Disclaimer: I'm not coming here to disagree, nor to argue. All I want to do is share that there is another way out there that works, so it is valid. It doesn't pasul any other way - but it does demonstrate that many people do not need to love and feel great about themselves before they can start staying sober for long periods and before they can start getting well. And we never finish getting well, really - we never "arrive", do we? Have you? I haven't. "Yehudi hu tamid baderech," anyway...
I know that Rav Twerski and other good people have taught (or seems to many to have taught) the idea you refer to.
Finally, I am certainly not suggesting what is right for you or other
individuals to do. I just want to open a door that seems locked, to those who wish to try and go this way. I agree that simply not having sex with myself or anyone other than my wife is still not
nearly 'enough'. It's a
negative sobriety, and not a recovery of anything. But we ought to be honest with ourselves and admit that once we really stop masturbating or using porn compulsively, we find ourselves in a place where - had we really been there
all along - we'd never had really felt this desperation for getting all the good things of recovery, anyhow! We'd
bleib coasting - like most people
are and
will be, till they die. Interestingly, then, it is my
sickness that saves me from the unexamined life,
not my 'greatness'.
By the same token, this is the only reason that this very day I still need G-d as much as I ever did: to live life in a way that doesn't just
look or
sound good, but
actually works. I need it, while the do-gooders do not. And it was the addicts who taught me that being clean from acting out (ie., sobriety) is only vauable inasmuch as it is the gateway to being able to come to live life right -
if one is an addict. That's recovery. It's not about 'being good', nor about being 'a better person'.
Plenty of good yidden do bad things, even
sexually bad things. Very bad things. But they can
still go on living life right, in the general sense. It's still acceptable to them. They may do a good Teshuvah for the ma'aseh, they may do a weak one. It does
not wreck their lives, for they
can move on. But an addict cannot do that successfully, for we are too sick. This is what the 1st step means when it says 'Powerless' (to use lust successfully) and that our lives are 'unmanageable'. Addicts have a cyclical, repeating, and progressively worsening habit. It eventually sucks the life out of us, isolates us from all others, makes us disgusted with ourselves
and with others, makes us need to have
a double life (not principally out of shame, but mainly in order
to protect out ability to keep using our drug unimpeded by 'pesky' and nosy Society), and ruins more and more of our lives every year that goes by.
But I have found that making being
sober today - and not accepting
any other option - is the
only way I can actually eventually grow and recover. It is not the growth itself, but the
only ticket into recovery. It is what Chaza"l would refer to as
mafteichos chitzoniyos, rather than
mafteichos p'nimiyos. I have met many who wanted to "recover" and become "healthy" without making their lives dependent on sobriety today. They take luxuries like occasional porn and inappropriate sex use - and misinterpret the terrible regret afterward as 'growth'! Intense? Yes - but true? No. After a few years go by they discover they are nowhere. They seem to live in a fantasy religious world - and their lives end up a very interesting...shambles. So, you and I are at least on the same page about that. Now...
I did
not need to love myself in order to get sober. I needed to
not give up on myself - to simply need to survive and live a life that was not a total loss. It's the most basic self-love, as i wrote to you before. It has nothing to do with looking
good to myself, nor with morality. Just "enlightened self-interest". My biggest challenge was
actually believing that G-d would actually take care of me even though I was ugly.
Convincing myself that 'I was not so ugly' was totally not what I needed! Rather, I needed to come to understand that
Hashem loves the ugly people, too!
You don't seem to like that idea - and I could not live
without it. And others feel the same way.
Yes, deep inside that idea it obviously means that G-d sees the beauty in me, in you, in any yid - and yes, even inside
any goy...for let's not forget that He has also helped millions of dying non-Jewish drunks, drug-addicts, and perverts. My wife and I are so very grateful for that - for through
them my own life and family was saved. And many other people, too.
But here is the point: I do not have to see that beauty - I just have to believe that somehow, G-d can see it. I do not even have to
ever see it and need no evidence that it exists. That He saved me does not prove to me that I am indeed worthy - it proves that He loves me. And being cared for (meaning: loved) by G-d is the only worthiness that means anything to me. This is the inner meaning of "
ki mechabdai achabeid, ne'um Hashem". It is also why we are taught that
the only one who is has true kavod is the one who gives kavod to others (Pirkei Avos) - seeing the beauty in G-d and His world is what matters - not seeing beauty in me. If I see His beauty and the beauty of His people, then I have inner beauty whether I ever realize it or not - and I never need to realize it! The Mishnah simply spells out the facts as they are:
that person is honorable. And true honor
is true beauty.
Also, I did not need to work the steps in order to
get sober. The main thing I credit with getting me sober was actually the pain of
my acting out. I had enough of it, because it was so bitter. Hashem threw me forcibly on the path of recovery - much as the Sha'arei teshuvah begins (regarding teshuvah, which is not at all the same as recovery): Tov veyoshor Hashem (Hashem is right and good), al kein yoreh (so He throws down - as in "yoroh vayom" in Az Yoshir, and "yaroh yiyareh" by har Sinai) chato'im (those who are mistaken as Rav Noach zt"l always teitched it) baderech (on the [correct] path). He was so good to me, for He made my addiction excruciatingly painful. Until I had no other option than to give up acting out my sex fantasies - though I could not stop.
Thanks to G-d, I did
not need to love myself before I could start getting well. Nor did I need to love myself first, in order to finally give up the struggle and start getting sober. Nor did I need to love myself before setting well.
Rather, I got sober by the
total Chessed of Hashem that I found in the rooms, with other recovering men. I
did not - and
do not - deserve it in any way, shape, or form. I can be ugly and He loves me a ton anyhow. He brought me - a masturbating and desperately porn-using, frum yid - to recovery! When did he lay the groundwork for that? After I got better? No. He did it
all for me
while I was on my knees in the bathroom masturbating. That's Chessed - the
teitch of Chessed is that onedoes
not deserve it. He loves me, b'li ta'am.
B'li ta'am means that
I do not have to be pretty to Him. So I certainly don't ned to be pretty to
me! My G-d is so great that I can say Mizmor Shir Chanukas habayis leDovid, and mean it all! I am sober! Sobriety is breathing, for me - it's life. Not health, but life. And He gives it to me. All I need to do is open my hands. Just like the yiddden in Mitzrayim, mischu yedeichem meiavodah zarah - just let go of it! Doing that was sooo hard that it took fifteen years of suffering to finally let go.
And He would have given me the sobriety years before - but I was not willing to let go of what was in my hands, open my fingers and accept it.
But I discovered that I needed to get well if I wanted to
remain sober. In other words, to
stay alive.
That led me to step 3, and the rest of them. The preciousness of my sobriety led me to
need to work the solution steps. That is the only reason I did. Plenty people read them, do a little work...but do not really work them and use them as they need to be to be the game-changers they truly are. I was and am, only because I needed (and need) to. Not tzidkus, at all, and not a madreigo, certainly.
I spent decades in yeshivah being told that if only I'd get good enough, I'd finally be able to stop masturbating. If I'd get my da'as clean enough, my mesiras nefesh big enough - then I'd be liberated! I believed hook, line and sinker, that if I'd learn Mesilas Yeshorim, sifrei yir'ah with hispaylus, shimush talmidei chachomin, chumash and gemorah, and did chessed and teshuvah well enough, then I'd be straight in the head enough that this behavior would be
below me, finally. I was sincere....I thought.
But it did not work, obviously, and I discovered that I could not stop acting out my lust, because the only fool-proof method I knew to get free of it
was to do it!
Finally
I could not afford to act out any more, and had to stop. It wasn't that Hashem needed me to stop, but that I needed to. I was losing my humanity and could not accept that - not because of what you are calling self-love, but because of the survival instinct. I do call that self-love, as I wrote to you earlier.
So I knew there
must be a third option - a way out - but could not for the life of me figure out what it could be!!
Hashem guided me to real, live, recovering perverts. Finally, I found people who had my problem and were willing to speak openly about it with me - they were sober and getting better. I asked them how to do it and followed them to sobriety one day at a time....for the past 14 years and nine months...but who's counting?
They taught me all they were doing (the steps), no secrets, no complicated rituals:
They taught me that I had it backwards. I would learn to accept myself
by learning to be accepting of others - I'd come to comfort with myself by becoming comfortable with others. And the "other" who I most need to become comfortable with and most desperately need to finally start liking is: Hashem. But as Chaza"l say, sometimes
acharon, acharon chaviv.
![](https://guardyoureyes.com/components/com_kunena/template/default/images/emoticons/new/wink.png)
And here is what I mean by that:
All the years I was acting out, I always wanted to get that 'madreigoh' first. And similar temptations are still in me! Loving Hashem was always the ikkar, and loving
people seemed tefeiloh to it. Yes, it is true - but it doesn't work that way, at least for me. First comes living right with the things that are really
real to us: other people and ourselves.
Then we will finally be able to really get right with G-d. As Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai told his talmidim (tanna'im!), "
Halevai you should in your hearts see/treat Hashem as
real as you treat any person." He said that cuz
we don't.
I was ma'arich, as usual. Gevalt! Sorry if I lost you, or anyone else. But I have no interest in heartwarming drashos or what
sounds nice - all I want is
what works.