rebdovid wrote on 22 Nov 2011 20:38:
If you truly believe that you are like a drug addict, then what would you say to a drug addict who begged you to help him quit?

Would you say "hang on for five more minutes - if you can do that, then you can hang on for five more!"? Or would you say that he cannot sit on his behind and wait till he plotzes, but that he needs to do something about it. Something different, cuz waiting and fighting it till you can't any more is exactly what he has been doing for ten or fifteen years already!

What are you doing that is actually an action for your recovery from this crazy compulsive behavior? Would that be 'good enough' in your opinion for a drug addict, or not?

Hatzlocha, chaveri!!

Dov, I read the Big Book and 'the 12 and 12' on the 3rd step. I was also on the call this morning but couldn't talk because I was with other people... I have a difficulty with step 3 when trying to put it into action, perhaps you can help: The third step says: "We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him". Doing Hashem's will 24/7 is a really really high madreiga.  As a frum Jew in a very Yeshivish affiliation of Judaism, this means learning every spare minute, no bitul zman, learning halahcha, mussar etc.  davening 3 times a day with a minyan, from brochos all the way through to the end, etc.  My point is, that right now, I do none of those things, I can hardly get up for shachris, and to all of a sudden do G-d's will 24/7 with the way I understand G-d's will to be, is kind of impossible. So I'm stuck with not doing G-d's will. I hope you get my point.

Dov Responds:

My pride takes all those motivational 'mechuyav shmuessin' and beats me over the head with shame! Shame - not the Torah - tells me that it's either perfection, or I am a rasha. That sounds extreme, but hey - that is what is really going on inside many of us. It is part of the typical addict tendency: all is either black or white. 

If you have any shaychus to kiruv, you'd never tell a ba'al teshuvah that there is no room for imperfection in this religion, would you? So why can't we understand our own development in the same way? Why do we bash ourselves? I think it is a combination of being typical perfectionist addicts - and because we grow up in yeshivah hearing well-meaning shmuessen that tell us we need to tow the party line and live up to a standard of greatness, at all costs. Chumrah and halocha are blurred, for a standard must be upheld. And they are right, of course, for there is a place for that in a growing person. Chumrah can become more precious than halocha itself (see B'nei Yisoschar in a few places). But that just doesn't work very well for the addict. He just doesn't shtim. He is busy with the K'tzos, the Reishis Chochma... and with sex videos, and lusting his brains out. He may call his involvement with the latter, "struggling" not "using" or "being occupied with" them. That makes the stirah tolerable. Somehow his big, very overworked brain strikes a deal - a detente - between the two lives he lives. Eventually, though, the game must end when it no longer works. 

Recovery was the (unpleasant) time for me to finally stop running and begin choosing between:

1 - absolutely insisting upon being the man I wanted to be (perfectly frum and naturally respected in the popular yeshivish environment, adored by Hashem, my fellows and my wife in every respect, and powerful) - and masturbating (cuz they apparently inexorably go together)

vs.

2 - accepting my limitations and being the man G-d (the real One, Who is smart, realistic, loving, and patient) wants me to be - and sober!

Choosing #2 means I will need to give up the madness of living a double life without any real intellectual resolution to all my years of struggling to understand why I do this mishega'as. Giving up all my research?!!

But I lost, no? That's step 1. So it's time for shlach al Hashem y'hov'cha and let Hashem.

And that huge job requires me to learn how to be honest with people and with my very own G-d. That is where the 'steps' come in. It also means trying to be open to learning His Will for me and asking for His help to do it imperfectly. Cuz I will always do every mitzvah imperfectly. Even the mitzvah of emunah! I am a man, not a sefer. And a man of G-d is always ready to learn and change, and grow, with his Best Friend's help.

The third step helped me accept that G-d was really interested in me, no matter what I have done - even more than he is interested in the Shulchan Aruch. Yup. The Torah - His Will and Way of Life - is for me. He gave it to me to use it and grow close to Him, not to destroy me. And it is a process. And he knows that. The sefer doesn't, and neither do some learned yidden.

Maturity - growing up emotionally and spiritually - is the main fruit of my Program, besides sobriety. Grown up yidden understand that when they wrote in Pirkei Avos, "never see yourself as a Rasha" they were even talking to Tannaim! Even they were not perfect. Even they could be subject to the temptation to fall into black-and-white thinking and look at themselves as resho'im, c"v, just because of a davar meguneh in their character or over a personal failing. Just because we are not very good in our yir'as Shomayim doesn't take away our beauty in Chesed. Just because we are resentful, fearful, prideful, and lazy, does not mean we are not getting better - and possibly on the very best path of avodas Hashem possible for us (Rav Dessler talks about the nekudas hab'chirah - but we often have too much pride to apply it to ourselves, and only apply it to others!). We can be as close to being tzaddikim as we can be right now, even though yennem is doing so much more. We need to appreciate that in ourselves, and know that Hashem is on our side! (Rav Tzvi-Meyer Zilberberg Shlit"a talks about this n'kudah very often, davka in our imperfection.)

But to us, that is usually not nearly good enough. We say we accept our imperfection, but in our hearts - where the truth is - we do not. We do not allow ourselves any greyness, the room to be imperfectly doing His Will, even though we are just humans - and addicts yet! I feel that our gayva is really quite shocking. We believe b'emunah sh'leimah that Hashem expects us to suddenly be getting to shacharis every day, on time, and with proper kavonoh, this week. We do feel that.

It's nutty. And the Torah is not nutty. So what's sanity? We reach for it using the 3rd step decision.

... may Hashem protect you from righteous finger-shakers, personal criticism and from goofy chizzuk to 'keep fighting for the glory of beating the YH!'

Hey, taking that step forward is awesome!

But for SSBT's point, I will highly recommend starting a regular relationship on the phone with at least one other sincere guy who is as stupid as I am when it comes to porn and masturbation. Lots of us qualify here on GYE. I know many who have such relationships that make all the difference for them. It's relatively painless, makes the fact that we are doing something about our problem all the more real to us, and always helps.

It is amazing what that'll do for you - it truly is a game-changer. Of course, our resistance to taking that step is proof of the it's power as a 'medicine'. We are often shocked to learn that our overwhelming desire for privacy is actually the most powerful tool to protect our ability to keep using our dirty little secret friend and all the imaginary starlets that come with it.

Go for it. Pischu li pesach kechudo shel machat - just start that little phone call with a real voice of a real recovering person on the other end, and see what happens.

Chatting misses the point completely, unless it to create a more nearly real relationship (like on the phone or in person). Why do you think sex-talk is so incredibly popular in chatrooms? It's cuz we are still fake and using a fake (therefore very imaginative and not shameful at all cuz it can be fake) persona. More fakery, we don't need.

No breaking out of comfort zones, no gain.

gibbor120 wrote on 28 Nov 2011 15:17:

I write that in order to point out that a frum guy who considers himself normally a rather holy person - but with a porn problem, is actually playing a little game. He is looking up to and even worshipping people that he'd probably never even want to talk to, feeling they are the lowest of the low. Now, I do not consider them low personally. They are trying to make a living and misguided, I believe. But that's not the point here.

How many guys have I met who want to play the game of looking down on these nudes or badly dressed women - and yet put them on a high pedestal, valuing them enough to be l'hutim achareihem? Many. I played that game for years. It is a game that perpetuates the addiction. It is one example of kol haposeil bemumo poseil, looking at the nudes as low and disgusting people - while still using them with such temidus and mesiras nefesh. Their images are precious to us! That's why we want them so much! So, struggling not to stare at them in the street, while saying they are 'disgusting' to me is a lie and a silly game. And ultimately, it allows people to keep staring at them and using them. It's very sad. I want people to be sopber, and that is the only reason I am pointing this out. 

I am not judging - hey, I know and tell anyone in recovery that I am a recovering pervert. That I cannot do it without a daily reprieve from none other than G-d Himself - cuz I do not have the madreigo/moral fortitude/yir'as Shomayim to resist temptations, and particularly for sex. I have no superiority at all over you or anyone here, even over a guy who is still masturabting daily. That could be me - and should be, by all rights, as far as I can tell.

Here, I am only hoping to rip the hypocritical cover off the game some good guys are playing. My cover is already ripped off today, I hope.

startingover13 wrote on 29 Nov 2011 02:45:

Gevalt. You may be suffering from what I and others here and everywhere suffer from, at times:

1- the belief that the motto "one day at a time" is smart, sweet, nice, and encouraging - but not really reality. That is is a gimmick.

That's too bad. See, there is no looong road ahead. There is only today. As long as we smile wryly when we hear that, and pretend to agree to just focus on today - just cuz it makes things easier - we still don't get it. Gimmicks do not make for a new life. There are no gimmicks in this business.
Only confrontation with reality.

and perhaps also,

2- that belief that "distracting myself from desires is what it's all about."

Too bad. That derech is truly fine for some people, many of them ba'alei madreigoh and serious b'nei Torah. But for me and many other folks with chronic lust problems, it means it's all still all about me, me, me. King baby still rules the day. And sof davar, it doesn't work. Cuz when I feel like being really good (cuz deveikus feels great!), I'll serve myself up some great 'avodas Hashem' experience - and when I don't feel so good, I'll take a sweet serving of porn.

And that's exactly what we do.

I know people like to imagine that we are far more l'shem Shomayim than that, but methinks we overestimate ourselves...especially we of the predictably masturbating crowd. "Vayigbah libi b'darkei Hashem" is not an excuse for sticking our heads in the sand...

Well, that path of salvation - fully relying on the game of distraction to prove I am doing something about my problem - is probably 100% fine for most frum yidden out there - but not to addicts. It's too little, too late.

Perhaps it's a question of focus. For an addict, focusing on being a ben aliyah seems to be just plain stupid - for the simple reason that we'd be putting the cart before the horse (as usual). But there we go again, imagining that hechereh madreigos is what we really need! Ignoring the faoundation is just too tempting and too easy. No bedrock of true G-d-awareness, a wish-washy honesty (that has been tolerating being two-faced for years!) at best, and immaturity galore? No problem! "I'm busy crying real tears of d'veikus in the middle of L'cho Dodi right now, so please leave me alone!" That's too easy. Before we know it we are back in the toilet....

Rather, living with Hashem is never defined by 'being good'. Being good results from it or helps lead us to it - but it is not it, itself. It happens in the mind, where nobody can see. As they say in AA about recovery, "it's an inside job."

So it's a paradox. On one hand there is no way to think ourselves into right living - we can only live ourselves into right thinking. But the actual recovery is a state of mind. Of surrender to G-d by way of surrender to the truth, one little step at a time.

It's about being a little more real, a little more honest, and a little more focused on Him than on myself. Sounds like a madreigah, but it's not. Plenty of goyim do it - most of the sober drunks and drug addicts (and sex addicts) out there eventually get it to some degree, and that's how they stay sober for the rest of their lives. It's G-d who does it, not them. But simultaneously, "ein hadovor tolui ella bee!" I am the only one who can surrender to Hashem and let Him in to take care of me. And I can't learn how to do it by myself. I needed to learn how from other drunks on recovery, and still do. I forget so, so easily.

And frum Jews have a harder time than most in doing this. We lust to understand it, to retain some mental control, to not seem idiots - even neged Hashem. Of course, as any of us will agree, porn and masturbation make total idiots of us all. Nu. So it bleibs a kashya.  :

And the dumb farmboys surely have it easier. Nebach for them...?

Some 'madreigo', huh?

May Hashem bless us all with protection from all mistakes and with at least a tiny bit of joy in the truth, no matter how it looks or feels.

The battle lines must, must, must be drawn back. Further and further back every day. It takes patience, but really has gotta happen.

I am not one for struggling at all, and feel it is not what recovery is about. But if I must struggle (and I sometimes do, indeed!), then I need to struggle with the abizrayas rather than the arayos. For example, if lusting is what I see as the problem I am concerned about, then that means that touching myself in a sexual way is no longer an issue for me - I do not even wonder of struggle with it. If looking at myself or at my privates is my concern, then I will not be even thinking about touching myself ina sexual way. If concern for others is what I am really trying to do, then using their images by staring at them and undressing them with my eyes is not a thing I will be struggling with as much...etc., etc.

If I struggle with the same thing that is the sign of not being in recovery. My battle lines either draw back, or I have not really accepted that anything is out of bounds for me, yet. That means I still believe that I can afford to use it, cuz I really still think I can control and enjoy it. And that is stupid (besides being not true).

If I cannot be clear about exactly what my uncontrollable sick behavior habits are, then I will never even get close to this.

And if I cannot admit them to another safe person, then chances are that I have not really admitted them to myself yet, either.

Blah, blah, blah....

Yup.

Wow, the things you wrote which hit me the hardest:

aamallen wrote on 01 Dec 2011 16:29:


My what beauty. You are such a fortunate mentch! What you write is full of diamonds far more beautiful to me than any mussar shmooze could be. This is real experience rather than just well-meaning. Y'karah hee mipninim.

My tefillah for you, chaver, is that you continue to grow in the things you have been given as gifts through your bitter experience thus far. If you use this gift as a 'bank account',c"v, you can draw from it for some time safely....but it will eventually run out.

If there is any value at all to me remembering that I am an addict even though I be clean, it is that accepting that allows me to accept that I really need to keep swimming in the things that got me sober in the first place: honesty, openness, and willingness. Getting caught helps us get willing, open, and honest. Staying in recovery-living allows us to stay willing, open, and honest. I hope we never again need the humiliation in order to choose humility.

I believe we deserve to live life as it was meant to be lived, too!!

You are describing Keep On Trucking, I think.

I have accepted for many years that one of the worst michsholim to staying clean is the guilt and going nuts over messing up a bit - and even over just seeing a schmutzy woman in the street or having a lust desire. What gayvoh it takes for me to be so stupid to expect anything near perfection for myself! What an insult to Hashem is it for me to assume that he is c"v oblivious enough to expect me not to have lust desires, give my attention to half-naked women that I pass in the street, and screw up a bit once in a while! Hashem is very, very smart.

He knows I am a guy who tends to porn my brains out and masturbate. That it is ingrained in me and that every day that I am free of it is a miracle and wonderful thing.

Sadly, all it takes is for a real good frum guy (with a masturbation habit) to go berserk inside over having seen a very pretty woman or one dressed half-naked, to get all focused on it and eventually guarantee that he'll need to resort to some sex with self.

Add to that a little broken 'kedusha' and 'tahara' fantasy, and you have a recipe for unbearable guilt that will keep the poor guy focused on his lust for hours and days.

Add to that shame, and you have a guy who can't even bring himself to admit it - being such a shanda! - and will not let it go!

And paradoxically, it is absolutely clear that the first drink is the one that always got me in the toilet, not the drink I took that brought me to orgasm! So that first drink is the one I need to avoid. The guys who are always struggling (and continuously 'falling' as a result hear this and get even worse, because they become convinced that super-vigilance is the power by which they will finally smash this yetzer hora! Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

As you point out so simply, your main inner hanhogah with respect to lust is 1- ignoring it and 2- not getting angry at yourself for noticing she's pretty!

It makes perfect sense to me.....maybe you should really start worrying, now?! 

Exactly my experience, and it has been getting better and better, each year a deeper appreciation for Torah and Chassidus (my chosen path, though not a chosid [yet]). And the emess of recovery has opened up sifrei Emess to me, b"H. My shrinking duplicity is allowing growth of all the Emess in my life. And it is slowly recreating all the relationships in my life. Our house has transformed, the way I feerzoch with the wife and kids is transformed...where is this leading? Life is spontaneous now, interesting, and actually beautiful.

Before, it was the same predictable crap (excuse me), with the same, predictable dang (excuse me) cycle and the same predictable porn and 'adventures'. My existence was shifting from one crisis to another - here and inner crisis, there and chitzoni one. The only really exciting part of living was all the new and interesting ways I'd get in trouble for what I was doing ! Aside from the anxiety, life out of recovery is just boring. In fact, having fun and being anxious were hard for me to tease apart for the first few years sober.

This is what some addicts mean when they say that "the worst day I have sober is better then the best day I could have being drunk". It's not the drinking that is the problem, but the stupid thinking that feels so natural. It always kept me apart from real faith in G-d and connection with others.

It took a year or two for me to start learning that I really can approach Hashem as neither a grovelling 'rosho posheya', nor as a high-flying 'm'vutal liRtzono' - but as 'just me'. For reasons only known to Him, we - as we are right this second - are good enough to have a relationship with Him! We all are, though most of us really don't believe that, and deep down inside we tend to only believe that we are really good for having a relationship with nudes and porn, and stuff like that. No wonder we kept trying that over and over....but you and I are past that today. Boruch Hashem!!

I pray you (we) keep taking it just one day at a time.

Your thinking is exactly how you ended up this screwed up. It is not your friend. You think too much. Let it go. Arguing is not the derech. I do the same thing. So I need to be like Chushim ben Dan. Do you know how he responded to his uncle Eisav at m'oras hamachpeilah?

He was deaf.

So while the other Shivtei Kah (all great tzadddikim, greater in many ways than Rav Elyashiv and the Chofetz Chayim) were standing around and "dealing" with Eisav and his arguments in a mature and sensible way....Chushim who could not hear, saw it all for what it was: nothing but more BS from a rosho.

He took up his weapon and knocked Eisav's head clean off.

Problem eliminated.

The only humble way to deal with it.

If you are an addict like me, then most arguments (especially the ones in our heads) do not need to be won and most problems do not need to be worked out. Surrendr is the way. Letting go and leaving such discussions to those more qualified than me, is what I need to do.

It takes some humility rather than pride, and some ability to tolerate a touch of discomfort rather than being a baby. But hey, I can use some exercising of those good muscles as much as anyone does!

last try(hope) wrote on 07 Dec 2011 22:54:


1- You certainly are afraid, a bunch. So am I and everybody else. And only by continuing to move through that fear (as your efforts here show you are starting to!) do we get anywhere, it seems. And we need to keep moving through our fears if we are to keep growing. Hoping you continue to get support and learn how to use Hashem and how to use people. Virtual is very nice and may be enough for some, but you may discover that you need some real relationships with real people - you know, the kind you do not know only by a fake name like "Nisayon613", etc...

The real relationship you have with your wife is obviously not working for you as a recovery tool (it rarely works for us, so don't feel bad!). It sounds like the time to grow some real, real relationships for your recovery from this obsession and problem. Let her be, don't explain it to her - just grow out of your obsession and become a better husband. You can do that in many more ways than watching movies with her. Walks are nice. So is listening a lot. So is washing dishes, coming home on time, and being real good friends with her.

Not looking at schmutz is just the startof life as it should be - it does not even come close to defining it. Get me?

Go for it.

2- Yeah, I know, those 'pesky' women who don't seem to realize they are dressed inappropriately, and do not seem to realize how powerful they are....!! Really? Is this the truth about what we think of them?

I think not.

You are saying they are endowed with power, right? They have an effect on you. You see them as a danger to you. But they are not sitting on you, are they? You are the one looking at (and up to) them, right?

Face it, when we drool after them - or desire to, but struggle not to - we truly harbor a worship of these people. Voluptious means powerful, to us. Face it. It's a pity, it may be seen as "ossur", but that is actually irrelevant. We see them as powerful people - otherwise, they would not vex us so. 

Blaming it on "the yetzer hora" is just childish and dishonest. Only once we accept our tendency for what it is - the giving away of great power to people with just the right image - are we aware of what our problem actually is.  And as Sun tzu said: "know your enemy"...it helps to know your real problem, if you want to know what to do about it. Of course, further study to try and beat it - the decades long proccupation of many a good frum sex and lust addict - is fruitless. We all know that one, right? Learning teshuvos on what's really assur and really mutar, doing 'teshuvah', tikkun keri...all eventually levatolah (pun intended).

In that vein, I'd like to suggest that you may be making a mistake when you say


Of course Alexeliezer is 100% right: without shmiras einayim, we will get nowhere! But it is not your eyes that are your main problem. The core of the issue is that we want to see them and connect with them so badly! As long as we still hang onto our long-standing and deep-seated faith that they are powerful (because they have the right, perfect, beautiful image), we will be toast.

Recovery is not about knowledge of the truth, but only about acceptance of the truth - and then, the acceptance of new ideas. This is what AA refers to in Ch.5: "we tried to hold onto our old ideas, but the resut was nil...till we were ready to let go absolutely."

These very things I am referring to are some of those ideas we so badly want to hold onto. First, we want to use fantasy and sex to get what we believe we need. Then, we struggle with it, but though we really wish we'd stay stop masturbating and using porn and fantasy - we still hold onto our faith, believing as we do, and still see women (and sex) as we always have. Unfortunately, our first goal is always to change or surrender as little as possible. I see this in myself all the time. This will not work, at all. It is "white-knuckling". My 'philosophical comfort' is so precious...and talk is cheap: as long as the new ideas remain in theory, all is OK - we can say we agree with anything. And this is where much of our yiddishkeit is laying (or lying!). As soon as it means lemayseh giving something up or changing a behavior and to act as we believe...look out! Gevalt. Truth is chosamo shel HKB"H, no matter how ugly it may be.

As for me, I cannot survive unless I 1- see and accept the unvarnished truth about me (steps 1,2,4,5, and 8), for that makes me become willing to: 2- open my mind to discover new truths about me and new options (steps 3, 4 and 5 [again], 6, 7, 10, and 11) and then to 3- humbly beg for G-d's help to live by it just for today and  4- take simple, simple, simple actions to accept His love, His power, and His help (steps 5 and 7 [again], 9, 10,11 and 12).

And though it is truly impossible for me to succeed living by it, there is a real G-d in the world, as the Rebbe R' Elimelech used to like reminding (frum) people. And with a real miracle, one day at a time, I can....and do live by it. Imperfectly, but here I am. Life has never been better. Just like so many other hopeless addicts do all around the world(and 95% of them are goyim, so it's clearly not on the condition that we be tzaddikim!).

Maybe it comes as a chiddush to us that these pesky women are not so pesky after all. That they are dragging themselves to work as we do: to make a living, put food on the table, and to just 'get by' - and not to be sex goddesses, at all? Maybe they are as frail and troubled as everyone else and not really powerful, at all? Maybe Hashem loves them as deeply and meaningfully as He loves us? Hmmmm, that's new...

I needed to hear all that, thanks.

Oooh, one more thing regarding all these deep changes in us:

Some start to occur rather quickly and suddenly, while some take many months, sometimes years to really progress. As long as we stay sober for today while we grow, one day at a time, and exercise patience for G-d....life will change to the better and better.

The 90-day conversion idea might be true for the breaking of a habit. But that is a far cry from any real change. Change is on the inside, not the outslde, and ho'odom nif'al achar p'ulosav is not on our timetable, but on His.