did you really think that learning to let a twenty-year pattern really change could be a cakewalk?! C'mon. You knew it'd be hard.

But you are actually not right about that I had "no special way to make things". I really do. For me and for others like me, the difference between my way and the other way is (again) very simple: One way works, and one way does not. I call that 'a special trick', don't you?

And even if you insist that you will figure out how to beat the system, then it is the difference between humility vs humiliation. A little humility is hard to accept, but we can do it much more easily inside a chevra - doing it alone is 'bullshnitzel'. And the humiliation path is real hell (even if it 'works'). But even a chevra does help much to make it easier. I know.  And if we do not ever get that push by the humiliation, then fine - we schlep along until the end. Is that really what you want for Mr La'ag? You came this far....to sit in the peresh (excrement) for another 60 or 70 years?

And another mistake: You are not a jerk - maybe you can convince Yossi you are, but not me (I bet Yossi is unconvinced as well). I know you are using lust because you are a jerk. None of us do. You are a sick man. Only a sick man would have so much scholarship and potential, a real wife and family, and so much ruchniyus - and still need secret swig of that big dirty bottle of "Shiksa" to keep him going in life. It's pathetic - not jerky. You are a very good guy, who is very ill. If you get caught and the peresh hits the fan, you will suddenly look at lot sicker to everyone else and maybe even to yourself - but we know you are the same sick right now. Nu. It's OK. We can keep a secret.

And finally, I am not asking for any yir'as Shomayim from you. I am not actually asking for anything from you at all. If you want to use the porn I am not the guy who will say "you shouldn't do that". No sir. Call me a goy, a rosho, whatever you want. I just happen to know that saving a guy from drinking once is of no value at all - if he is a real addict. Better he should drink his butt off and make a fool of himself and eventually he will see the monkey in the mirror. I did. Why should you be spared that pain? For years I got a way sooo easy by playing the rosho card. Finally my acting out convinced me I was sick - I ran for help.

So will you.

i hear.
so here is the outcome of a halve year in gye (i was a hard one to get thrue, and i appriciate your pacience dov... i dont speack english well, i dont read long posts etc, and still you had pacience for me, thank you.)

"I am not ready for getting better, cause i didnt heat the rock bottom, so i have no motivation to let go of movies and porn, i cant fight with a knive against someone with a gunn, i cant fight with intelectual sevarot a tavah between my legs"

Its interesting but as much as gye wich is u dov in my specific case and all the guys around gave me to understand that this is not monkey bussines and its really gonna help me in the future when i am gonna restart my teshuvah or 12 steps, but for last halve year i also suffered a lot form this knowledge, cause i didnt enjoy any period of time been clean and close to hashem cause the message "forget it, youll never manage" was in front of my head...

its interesting but the same problem i had when i posted my first post here in gye, ill paste it here:

laagvokeles wrote on 15 Dec 2010 16:18:


so dov, ill ask you please please again:

i gess that the second i am 100 % sure that i cant be helped here in gye with the 12 steps, ill run back to hashem like in the good times, now dov what is the most important thing u can tell me to make sure i stick to hashem this time?

new question: בתוך אותו עניין
is it possible that i dont need the 12 steps? is it possible that i know everething of the 12 steps any way? isnt the 12 steps been honnest, wich i am! i know its freaking hard and i know i need help from hashem, and i know i have to faight minute by minute, isnt this the סך הכל of the 12 steps?

dov לסיכום:
1)whats the best advise you can give me if i am gonna do it by my own.
2)am i right i dont need the 12 steps?

These three things from the above. Gevalt.






No, no, and no. Gevalt. I will try to keep this short so you feel OK to read it.

"Forget it all, you'll never manage" is the meaning of the first step itself: "We came to believe that we were powerless over lust and that our lives had become unmanageable". The steps are all just steps they are not the solution itself. For addicts, the solution itself is giving up because we are not immoral, but sick and need a miracle because it is impossible. It is why we need the steps to teach us how to use Hashem and people properly. For the tenth time, contrary to what others have told you, the steps do not really save us - they are only tools, like medicine: Having the medicine does not save the sick man. In the same way, knowing these things in your head does not save the addict. It is only taking the medicine that saves the sick man (al pi teva).

The main thing that saves the sick man is his acceptance that he will definitely die without the medicine, even if it is bitter. That is the ikkar breakthrough for all seriously ill people. That acceptance is more appropriately called 'the Solution'. The tools he uses to get better are variable. Some are sweeter, some more bitter. I think the 12 steps is the sweetest, and shortest path I can imagine. But it does involve meeting some other sickos like me (not necessarily in an official 'meeting'), as I'll explain later (again).

I have seen other paths. Some call themselves "the steps". They involve reams and reams of questionnaires, deep self-analysis and such. It strikes me that they are playing to what you kept writing in the beginning of your posts here:
. Needing to understand first, then be willing to take action is simply putting chochmosos kodemess lema'asov, which means pride is still accepted. That sucks, as a derech, as far as i am concerned. Of course, Jews (rak am chochom v'navon!) like it better - we loooove still looking smart....even though here we are with our pants around our knees. Nu. Respectable, no?

And it's not freaking hard if you are doing it right. If you give up the gayvoh, admit openly to other safe people, and follow their lead and do the simple work, you will probably get better. That's it.

So
You cannot do the steps truly on your own, for admitting #1 is probably garbage if it is just to yourself; step 5 is to open up with another person exactly what your worst middos, beliefs, and habits are; #s 8, 9, and 10 are only about how we treated (and continue to treat) other people; step 11 is a relationship with a G-d who sits on the shelf in your beis midrash and you take out to make yourself feel happy - that is not a relationship like we need; and step 12 is to share this with other sicko perverts like I am trying to do right now.

How can you do that "by yourself"?

You will ask what do any of these things above have to do with not jerking your holy eiver? I will ask you how well is your present derech working for you?

You are a very difficult man to bargain with, you know? You'd make it good in business (al pi teva).

So at it's shoresh, these 12 steps are not about fighting lust, but mainly about eliminating the ego, pride and self-centered fears that make staying sober impossible for us even though we already admit 100% to ourselves that we cannot afford to use our drug at all because it will destroy/kill/ruin us. The big fat ego is what makes it impossible for us to let go - instead we feel we must fight every minute until we beat it. If you are an addict, that is just gehinnom, period, and it never ends (until gehinnom, I guess). That surrender (hachno'oh) to the truth (our Emess) It is the ingredient that all the willpower and 'bechirah' in the world cannot give us, because we are ill. We cannot afford some of the things that all the normal earth-people can afford. They can have loads of resentment, pride, lust, and self-centeredness and get away with it.

Are you interested, or not? It's your business, not mine.

Dov I see.

So dov first of all, ill thank you again for your pacience.

Now before I ask you my next question, I just want to make clear, I am looking for a way to get  a better person and a better jew, and I am talkin to a very very experienced man also by your own trouble, and also by all the trouble you hear from all the ppl you meet.

In the same time I am looking for the eazyest way, I like it easy.

So:
The fact is I don’t have the will power right now, my life isn’t going that bad I should feel I need to change, im loosing more from stoping the porn then from keeping it on.

But:
I still want to change cause I want to enjoy the rest of my day (when I don’t masturbate) till the maximum. And besides I don’t wanna burn in hell.

So:
You are not making me life easy, cause למעשה you are adding to my problems, cause by the end oft he day im gonna have to involve hashem plus 12 steps, and without you dov i only have problems with hashem.
I know I know u gonna say, “without 12 steps you have no hashem at all, hashem dosnt go without the 12 steps”.
Ok. I get it.

But:
Because Im not ready for to meat other ppl and I never will, I have a feeling that I am not ever gonna do 12 steps the way they are supoused to be done, so in other words I have no option of 12 steps.

So:

I beg of you: to make my conscience clear!! Please agree with me that not every body can be healed only with “programs”, p.e. in my case I learnd a few tecnics from you    1)know you are powerless  2) know that u need outside help (hashem)  3) don’t ever think you won the system.

Now with all this knowledge plus permission from you to run to my father in heaven I may succeed! All I need is:
1) you telling me : “true 12 steps is not for bill Clinton cause hes gonna loose hes parnasah of giving speeches in universitys, cause every body is gonna do funn of him and not gonna want to hear hes opinion. (וק"ל) 
2) you telling me that you saw ppl succeeding this way
3) you telling me that even if you didn’t see ppl succeeding this way, im a special case and I will succeede.

I need to be sure one way or an other dov, before I put my all energy into something, in order to do that I have to know im not wasting energy, I love the old facion way of teshuva and knowing אלמלא הקב"ה עוזרו אינו יכול לו, but i cant even put my mind into it, cause you say that without the medicine of 12 steps i cant get healed no way…. And then I stay קרח מכאן ומכאן , cause 12 steps i cant do because i am way to  proud  to show my face, and the good old facion way to cry to hashem i cant either because you dov are on the back of my neck telling me „hashem dosnt care ifo u cry cause he knows you are not doing all you can to be better“

we know you don't have the will power right now.none of us did when we started.you gotta start somewhere and sometime, right? so why not let it be now? that first 90 days is torture.and as for how much time 'it' will take, it's a process.there's no 'it'.the process is a road going upwards, but with a few 'downs' now and then.so, you'll fall, and get up again.as long as the general direction of the journey is in the forward direction, what do you havbe to worry about? you are on this forum for a reason - you know you want to heal - but you dont have the strength YET.have patience - give it time.maybe years.Hashem has patience with you, so you should have patince with yourself.
i wish you the most from the depths of my heart
jack

laagvokeles wrote on 25 Jul 2011 07:59:


Laag, you finally helped me understand something:  I alsways maintained that when the program says "Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity" it was nothing new after all Chazal said long before that  אלמלא הקב"ה עוזרו אינו יכול לו.  But what the program tries to teach a person and what just clicked when seeing you write it is that saying  אלמלא הקב"ה עוזרו אינו יכול לו and conducting myself according to אלמלא הקב"ה עוזרו אינו יכול לו are two very different things.  I can say it, but not really believe it.  Because if we believed it, then we'd say okay Hashem its in your hands.  I don't know how I am going to manage it but You're are helping me so I will be able to do it.  Saying אלמלא הקב"ה עוזרו אינו יכול לו but then saying I can't do it because its too hard means that we don't really believe that Hashem but for Hashem's help its not happening.  It is still all about us.  I'll do it, but it has to be on my terms.  This is the humility that Dov is taking about, the program talks about (as do the seforim).  RBSO I am willing to do it on any terms You want.

My wife was on a OA meeting call this morning and I was listening to one of the speakers and she was describing how working the program is hard work, it is a process, you've been doing this stuff for decades you think you are going to change over night.  Yes, you've discovered God and have a relationship with him, that doesn't mean you are going to be perfect and that it is going to be easy.  Teshuva is no different:

אבל במה תהיה התשובה מהאדם אומר בזה כי תתכן לו אחר הקדמת ידיעתו בשבעה דברים
. . .
והשביעי חוזק סבלו להמנע מן הרע אשר הרגיל בו והסכמתו לסור ממנו בלבו ובמצפונו כמו שכתוב וקרעו לבבכם ואל בגדיכם

You have to know upfront that it takes a resolve to change, you have to be ready to rip out your old heart.  It ain't easy.  But it's cerrtainly worth it.

Continued Hatzlacha

uraj i only agree with this line you wrote:
"You have to know upfront that it takes a resolve to change, you have to be ready to rip out your old heart.  It ain't easy.  But it's cerrtainly worth it."

what i think about the rest you can ask me....  ;D

jack just make a מותב תלתא you & dov and rosh habet din rabbi guard and confirm "12 steps not for u laag"

dov why do u let me wait so long? do u hope that if my argument its not gonna be בן יומו that its gonna be נותן טעם לפגם, and ill get fine by my self?

you wrong ... im cooking and cooking inside and waiting with anxiety (hope i used the right word...) when are u gonna answer me already, and hopefully let me free....
come on.

i must say something here - it seems like you are waiting for dov to 'fix' you.in my humble opinion, you can only 'fix' yourself. he can help you, we all can help you, we will be here for you, but the ultimate work comes from yourself.and it aint gonna be easy.but you're not alone!
and i must say my opinion again although it's different than anyone else's.even G-d will not 'do it' for you.He can HELP you, but you have got to do it yourself! you can daven for help, but G-d is waiting for your effort, then He will respond in kind.
jack

jack wrote on 26 Jul 2011 14:07:


you got it!!!
yes!!!
he can fix me!!!
you know how??
by letting me free!!!!
by telling me: laag get out of here you dont need 12 steps!!! you should really try the old facion way of crying to hashem he should help you!
why do i need dov to tell me this?
cause he is the authority in this matter, ill explain; he has tons of expirience, hes opinion makes me a haidache, cause even i am super super super smart, and i have my own opinion, in this porn case im scared i may be wrong, and dov is right, so i have to be free from his opinion.

my opinion: after months here on gye i know a few tricks i wanna do teshuva etc not 12 steps, why not 12 steps? cause it involves sa meetings and to much publicity and for other reasons i dont wanna mencion and they are not interesting now.

dovs opinion: i need 12 steps davka!

i cant run back to hashem and say "hashem help me" cause he is gonna tell me "show me you are doing what u can, are you doing 12 steps" ?

so the secound dov tells me no 12 steps needed, ill be free again, and when ill cry to hashem  "please help me", hes not gonna have taanah on me, you are not doing your part im not doing mine.

all this is a short version of my last long post, im writing it again jack, cause your question didnt have place if i would be clear in last post (for you dov: before u answer me read my old las post please, its the right one)

p.s.
please no body should be the one asking the super question: "did it help runing to hashem till now"
the answer is all written a 100000000 times in this thread

laagvokeles wrote on 26 Jul 2011 14:34:


How come you're always interested in solutions that don't require you to let go, personally (i.e. change), and instead come from outside of yourself?

-Chemical castration
-Miracle from Hashem
-Be filled with enough entertainment that porn/etc. becomes a non-issue
-etc.

It's funny, because you always seem to be looking for the desire to be taken from you, but for you, yourself, not to change.

I have a riddle for you:  How can you change, without changing?