Hey guys, I'm the bouncer for the dov quotes thread. Do you have some dov quotes??? if NOT - getoutahere . In the nicest possible way.

Hatzlocha with whatever you choose to do chaver!

But I don't know if any 'new' or 'special jewish-based program' is needed here. In my experience there are simply two aspects to this job of 'controlling' my thoughts:

1- either I keep doing things basically the same way as I am used to (not making any real changes to move out of my comfort zone) and superimpose "Recovery" on top of that.

or

2- Surrender to the truth of my anias hada'as, to my real history and the facts about my personal inability to 'beat this' or to 'change myself', and to the fact that ein hachavush matir atzmo m'beis ha'asurim...and start living Recovery in place of my old way. That is quite a sacrifice, especially for us professional frum liars and hiders. The frumer we habitual porners are, the bigger liars and hiders we are, of course. That's not a value judgement at all, just the plain math. It ain't easy for us.

#1 takes a tremendous effort, dedication, vigilance, and frumkeit...but yields little to nothing in the end. The true addict will fail at it! And on the way, he will become progressively entangled in, isolation, sincere hand-wringing, and religious fantasy (our 'tiffeh cheshboinos' and 'tikkunim')...and still be lusting and masturbating like a secret pig when he really, really needs to. And he knows it.

#2 takes a painful surrender of self-will. The comfort-zone of doing things the way we always have - in other words, "how we all got in this mess". We often feel it is turning our backs on yiddishkeit, but it isn't. It's just a giving up of the ego-based model of self-perfection and kedusha that he has been carrying on his back all these years. It's a giving up of the twisted yiddishkeit he has developed all these years to try and control' himself.

It takes a difficult acceptance that Hashem is not and has never been ignorant and that Hashem accepted the realities about our limitations and our brokenness a long, long time ago...and that He is willing to work with us anyway!

Practically speaking:

Little things like learning how to keep the brain on a much shorter leash. Surrendering the thoughts sooner. That little thing, over and over, is where the big change comes. It is one of the ways we really accept a new way to feerzach, instead of struggling to superimpose 'Recovery gimmicks' on top of our 'real' (sick, old) way of living.

Someone asked me on the chat thingy below, if I meant that I tell my wife all about my lusting challenges, or something like that.

When I wrote about not being afraid of my wife seeing the real me, I was not primarily referring to lust issues, falls, or whatever GYE folks like to call it. Rather, I see the greatest area of brokeness in our relationship being in every area of my real life - not mainly in my perverting-sexual stuff.

Regular daily life stuff is surely where the relationship is sickest, actually. Some guys on GYE seem to be saying that since wasting sperm or lusting is soooo evil and bad for us, it behooves to focus on the problem as much as possible - as though all reality revolves around it...they call it 'dilligence'. But life does not revolve around it and the Kotzker said "if we wrestle with mud, we get dirty - even if we 'win' the fight!"

So life does not revolve around lusting - or staying away from lusting. Lusting - and the struggle with it - is a distraction from reality. Ok...so:

Only after being sober a while, does the real subtle twistedness in the rest of our lives start to become clear. And that realization is exactly what will make continued living clean and sober possible!

Just as Chuck C. told us, "You can't think your way into right-living. You can only live your way into right-thinking."

In a very sublte way and over many years and many relationships, I close out the very people who are my very closest relations from my inner life. Until I got sober, I was convinced that I was the best husband and father, and that no Rebbi 'discovered' me and my 'gadlus'. I was a bit of a star-crossed, tragic figure. Nu. But in the porn and with my masturbation adventures, I was always the superstar of the show and it was just fantastic (hence the word, 'fantasy', I guess!).

I may naturally get very, very close to near strangers - new friends in camp, people I meet here and there, a chavrusa once in a while...people with fake names on the other side of a computer on GYE... - and I can really pour my heart and soul to them, all the dirt and beauty, everything. Wow, how close people get here on GYE! But are they really? Close? To a man (is it a man for sure?) who does not even know your name? But is it a coincidence that my parents and siblings and wife and children are kept in the dark about my reality? How could it be a coincidence that the closest are kept out?!

In recovery, the light went on. Long term relations, ARE REAL. So we avoid them with little walls. But the power of fake names and virtual relationships (and porn) is BECAUSE they have some fakeness built in.

Real is not comfortable. It's too consistent, too tog-teglich, too prying, too vulnerable, gets too in the way of my poor self-esteem, and my freedom to be imperfect. My freedom to be ME! So we hide from our closest.

Hmm...think it over.

gonnabekodosh wrote:


Not exactly. The fact that you 'knew' you were going to 'fall' and that it grew until you 'had to'...doesn't that sound suspicious to you that it was cooking. Cooking inside you. You may consider that it is just possible that that the one thing you did not want to do - the unthinkable: opening up to a safe person about it clearly - would have changed something.

You may say the only thing it would have changed is that, now, your would be out of control and ashamed. But I say that the very aversion to opening up, proves that it is part of the answer.

I was mugged a few years ago in a shul parking lot. The huge guy whispered to me, "OK, now, be very, very quiet." He looked desperate that I be quiet.

Now, he figured that I would interpret the advice he was giving me as being for my sake, as in: "If you know what's good for you, be quiet!"

But I knew better. He was telling me what he needed, for his best interest. He showed me his #1 worry and weakest point.

So I hollered at him as loudly as I could just what I thought of him, and that he'd better get away from me right now! (twice, for good measure). He was so shocked, frightened, and confused, that when I left, he didn't follow me.

So what do we learn? That exactly what our sick minds are desperate for us not to do, is probably precisely what we need to do. Exactly what has been happening all along, is exactly what needs to change for there to be any change.

Do we want comfort and self-respect, or do we want change? I gladly choose change for myself. There's no shame in that, I think. Go for it, Rebbi!

'Holding our breath' is a totally different experience than recovery offers. This story illustrates what 'holding breath' is:

The Steipler zt"l was once on guard duty in the Russian or Polish army on Shabbos - and his socks were soaked, so it would be s'chitah for him to walk in them. He decided to stay in place the entire time till Shabbos was over. It was terribly cold and driving him nuts. How could he stay put?!

He told himself that he could withstand the cold for just a minute (or hour?)...and he did! When that minute was over, he told himself that he just proved that he can tolerate the bitter cold for just a minute. So here before him is: a minute! He then waited a(nother) minute. When it was over, he thought: here before me is another one of those minute-thingies. I can definitely hang on just a minute! So he held on, and tolerated the cold for just a minute.

Etc, etc, and the entire night passed! Amazing. Beautiful.

AND THAT IS NOT AT ALL WHAT 'ONE DAY AT A TIME', MEANS! For what the Steipler did was a gimmick. A mind game. And it worked for him, for one night or day...it may work for more than one day - it may even work for a lifetime, who knows? And if I could stay sober that way for a lifetime, I would probably not take it. It would be gehinnom, would keep me good-and-miserable/crazy, and would generally...suck. I would surely eventually run to lust again just to get out of such a stupid (but kosher!) life. Yup.

But: the Steipler could [b]not[/b] have actually held his breath all night using this gimmick. Correct? After a few minutes (about 2-3), a human knows he must breathe, period. So what would you do if someone told you he would give you a million (yep, a million!) bucks if you held your breath for two hours? Would you breath deeply and give it a try?

No, you would surely not. Why suffer for nothing in the end, anyway?

People who are not sincerely giving up lust for today, are just sitting ducks. They are just holding their breath and holding back one day at a time. It does not work. Eventually they will have to breathe. And Hashem knows this. It is a twisting of the meaning of 'one day at a time'.

I know they will say 'vatishlach es amosoh - she sent forth her arm' and all the sweet, encouraging droshos on that. But for an addict, it just does not work here! And in the meantime, the marriage and family are brutalized. Yuch.

[A nasty little digression :pinch:
When B'nei Yisroel (on Rosh chodesh Nissan) went to take the korban Pesach (in four more days!) Hashem writes: "[i]And Bn"Y went and did as Moshe commanded them.[/i]" Rashi brings that they went with the intention, knowing that come the 10th of Nissan, they'd take the goat/lamb, and come the 14th, they'd shecht it, etc. In their hearts, it was a done deal. So from right then, Hashem says He considers it that they already did it all!.

Sadly, the converse is also true. We all know in our hearts that we cannot hold our breath forever. So, as inspired as we may be to hold our breath and resist getting that sweet orgasm/fantasy/porn joy we need...we are full-aware that we are eventually gonna pop. We have not given it up at all, see it as an eventual necessity, and a masculine right. The only guarantee, then, is that we will need to act out when the maximum tolerance of # days clean is reached. So from the truth (Hashem's) perspective, it is as though they already masturbated anyhow. I believe this is true for most ppl (see the exception below).

Therefore, giving it up in our hearts one day at a time is what's useful, and that is the 12 step program way - not resisting 'one day at a time'. Get it?

There is one exception to this idea, and it is an important qualification: There are surely some who do the TapHsiC, or 90-day wall thingy, or counting the days, etc...holding their breath all the way - and it works! Because they did experience abstinence from their prize, after all, and did not die. Amazingly, their penises did not fall off. And abstinence sometimes makes it clear to the person that he does not, in fact, really need it at all!

Surprise!

But I doubt that such things will work for most people in the long run - and certainly not for addicts. For when the day comes that they desire it again as strong as ever, they will be 100% convinced again that they can't live without it, period. Back to square one. But surrender one day at a time really does work for alcoholics and others, all over the world.
End of the nasty little digression. ]

Where were we?

So , having experienced the living hell of being an addict with nowhere to turn, I am much more comfortable understanding 'unmanageability' as a thing that is inside me. As in: I cannot possibly tolerate life this way any more or ever again - but there is no way in hell that I can ever stop living it!. In other words, every addict I know who is sober, describes their problem as being living hell.

One man's hell is not the same as that of another man. Some of us simply have far greater pain tolerance than others do. I figure that is the only difference between the low-bottom drunk and the high-bottom one. If it is repetitive, progressive, and drives you mad to the extent that you are ready to do anything to stop - even though you cannot believe you could let it go and really stop doing it cuz you need it so badly - then you are quite possibly an addict. Sorry.

And not a 'low-level addict'. An addict. I do not accept at all that there are different levels of addiction. I see addiction as you see pregnancy. A woman is no more pregnant in her ninth month than she is a day after conception...she just shoes more. Same exact deal, here.

It seems to me that nobody can really tell anyone else that they are an addict, because it probably will not be accepted to the depth that it needs to be to make any difference at all for the addict. This has been my own experience and what I have seen meeting many people in and out of recovery.

The conclusion that worked for me was the one I had to reach in my own heart.

Many hundreds of silent nights with masturbation, screaming nights visiting schmutz sites and establishments, phone use for lust, and other disappointments washed over me. I even got caught and didn't stop. I was repeatedly shocked at my failure, after such sincere regret and Teshuvah.

A great Rav told me that the answer was more spirituality, though he had no clue that my very spirituality was twisted and only contributed to my very problem! See, my yiddishkeit had developed during the very same years that my habitual use of lust and schmutz developed into my preferred, safest, and only really reliable coping mechanism and "medication" for the pains and fears of normal life. It seemed to work for many years, though it sucked the reality out of me, slowly replacing true devotion to other people and Hashem with self-absorption. And the yeshiva experience itself - being so self-absorbed in ruchniyus self-development for our future lives... only land-locked me further. There came a time that there were no answers left.

Another Rav told me I needed to explain to my wife that she wasn't enough fun for me. Let's not even get me started on that one, though I bought it hook-lin-and-sinker at the time.... (Nu, osah r'tzon ba'aloh, right?)

Two shrinks told me that I needed to learn how to get more healthy pleasures out of life.... more self-centeredness. Another told me it was no big deal.... and he was frum. Yet another told me that 12 steps was silly, cuz "you want to get better, not learn how to live with this problem." He put me on meds and did therapy for 10 months while I got progressively worse, to his amazement. They all helped me and hurt me a bit, in different respects.

Rabbi Twerski told me (over the phone) in 1992-ish that I'd probably not get better unless I did intensive therapy, went to rehab, or joined a 12-step recovery fellowship. I told him "thanks", and knew that there was no way in gehinnom that I'd be able to hide those things from my wife, and I'd better really try harder! Eventually I couldn't even hide my addiction from my wife and even that didn't stop me (though it worked for a few months - If GYE would've been around then, I'd have made it onto the 90-day chart for sure! ;-) It took me five more years to finally rush myself into whatever help I needed, come what may. I saw that I couldn't stop.

And I came to SA and have been sober since, because Hashem obviously loves me and has the power to help me. But most importantly, I let Him. And I needed a lot of help to learn how to do that, and got it.

So, no. I don't believe anyone can determine for another that they are an addict. In my case the experts were right, but it did no good. As the gemara explains out of the posuk in mishlei, "taychas g'orah b'leiv meivin - meyhakos k'sil meyah". It's gotta come from in my own heart if it'll do any good - a k'sil like me just won't really believe it, until I become a meivin in my own heart.

Besides all that, I find it hard to believe that most of us are smart enough to know if someone is an addict or not. Usually it's trial and error. The only, really sad question we need to ask ourselves is now much evidence do we want? I personally know folks who have been arrested for (blatant) sexual misconduct and still came away from it basically blaming the cops for entrapment, rather than admitting that they have a serious problem.

Along the same vein, I know talmidei chachomim who have been oiver on gilui arayos, schmutz, masturbation, you name it, habitually many times and went for years hiding it (and some still are). And they say they were not hiding it because they want to be able to keep doing it, but because they honestly believe that: "eventually I'll beat this, I know it! Hashem's just got to help me out here! So why rock the boat in the meantime and ruin a great marriage and screw up my children with divorce? I'm trying. I'll do something about it!".

Gevalt. A great marriage? Screw up the children? "I'll beat this"? Who suffers in the mean time while these and many other hundreds of yidden like them are "trying something"? I wonder who has the right to encourage them to stick with the old-fashioned way and learn mussar harder, while the family crashes and burns? What does it do to a 14 year old yeshiva boy to see his father who taught him how to leig t'fillin last year, carted away by police for soliciting a minor for sex in a chatroom (like more than one father I know), or get divorced because of a destroyed marriage after years of secret porn (and what it leads to) driving the parents apart (like other fathers I know)? What wife deserves this?

OK my rant is over, and it's too long to read, anyhow. I love you (even if you fell asleep already!) and am just sharing one little guys experience and opinion.

I have heard remonstrations (look it up, it's really a word) just like this from many folks, many times.

Your sincerity is not in question. All I come to say is that I do not know personally of anyone who was able to"defeat this giant", as you called it, on their own.

If you would be alone c"v in a dark alley and accosted by a few big thugs with knives, would your reaction be, "hmmm, I trust that Hashem will give me the strength to beat this crowd (like Bruce Lee in the movies), and I'll be OK"? I think most of us would assess the situation rather quickly, realize we have no chance, and start screaming for help. Perhaps you believe it's best to at least 'go down swinging'.

Well, in this problem, there is no 'going down swinging'. It gets ugly in a hurry, and gets uglier still, and remains ugly, spoiling it for those around us, r"l.

So, scream for help. Consider giving up the fight with this giant if you believe that it's really too big for you. SA helped me do just that, and helped me learn how to actually depend on Hashem rather than just talking or acting as though I put it in Hashem's hands, while really depending on myself. Anyone can say they depend on Hashem. But for me, the only way to eventually truly come to do it, was (and still is) through admitting utter personal defeat. It seems I am just too screwed up to help Him take care of me, and I need to get the heck out of His way basically.

Nu. It's really a wonderful derech avodah, and life is better for my wife, who likes me a lot, too.