R' La'ag, the short blue part is for you. The hemshech is for the rest of humanity, OK? I kept it short so your fuse would not blow. 

What kind of "ba'al aveiro" is dying from his aveiros and yet still doing them? Any person who is really just a selfish chazer will stop hurting himself after a while, no? So if you are 'dying' and still messing around with it, then you must be really, actually sick in the head, not a lover of yourself, any more. Just sick. Not stupid - you are very smart. Just sick, that's all.

You tell yourself the truth abut you - not me, I will not tell you. I cannot tell you about you!

And I never tried to convince you that you are an addict, and I will not do it. I have posted many times that the only one who has the right to say you are an addict is YOU. Nobody else will matter to you if they say it, anyhow. Whether I have this invisible illness is a matter of Emunah - faith - exactly like whether I really believe there is a real (invisible) G-d in the world, or not. Same thing. Nobody else can tell you it is so. In the end it is only in your own mouth and heart that you do it. Not mine, not the rabbis, not anybody's.

I repeat. I hate when people come across trying to 'convert' addicts out of every guy who likes porn! AA/SA's 1st step is clear: my habit makes me miserable and I really can't keep living this way - and - even though I cannot keep screwing around with this garbage, I cannot stop. It just feels too good/I am afraid I will die if I quit/I am too insulted with admitting I am not a 'connoisseur', but just another pervert...whatever my reason is - I just cannot stop! I have tried and I know I can't stop. But I have to!

That is the 1st step of AA (in real English, for dummies).

There are plenty guys out there, even frum Jews, who can use and enjoy porn, masturbation, sex, and other forms of acting out - they can. Lightning does not strike them each time and they are not going crazy, they have nothing to lose, they have no conscience, whatever the reason - but they can afford to continue using it! They are not necessarily addicts, even if it is a habit. They may be, they may not be - it doesn't matter. They are apples, and addicts are oranges, i guess.

The frummies out there who just care that all yidden are 'good' are great - but that has nothing to do with recovery. recovery is for sickos.

If frummies who feel a bit guilty about there schmutz pleasureing want to quit and use the principles for some reason, I say good luck, gezunderheit! Why not use them? But I have questions of my own - not to tell them, just for me and you: If they do not believe and know they are "powerless to quit" just as clearly as they believe in G-d Himself - then what 1st step could they possibly have? And what 2nd step do they possibly have? How will G-d "restore them to sanity"?! They are not insane in the first place! And what 3rd step will they have? They do not really really need G-d! They want Him, but do not neeeed Him. This is plain to me...but I am just a sicko.  :

So without 1, 2, and 3, what engine will drive their program? Nothing. They have no program. What they have is some great principles they can use if they want to.

Not so an addict. As an addict starts to use these principles, he or she sees they are absolutely indispensable. Only if they actually work and use them do they come to see this. But once they do, they are 'stuck'. They will always know what they need to do to allow Hashem to keep them sane. If they use it, they will have a great life without the torture of being ruled by their lust! And (just like the RMB"M writes at the beginning of Ch 5 of Hilchos Teshuvah regarding being good in general for normal people) the bechirah will always be their own, every day, whether to choose life, or to choose the inevitable bottom and ultimately getting all the life and pleasure drained from their lives and end up dying from this world after 120 or less, but in a very pathetic way neboch. We are stuck.

But "there is a G-d in the world!", as R' Leibeleh Eiger used to say he learned from the Maggid. And they asked him what it felt like to be in the Maggid's beis hamidrash, and he said, "I felt like a goy among Jews, there." He learned about the reality of the Ribono shel Olam that he did not really have in himself before. That's "recovery". That is "Having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps..." that the 12th step is referring to.

Addicts need to learn Hashem by actually using these steps. Our porn is how we come to really get G-d. Others get close to Him through the Torah - we get close to Him through our hopeless addiction to porn and masturbation. It's painful to give up. But we have no easier option, really. And we learn about Him through Him keeping us sober as we work these steps.

Ashreinu! Normal Jews have the Torah - and that's certainly not bad! And addicts have a way to climb back into the chololl of this world, too. And it is not too bad, either! And then we get Torah, too! 

Someone actually told me la'ag is really a 73 old single divorced lady just messing w/frum men perverts to get her kicks in her old lonely days..

Hey grandma ..          I believe it. :-D

Hey, I was sworn to secrecy. How'd you find that out?

Serene smile wrote on 16 Jun 2011 03:18:

[quote="ZemirosShabbos]
Why is it ok for everyone to bash Laag?[/quote]

;-) (shhh, she might hear us)

Why is it Ok? The guy starts a thread where even the subject line is a lie and then proceeds to waste everybody's time with baseless arguments about why he can't change. And after you've finally proven that he's wrong, he just starts up again.

And you want to know why it's ok to bash him?

for years i did things that are wrong. yet if you would have asked me if i want to be good i would have said that "yes, i want to be good". yet i still went back to the garbage.
the imaginary corners an addiction paints a person into can seem inescapable. did you never feel that in your life? would it be helpful or even justified to ridicule someone in that situation?

No I would not.

But if you came to me under the guise of wanting me to convince you why you should stop and asked me to put in time and effort in that, and then ignored anything you were ever told and asked the exact same questions again and again and put forth the same inane arguments, yes I would ridicule you.

I'm not ridiculing him for falling, I'm ridiculing him for wasting everybody's time and not listening to a word he's told.

ridicule does not seem to be a healthy way to relate to people, even if there is a perceived wrong

That's ridiculous!

ZemirosShabbos wrote on 16 Jun 2011 21:36:


Take it easy on Me3 "he wants to be good."

You guys are hilarious! OK, so Laag seems to have bailed or taken a hiatus of some kind. Being one with the capacity to be a major idiot myself, I kind of like the guy....

Laag will be back very soon, he has not bailed

I think that the majority of us in here have flaws (other than the obvious), and Laag's are surprisingly honest, at least in an anonymous environment...

I think that there is a difference between ridicule and rebuke.  I don't think that anyone should ridicule (and I don't think anyone did, really), but we need to tread carefully in rebuke.

Ok, lady and gentlemen: good Shabbos :-)