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TOPIC: Dov Quotes 55495 Views

Re: Dov "Quotes" 25 Jan 2012 20:22 #131727

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What Language Does Your Body Understand? (from daily dose)

The differences between the average sweet yid who occasionally looks at porn and masturbates when he wants to (and then regrets it), and the sweet suffering yid who is an addict, is that the addict repetitively uses the schmutz, is obsessed with it, and masturbates even when he doesn't really want to - because he really believes that he needs to. Of course he regrets it - but the fact that he finds himself doing it over and over proves to him that somewhere inside he really believes that he needs the lust pleasure exactly as everyone else needs food - that he cannot live without it. And that is pretty scary. He is truly stuck. Tell him "you can stop for a day!" (misusing "One day at a time"), and he dutifully agrees - "yeah, I can fast for a day, too!"... But eventually he'll have to 'eat', and he knows it. Tell him all day long about his Neshama and his higher calling - and he'll believe you! But he also believes something else - because his body tells him it is so.

And don't we all tend to believe our bodies? Don't we feel quite certain that whatever it is telling us is probably the truth? When your body tells you clearly "I am falling down, right now!" - are you perfectly calm and relaxed, or do you feel an intense rush no matter what your eyes tell you about reality? Ever seen a person having a vertigo attack? They grab things desperately. Does your mind race, struggling to retain control of the situation? What's the big deal? You are safely strapped into the roller-coaster!

Not quite. True, some people do relax and enjoy the ride - yet others cannot. Tell them it is safe and show them dozens of safe, joyous riders... to no avail. "My very gut tells me I'll die and I just can't do it. I am terrified of heights!" Just try to convince a person like that to enjoy themselves on "The Cyclone".... Well staying sober from lust is exactly, exactly the same. The addict's body speaks loudly and clearly to his heart and says, "I need it".

So how do you talk to a body? Answer: with pain. And that gets us 'ready' to believe in something else, like the Sweet, Living G-d who is our Eternal (and Only) Best Friend. But it is not so easy. It is so convenient for us to 'blame the YH' - just more silly finger-pointing, as far as I am concerned. I have seen many get 'truly religious' and wonder why it doesn't work five months later when they are back in the dead end, for the fifth time. This issue alone is why I came to GYE. No wonder so many GYE guys have shared that beneath all their acting out and valiant fighting against the YH they discover that they have 'emunah problems'. Hey, we all have emunah problems - but nothing inflames our latent doubts like reaching for the same religious solution as always and thinking that we were really ready to allow Hashem to help us - and then He didn't. Translate 'emunah problems'= 'blaming G-d for my failures'. Nu, it's not much different from 'blaming the YH', no? Is this truly the safer way for a yid? I think not.

The 12 steps are about taking responsibility for our limitations and getting the help we need. They are about seeing our faults - this is the Derech Eretz that is kodmah laTorah. It is so much less about correctly understanding Hashem and His Ways - and so much more about admitting the whole truth about ourselves. Before mussar and knowledge of my true nature (my Neshama) can avail me much in recovery and living, I need sobriety and sanity. I need to begin to truly reject the lust addict's false self-concept: I need to begin to abandon the idea that I need sex and lust today and that it is my 'eternal best friend' - even as it messes up my very life! That is why sobriety is so vitally important. It is the only way I have a shot at truly rejecting the falsehood that is part of me.

The poor frum fellow who says that he 'rejects his sick thinking completely' and that he 'lets go of the addiction' - and is still masturbating when the going gets really tough... well, lo sereid b'ni imochem. I suspect that he is essentially innocent - that he probably still really believes that he needs it. His very body tells him so. And when the body overcomes the brain (which it generally does) I wonder what baggage he will need to jettison to lighten his horrifying load of crushing guilt and doubt? I don't wish that pain on anybody. On the other hand, once I got sober and actually took the steps and started to use them faithfully, I believe that I slowly started to become ready to see the latent potential within myself that the Torah and Mussar talk about. It took some time for me, as I have shared before, but everybody is different.

Last Edit: 25 Jan 2012 20:25 by .

Re: Dov "Quotes" 26 Jan 2012 12:19 #131789

TehillimZugger OFFLINE Platinum Boarder לבד הנשמה הטהורה Posts: 2446 Karma: 34	wow!
	?דער באשעפער לאווט מיך אייביג. וויפיל לאוו איך עהם My Creator loves me at all times. How great is my love for him? Last Edit: by .

Re: Dov "Quotes" 26 Jan 2012 17:44 #131822

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Should I Tell My Parents?

dov wrote on 26 Jan 2012 14:10:

Did I ever say he must tell his parents? I don't think so. Let me know if I did, please. I have no time right now to plow through the posts above and check, but can't imagine I'd ever say that. And no, he certainly does not have to tell his parents.

I do believe, however, that his making a huge deal about rejection and shame if he would tell his parents, is just not a accurate. If his parents love him, at all, and are not very screwed up in the head, they will sympathize. Even if they are dissapointed, any half-normal parent will be concerned and try to help their child in any way possible. That is not rejection, not disowning, and not a shame. It is normal parent-child relations. And though it may be hard for him to imagine what it is like to have kids, I'd ask him to decide what he would like: if his son had a masturbation and porn problem, would he want the boy to open up to him, or to run in fear of shame and horror and instead keep it a secret and 'keep fighting'? Again - not a reason to tell! - but just something to think about. Furthemore, a father (or mother) who has a porn, masturbation, or sex problem will often only open up about their own garbage as a result of theor child opening up about it! I have seen this happen.

The only point I was trying to share with him before was that opening up to safe understanding people is key in making any real change, at all. Somebody! Hiding it from his parents is really just a way to hide it from everyone - and opening up about it here while hiding behind a username, is not really opening up enough, if he has such shame fantasies. The fact that he is making a big deal about 'to tell or not to tell?' demonstrates that he feels in himself that he needs to tell somebody - and 'telling' on this virtual forum is just 'virtual telling' - and he feels that. That is what my heart tells me here. Sorry if I am way off..again.

Hey. Fake change we all have plenty experience with, right? I know I do! Maybe he feels the need for real change, and instinctively knows that it will only, only come from real connections. The porn is all about fake connections - fantasy connections. Gevalt. This is so key to me in my own recovery. So I share it here and everywhere.

Hiding and lying is key in keeping on doing everything we have always been doing, and got us in this mess in the first place.

Make any sense at all?

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Re: Dov "Quotes" 26 Jan 2012 18:58 #131829

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What Does POWERLESS Mean?

dov wrote on 26 Jan 2012 18:49:

No, I feel this is not what 'powerless' means, at all. It has nothing whatsoever to do with 'ilmolei ozro, eino yachol lo' and is not the flipside of 'hakol bidei Shomayim chutz miyir'as Shomayim', at all.

Whether I am in control or not is a simple fact: if I cannot stop having sex with myself (most folks call that 'masturbation') or with anyone other than my wife, or if I am repeatedly drawn to porning out or following women, exposing myself to others, or staring in windows (voyeurism)...then I am not truly in control. As they say in dog training, "if your dog has not yet learned to come to you when called, then you do not yet have a dog (for you will lose him)".

It's simple, very simple. If a guy is 'against' masturbation (cuz it's ossur) and yet is still doing it regularly or semiregularly and thereby taking risks with his family life or job by acting out his lust, then he is not in control.

True, if he has not yet tried to stop, then he may indeed have the power to remain free of the habit - then let him try! Please! I am serious, not poking fun.

But most of us here are frummies and have been trying for years! OK, so some may not have really tried, yet. So then let them!

But in the end, those who keep staying clean for a week, a month, and always plotz...keep finding themselves back in the hole again, needing it so badly that they finally explode and 'give into it' just so they will not have to keep fighting it....are probably unable to stop. It is not a hashkofah issue, but a simple observable fact.

In early recovery we usually discover to our dismay that we really do not want to quit, and that no matter how many times we cried underwater in the mikvah after tikkun Klali, we are actually terrified about the prospect of never using that sweet, warm, loving porn and sex with self ever again. But that is another layer of self-honesty that comes after finally admitting that I have been beaten. Period. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with the YH. It is coincidentally an addiction that uses a natural taivoh.

And the second indispensible admission after our powerlessness, is the admission that tomorrow actually does not exist yet. It is not a hashkofah matter, either! It is just a simple, observable fact. Only today, is actually here. So we cannot give up anything for the rest of our lives, for the rest of the year, or even for the rest of the week! All we really have to deal with is today. Goyim are the same, everyone is the same in this. And 'scheduling' for tomorrow is today's job, so please do not get confused about that trick.

And Hashem (who is very, very smart) asks us only for today's avodah, when he says the word "hayom" many times in the Torah. Not because addiction and recovery have anything to do with being good or frum - they do not. They are before being good, and before being frum - they are Derech Eretz that is Kodmah laTorah. Or, "sanity", as the 12 steps refer to it. Active perverts cannot be ovdei Hashem, period, any more than shoteh's can. Sure, they can pretend to be...lots do - so? But they really only have the 'inner keys', not the 'outer keys'. The P'ri is inaccessible if you do not deal with the Shomer laP'ri first. They are not even in the room yet!

Does this make sense?

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Re: Dov "Quotes" 27 Jan 2012 15:31 #131908

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The Answers Rabbonim Give Us

chaimyakov wrote on 27 Jan 2012 02:51:

dov wrote on 24 Jan 2012 17:44:

I wish people would ask the shaila: "dear rabbi, how do I stop masturbating so much?"

Of course, as long as asking the question in person is off limits, the problem is not serious enough, so the answer will not be taken seriously enough. It can't. Sorry, but this boils down to Capt. Kirk again....

i did ask this question in person no less than 4 times to 4 different Rabbanim.
The answers i got in order were
1) You need to get married
2) You need to get rid of the internet
3) You need to talk to your Rav about this
4) You probably won't be able to stop
Anybody who wants to know why none of the answers above work, let me know and i will gladly elaborate.
Guard if you are reading this, Has any effort been made in educating Rabbanim about our addiction so maybe they can give us some answers that work? i can't believe i am the only person who ever asked and got such "useful" answers.
Hatzlacha in all things GOOD.
chaimyakov

Dov in response...

dov wrote on 27 Jan 2012 03:38:

The answers I got in person were:

1- you really need to learn Tanya (guess who told me that); (~1988)

2- it's not really that bad, others guys do this, too (~1986)

3- you need to explain to your wife to have more and more varied sex with you (from an older chassidish rov); (~1990)

4- you probably need to get to a shrink fast or to a group of men in therapy (~1991)

5- you are seriously ill and need professional help right now (~1995)

Of course, as things got worse as the years went on and I got more desperate for the help - but always hiding behind 'religious' or 'marriage' concerns - I was progressively open about what I really do when I act out. Also, my problem started off as sex with myself (masturbation) and porn in late 80s and early 90's and quickly progressed to much worse stuff after i got married. Much worse. Marriage proved to me that sex with my wife could not possibly solve my problem and I became frantic. More sexual obsession and acting out...with honest, temimusdikeh desperation.

Boruch Hashem for the last two men, especially for the last one. Not that I followed his advice of course!...but about two years later I was ready, and got help by really spilling all the beans in detail to a good shrink (who was a recovering alkie herself), and she gave me a card with an SA contact guy. He became my sponsor and has been it ever since, b"H. That saved my life and continues to be the reason I am still alive today and have a great (but not perfect marriage, family, and avodas Hashem (life).

My wife has told me that the day I got sober was by far a better day in her lifetime than the day we got married. And she does not mean it as an insult. (If she did, it would be pretty funny, but she didn't....)

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Re: Dov "Quotes" 27 Jan 2012 19:00 #131922

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Wet Dreams

dov wrote on 27 Jan 2012 18:38:

Ugh, I hate wet dreams and do not wish them on you of course, and really sympathize with you. But here is what I have been given on that:

I think it is a pretty much just silly pride for me to ever really buy the belief that a guy like me - no matter how much recovery work i ever do - really deserves to sleep free of wet dreams. I have viewed and used enough porn and fantasy and acted out plenty. I haven't the power - nor the responsibility - to get totally rid of the stash in my brain! I do not access it - but it is there, I guess, and that is OK! I have found that I can be sober (and often even happy) anyway! It is truly a brocha that I have not had a wet dream in something over ten years, I think...through no credit to me, of course.

When I feel vulnerable to one, I realize that the fear of it is the strongest cause of a wet dream that there can ever be (as is written in s'forim hk'), so I avoid saying cool segulos and complex incantations c"v...that stuff feels like plain old avodah zorah, for me. I like to depend on G-d, not on the words of tehillim incantations, etc., c"v. So I tell Him like this: "Dearest Tatty I am afraid of having a sexual dream tonight. I lusted so much in the past years months and days, and I do not fool myself to think I deserve any better and that is why I am depending on Your Chessed, which you have plenty of, I hear. And I tell Him that I trust Him and that I would be so happy if he would help me sleep with no lust tonight and then wake up refreshed and happy to be his imperfect kid.

And then I smile (seriously - that's very important. My best Friend is watching over me, what's there not to smile about?), lay down (on my side of course, cuz I am not an idiot) and trust Him 100% cuz fear while I am right in His face is just silly. He loves me to pieces even though I am a lust addict. Just as He loves everybody else, even though they are whatever they are. I like saying Adon Olam after that, preferably in my own words in English, then in Hebrew. It ends with the same idea as the above, exactly. Adom Olam is a sweet, beautiful gift from Him to me.

Last Edit: 27 Jan 2012 19:02 by .

Re: Dov "Quotes" 30 Jan 2012 21:42 #132030

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Am I an Addict and do I Need SA Meetings? A Conversation with Dov - From Daily Dose

Struggler: As you probably know, there is a woman from before I became a ba'al Teshuvah who is constantly available to me. I have had periods of being able to stay away and not have urges, but lately, I've gotten into the other kind of phase, the kind where I look at women on the streets, fall into internet shmutz, and then fight by the skin of my teeth not to call this woman. I've succeeded by willpower so far, but I feel so weak. Hashem seems to remove lust from me for weeks at a time while I'm busy with other things, but then suddenly - BAM - it becomes all-consuming and I'm battling it all the time. How do I "induce" Hashem to remove it from me now? I have lots of time on my hands, and lusting seems like so much fun! I think having the time on my hands is a lot of the problem. But now I'm in the problem and I need to get out without wrecking my life.

Dov: Are you an addict, or not? In other words, do you believe that you are a person with a strong desire - or that you are actually a sick person?

Struggler: I think I'm actually an addict, because I've done A LOT of things I never would have hoped or thought I would do. But the word "addict" isn't really in my vocabulary. I smoke cigarettes also, but I don't consider myself addicted, even though I blatantly am.

Dov: Well I am - as you say it so well - blatantly an addict, and use lust as my drug. I have progressed in my use and dependence on lust over the years and 'progressed' from one form of fantasy to another, one form of porn to another, one way of getting sex to another, and crossed line after line - to my utter amazement (shock, really)... So, if you have seen evidence of progression in your dependence on this precious garbage, that's one ingredient.

The next is powerlessness. Have you been able to control it? Meaning, have you evidence that you will be able to keep the progression from growing even further? Or is it simple that you will obviously keep progressing and you cannot do a damn thing about it.... By "control it" or "stop the progression from advancing" I do not mean "can you stop yourself sometimes?"

Struggler: By that standard, I'm certainly an addict because I've done really sketchy/seedy things that just aren't me. I've tried a lot and failed every time in the end, even if I manage for a bit...

Dov: Heck, we all did that a thousand times... only to plotz later on in even worse ways than we were fantasizing...

Struggler: I also feel the urge build up until I just want to "spaz out" and do ridiculously awful things...

Dov: Do you believe that based on your past and whatever else you believe, it is really a possibility that you will stop permanently, or remain at the same level and stay safe, quietly jerking off in your little corner and not bothering anybody? - or is it plain that, left on your own as you are, you will, in fact, do even crazier and stupider things and risk more of the normal good things of life like job, family, sanity, and friendships... just for your fix.

I know that I have felt that I will die without my porn hit, or without meeting this woman, or if I do not get this type of service done in this way, etc... I know it's all BS, but it feels quite real - so it is a problem we cannot just rationalize away. We cannot just say, "well that's silly and hope we won't give in". We will give in eventually, if we are addicts.

Struggler: I can only say that I've risked things and crossed all sorts of boundaries already, so its reasonable to assume that I will continue in the future without something Big happening. So are you suggesting that, as a first step, I begin to think of myself as an addict?

Dov: Well, how about reading the First Step's words and asking yourself at each chunk, "does this apply 100% truly, to me?"... Another thing you can do is read member stories in AA and see if you can relate. I do that still.

Struggler: My experience with the steps so far has been that I look at them and say, "Oh, that's so true" and then promptly forget that they exist for months.

Dov: I hear you about the steps. I need to tell you something very important. The steps are totally useless when studied, talked about and darshened. Totally. Doing "step study", as per my experience with the steps, is a complete and total waste of time and a destruction of the entire program - unless it is part of my direct work in living according to each step, one step at a time. That needs to be done in writing, with a group of real people - in person - and on a daily, or almost daily basis. Actually, the in-person work needed to be weekly for me, but I need to be in touch on the phone with real people daily, at least. If I do not do this, I am dead.

As far as I am concerned, reading about the steps is poison for me. Really. Because doing that makes me feel inside that I have really accomplished something - that I am "working the steps", and that is a lie. And what's really soooo BAD about it is that it becomes a substitute for the real thing. Like carbon monoxide - it seems like oxygen, but it doesn't really help, so the person breathing it takes it into his cells and drops dead. It's the exact same thing with reading and talking about the steps and not actually making it my preoccupation with written work and meeting about how to put it into my behavior and thinking. For that I need to meet and be with REAL PEOPLE who are using the steps. The 'virtual' reaching out that many do on GYE is often just a sweet little shield that our shame casts up in front of us - it blocks all the light - just like feeling like 'Joe Program' by just talking about the steps does....

I am not criticizing you at all. But I know the discomfort of 'virtual only' recovery - I did it by reading books and virtually meeting with the author that way. It did nothing for me, and my life was basically in a shambles. I almost died twice and very nearly lost my marriage and job and other nice things. So what do you really want? Painful comfort - or painful peace?

Struggler: Based on what you've said, I think it would be sensible for me to convince myself first that I am, in fact, an addict. If I don't truly believe that, I'm never going to get started. Because right now, it just sounds like a lot of work that I don't feel like doing and isn't necessary. But I believe that in all honesty, I do need it because I am an addict.

Dov: The definition of an addict is from AA. It is in the simple reading of the first step: "We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable", meaning that (a) we do not have what it takes to control alcohol - we cannot "control and use it" - or "drink like a gentleman" - as others apparently can. And (b) that our lives cannot stay this way, because they will eventually be unlivable (if they are not impossible already). That's the 1st step as I understand it.

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Re: Dov "Quotes" 07 Feb 2012 16:42 #132552

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Understanding is Useless in Recovery (It's just masked ga'avah)

dov wrote on 07 Feb 2012 12:35:

Chuck said, "We can't think ourselves into right living. We can only live ourselves into right thinking." He was not pontificating, darshening, whatever. It was his bitter hard-learned experience that he was sharing, like what I write here on the forum.

It's the only humble way. Na'aseh venishma is humility, not a madreiga of some sort. And in recovery, it seems that it is the guy who still needs to be controlled by his seichel, not doing anything that he does not first clearly understand, who cannot get better. It's gayvoh dressed in frumkeit, nothing else. If looking at porn made so much sense to us, then I'd agree with him. But the sad fact for most of us is that after we flop, we are often shocked as to how "that could possibly have happened to me!l" His'alalti - it makes fools out of us, complete fools. Our habit plays with us - yet the ha'ozah that we can only take actions of recovery that make sense to us is so prevalent! Gevalt. Suddenly we are sensible when it comes to changing - new territory we expect to make peace with? Gevalt. That's never the way it works.

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Re: Dov 09 Feb 2012 17:44 #132691

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I Didn't Choose to Change... I Had no Other Choice

dov wrote on 07 Feb 2012 21:08:

I am an addict, so my truth is far more machmir than all the religious folk are. Misah bideai Shomayim, coreis, whatever...

For me, it is misah bidei Odom - me. I really kill myself when I lust and act out, R'l. It's not "spiritual" death, and no violins are needed, thank-you. If I'd have continued on the derech I started on, my wife and I both know I would be buried by today. No question that I'd be dead either by my own hand, by someone else's, or by STD.

And every day I slipped a little, it was the next nail in my coffin. Hey - if it went no where in the end and I just remained a guy who occasionally roamed the streets watching hookers, but never really risked my life, job, family, arrest, health, and standing in the community, then I'd probably still be out there. Cuz then I could afford it, so I would if I could. Living the life of a loser is acceptable to me, unfortunately. That's is just a fact I see from my history. That is where my bechirah gets me. If I still had the same old gayvah I used to have, I'd deny it. But it's been beaten out of me, a bit.

I only quit because I could not afford to continue. It finally became clear to me that I was on the path to death, unquestionably. It was just like driving with my eyes duct-taped over by someone - you just do not do it. You stop so you don't die, plain and simple. It doesn't matter how badly you need to get somewhere, you just stop going on. Very inconvenient, it is. There is no breirah. There is no bechirah. So I stopped, and not because of bechirah, at all.

Bechirah not to die, I do not consider bechirah, at all. So I expect no s'char for being sober, either. As long as I was trying to get that brass ring of being 'bochair baTov', I failed and only got worse and worse.

And really believing this means a lot of things that change everyday life dramatically:

1- when I feel cheated of something, jealous, or sorry for myself, I can remember that by all rights I should be dead today and really anything I get is gravy, now;

2- when I want to lust, it is possible for me to admit that no matter how bad my current life situation may be, it will never be bad enough that acting out will not make it even worse;

3- it's hard to admit it, but if I hold onto a fantasy or a curious, imaginative thought in my head, at all - I will have no way of really being sure where I will stop;

4- being sober today is good enough for me, no matter what else happens or doesn't happen. I have no excuse for sadness, self-pity, etc...If I have tjhose things (which I frequently do) then I need to work steps 4-7, quick;

5- lusting for anything Hashem has not prepared for me, is a sure way to misery, and I have had enough self-misery.

OK, so I was back on the soap-box. Sorry. But there are not too many places to actually express myself, you know. Thanks for letting me share here, even if it's off topic.

Last Edit: 05 Feb 2014 01:55 by gibbor120.

Re: Dov "Quotes" 10 Feb 2012 15:58 #132772

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Masturbation is Evil... But That is Quite Irrelevant

dov wrote on 10 Feb 2012 15:34:

I feel very guilty when I do something really stupid. What's wrong with that?

Yes, the guilt pain of masturbating does require many people to medicate all over again. So?

Too many newbies make what they think is a 'recovery call' - but really they just want the 'older' guy on the other end to make them feel better. They are desperate for that one thing and that one thing only. It's BS (pardon my french), and it will not help them get sober, at all.

Yes, feeling badly about doing something that is bad for me has bad side-effects. But so does going to work, driving, cleaning up after your child throws up on the floor, etc... So? It's gotta be done.

It is evil for me to masturbate - but if I am an addict, that fact is irrelevant to me quitting. It is evil for me to use porn, look at a woman and undress her with my eyes, focus on how 'hot' Hashem made her, etc...but that fact is irrelevant in getting me free of the compulsion. There is some unpleasant work that I cannot avoid, like facing the truth about my choices, powerlessness, failure, and lifestyle.

Masturbating, fantasizing, and porning - even if it were 100% mutar...wait - even if it was a mitzvah - is and always was self-destructive to me. period. I abuse it like an alkie abuses alcohol - and drinking alcohol is certainly not a lav, even in the SMa"K.

There are times when it is a good thing, actually...but not for a frum alcoholic. For him, getting drunk on Purim is like having sex with his niddah wife or a prostitute - it is destructive, even deadly. Is that not evil? Drinking wine for kiddush or the four kosos is evil for him, and as Chaza"l say, sakanta chamirah me'isurah.

This is derech eretz, not a mitzvah-issue - if one is an addict. Just cuz it overlaps issur - that is pure distraction, totally irrelevant - for one who is unable to stop and if it is risking or damaging his real life.

None of this is true for the average Jew, who simply masturbates once in a blue moon because he really, really likes the way that a good orgasm with himself feels. That is what He made Teshuvah (ila'ah) for, not recovery.

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Re: Dov "Quotes" 21 Feb 2012 11:30 #133430

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GET REAL
Dov on the pain involved in getting real.
[From PM]

A reality that I have shared before in many ways:

Forum talk is cheap. That's why it will not work. For some it is y'kar erech - they simply cannot type it out at all...so when they do, it is meaningful and hence brings with it a new level of recovery for them.

But for those who are used to it, it is still hiding behind something: a username (fake). So it no longer works. For them, phone conversations using their real voice is the only way they can really get the truth out in any meaningful way now.

But for those that have been doing that already regularly, hiding behind something else makes it fake for them: the telephone - no face, no real me. They often need to move on to face-to-face meetings. No big deal, really, if it is with another recovering person who admits he is as sick as they are inside. The emails and phone just do not work any more, cuz their honesty and realness have increased. It is a natural process.

And for those who have been doing face-to-face meetings for some time already, the fakeness of hiding behind a fake persona - we all do that to some degree, some more, some less...well, for them, the face-to-face is no longer enough - it too is just too fake. So where to go from there? The answer is simple:

More honesty about our selves is needed. More masks need to be taken off. Painful things about them must eventually be shared - there is no recourse, if they want to remain in recovery. It's just a natural process. Apparently, no change whatsoever happens in us without pain. It's gotta be hard to do, or it's cheap. And easy come, easy go. We are all here for changes that last, for a change.

I am not pushing you to do anything, at all. All I wanted to say is that in my case (and for many I have heard over the years share in the rooms), pain is needed for success.

But I have never met anyone who got better directly by being forced to admit the truth about themselves to others. I believe that it is the openness that heals, not just saying the truth. Willingly telling is opening up to another - that's where the healing happens, rather than just in sharing the information. This is a very sensitive process, as you point out.

The guys I know who were arrested or caught by others and forced into the room with their other Captain Kirk, never got better from that. They always blamed all their shame on the person who caught them, rather than on their sick or self-destructive behavior. With the passage of time, though, eventually they came around, though. Most have said "thank G-d they caught me, cuz if not, I'd still be out there and miserable," but that's a really hard way to go.

?דער באשעפער לאווט מיך אייביג. וויפיל לאוו איך עהם
My Creator loves me at all times. How great is my love for him?

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Re: Dov "Quotes" 07 Mar 2012 19:45 #134425

gibbor120
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NEVER EVER GIVE UP!
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Giving up: Why the First Step is so Important (from Daily Dose)

The point of writing our 1st step is to finally be able to answer this:

"So, do I actually have the ability to remain sober? Have I run out of resources yet, or not?"

That's the only question when it boils down. If in my heart of hearts I still believe that I really possess the ability to control lust, then it means a whole cadre of troubling things that have always kept us in danger:

1) I will remain ashamed if I use lust because - "I should have been able to control it, so I am a bad guy." Shame - which we have always had and was ultimately ineffective at stopping us - is not really our friend. Instead, it temps us to hide or 'color' facts and details about our temptations rather than come out and admit our mishegas'n early and get the help we desperately need. If we continue to hide, we are toast.

2) If I can still control it, then I can also use it a little bit - and then stop at will. How many times did we really think that and take risks - only to eventually lose badly... a hundred times? And it never ends, really. Once I am surrendered to the simple truth that I am completely hopeless fighting against lust, it means that I admit in my own heart that I cannot be trusted with it and can't afford to taste it. Finally I will stop taking stupid risks.

3) Basically, every time I have ever used lust, it was because I believed that I will still control it in the end; that I will not be completely overtaken by it. I was wrong, and did many things that I just didn't understand, hence the refrain, "I just gotta finally understand why I do these crazy things?!"

So, more than anything else, our refusal to accept our inability to use and control lust is that reason we end up using it.

So once this becomes clear to me, I need to surrender - give up - any temptations I get to others by telling people about it in detail so I can get let go of it - and if I should ever actually act out again, I need to go back to my 1st step. Why? Because that must be where my weak link is. I must have pridefully thought I could get away with it. I forgot that whenever I try to use it, lust controls me, not the other way around. It always makes me so miserable.

So the writing of the 1st step is really just a jump-start for a lifetime attitude and practice.

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Re: Dov "Quotes" 10 Jul 2012 16:02 #141230

gibbor120
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Haven't posted here in a while, but this is a goodie.

Live in the Solution... Let go

dov wrote on 05 Jul 2012 17:14:

I just feel like all of the sudden every second of my day revolves around this specific aspect of my life. It was never like that before.
I don't necessarily relate it completely to my increased involvement on GYE, but I'm just nervous.
My fall last night was pretty bad. I texted a few guys immediately after it happened which I have never done before.
I'm just confused/frustrated.

Of course it can be related to your involvement with GYE! The problem we have is obviously increased when we keep thinking about it all the time. It does not matter that much if we are thinking about naked people - or about not thinking about naked people...either way, we are walking around thinking about naked people all the time!

In the program we call that 'living in the problem, instead of in the solution'. The problem is fighting and struggling against lust. The soultion is surrender. Giving up the fight...unless you are really winning. But it does not see you are, if you are seeing that you are doing worse, right?

'Let go and let G-d' sounds like chinese, at first. But really, the wages of struggling, are just focusing on it even more. And that is just another way to lose, actually

Success in letting go takes time, takes practice, and takes connection with others who are actually doing it successfully. I have not met people who have learned how to do it from a book.

Get me? You can do this, as long as you realize that you can't.

If you are an addict (which I am not saying you are, just sharing this idea - you take it or leave it as you see fit.)

Re: Dov "Quotes" 11 Jul 2012 16:43 #141311

gibbor120
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We Need a New Derech, AKA Don't Fight, Give it up!

dov wrote on 23 Nov 2009 22:34:

I feel drained right now. I feel like ive been fighting the whole entire day.

Airbag and seatbelt time....uh-oh.
Either the outer environment needs to change, or the inner environment does. One of them has to go. If you believe it's from inside you, I do not understand how anyone expects to "beat" a mental illness. Just go and ask any crazy person, maybe he'll tell you.... Now, if it's really just "a ta'ava", then I understand - fight, fight, fight. But if:

I feel that if i can get past the hard times it will only get easier. But i never can get past them

...as you put it, then perhaps, maybe, it's time to give the entire fight up to Hashem. To me, that means trusting Him (step 2). It means admitting to Him exactly what you want to do (step 1) and asking Him to help you just let go of the entire idea, to give it up completely. And then to take the actions of letting it go, like getting busy with something else(step 3). Preferably some way to give or love someone: people, lehavdil, Hashem (even ourselves...if we really know how to). And also, to me, it means agreeing to never take the credit for "winning" again. As long as you admit you are nuts, admit you have no other hope but His help, and do what you can to make going about His business your priority right now, it's His business if you succeed or fail, not yours.
Sound crazy? Well, I think busting one's head against the wall for the 15,000th time with the same losing derech - but harder this time - yet expecting things to be entirely different this time - is pretty crazy, too. ;D

But it aint over till its over.

And when is that? Won't there be a next time? Yeah, it gets easier : for those who let go of it each time it gets easier. But for those who just distract themselves from it to get over it, I believe there is a residue from each struggle, that may not go away. A feeling of, "well, I gave up that nice one, I deserve a consolation prize" or, "poor me, I lost out on so much fun," or, "woohoo, I can control this stuff, after all! So maybe I can use and enjoy it and just stop it as soon as it starts to get out of hand, no?". Those natural thought patterns would build up in me over time until - forget it. No wonder it's a tidal wave then! And then we act as though it's such a suprise! ???
I have no other explanation than the above for the very common phenomena of the guy (like me) who could "go for a month, or so, until the pressure builds up", or whatever. Or so many of the well-meaning folks with ~23 days, over and over again for five years...you know what i mean. How else can anyone explain that? Please let me know, will ya?
What people like me need is a psychic change. Not improvement, but a new derech. Let Hashem figure out if it's teshuvah or not. It's gotta be a different fight, or else. On a good day, I let the fight be His business and my job is to do His work...and when lust ideas occur to me I admit to myself that I am not just another yid with "a ta'yva", but rather, that I am 'cracked' in the head. I have an allergy. I am not able to lust like others can, and control it. They can, not I. So no wonder I need a Higher Power. I avoid it like fire by closing my eyes or my brain and doing something else. I make a call to a friend and admit exactly how sick i am. Then I go happily from there completely free.
I don't need Hashem's power to help me "beat" this YH. I need him to remove the lust from me. I need His help to get myself out of His way. I need to go about His work, period. Not fight any battles.

A huge problem here is that if you just extract the surrender and trust in Hashem, the whole thing still looks like some kind of winning. Some folks will totally mistake the "closing of the eyes" or the "making a call to another addict", as the way we fight it. It's not. It's the action we take to give it up. As many addicts who actually use the steps will attest, the total freedom from the nutty lust comes during the dialing of the friends phone # or during the prayer itself. G-d, whatever I am looking for in the image of that woman walking by, let me find it in You, instead." Ahhhh. By the time I get up to the second half of the word G-d, we feel the whole thing evaporating. It may not work perfectly all the time, but we stay sober from the bottom line behavior this way, no matter what. And over time, our heads change. The struggles are surrendered. There is no more pressure build up. If there is, then we take an honest look at our first step, perhaps with a friend and go on from there.

I can use chizuk right now.

Well, I don't know if that constituted chizzuk, but sometimes we don't need encouragement but we need someone to remind us that "ein hadovor tolui ella bee", by holding up a mirror. I hope you see that Hashem is in there right next to you, no matter what.

Disclaimer: The above is the sole experience of the writer, who is not an expert in any respect, and does not necessarily express the views and opinions of GYE.