shomer wrote on 17 Feb 2009 20:30:
Just to clarify a few points, I have been struggling to overcome my addiction for years now. I have previously been an active member on the no-porn forums, at one point I was maintaining a blog about addiction through which I was approach by many competent individuals (including none other than GUE himself) and have reached out personally to rabbonim (albeit in an anonymous manner).
Boruch on the other hand (and I am sure he will agree with this), although aware of his issue with P addiction has been brushing it under the carpet for years now refusing to admit the severity of his problem.
Shomer, I sensed it in your previous posts and I see it again here. This is not at all about comparisons between the two of us and who is ahead of who. This is not even about where you are today. I really believe that right now you are doing very well.
This is about something that has gone under your own radar but will be obvious to people with perception. Again I say this out of respect for you, recognition of your potential and care for you.
I have never claimed better results than you, I have never claimed to have missed less night sedorim, less minyonim or to have more weeks of sobriety and yet you keep feeling the need to highlight all of these. Everything I am doing today is only because of your involvement a long time ago. I have frequently, freely and openly acknowledged that to your face and I openly acknowledge that here. So what is the point with these comparisons? I'll tell you, because others will see it before you do.
Exactly as you describe, you were working your addiction for years while I was nowhere. You were on the other forums while I was slipping and falling. You were here on this forum before me. And you were way ahead of me by every and all standards. Then just over 4 weeks ago I started posting here with dramatic posts of permanent azivas hachet, teshuva sheleimo, significant and radical change. I started to work on my addiction with my therapist. I got heavily into 12 steps meetings. And as the honest person that you are, somewhere, at least subconsciously you asked yourself a basic question. How come boruch, who was nowhere for all these years, is using a therapist, is heavily into 12 steps and is putting so much into this, while I, who am working on this for years, am not as heavily involved?
You know I am not the shyest guy and when I talk and post of what I am doing, I talk and post with such enthusiasm and vigor as if to say, this is what everyone should be doing and it can be very threatening to people, like yourself, who are in it for the long term with steady and persistant growth. Who knows? There must be others on this forum who rather than being inspired by what I have written will feel threatened and overwhelmed. But no doubt you feel it strongest since we are such close friends and since, however you slice it, this is a seismic shift in the status quo of our relative engagement in the battle against addiction.
So the question is how to deal with this very real problem? What message is there for you and people like yourself who are taking the steady and sure approach of persistant and consistant growth?
Now, I am going to be brutally honest with you here shomer. The response you chose was to explain our differences by attempting to define shittos on the fly. Sur mera. Asseh Tov. Issur Yichud. But that is not the right response.
You gain nothing from shittos that are created to defend where you are right now.
You only stand to lose because you are doing what you are doing without expressing where you are as a shitto and expressing where you are today as a shitto risks limiting what you might have otherwise been prepared to do, at some time in the future, be it in mussar, 12 steps or anything else.
The right response to my recent and dramatic arrival on this forum is to recognize, firstly, that we are all different and that it is not the spectacular that counts but what works. Spectacular works well for me and what works for you
will be different, at least in style, if not in substance, than what works for me.
The right response is to realize additionally, and most importantly that your path until now has been one of steady and consistent growth and that you will do best by continuing it as best as you can,
no matter where it takes you and no matter what happens to the status quo.
The right response, for you, is to realize that everything I am doing today is all in your zechus and so you will only gain from it and not lose from it.
shomer wrote on 17 Feb 2009 20:30:
That being said, I have and continue to believe that there are many paths to recovery. I would certainly agree that there are common denominators to these methods, but do not feel that the 12 steps are one of them.
Are the 12 steps effective, yes ... are the 12 steps the most consistent path to recovery, absolutely ... are the 12 steps for everyone ... I will quote the old boruch on this one ... absolutely not.
And the new boruch also says that the 12 steps are not an obvious fit for everyone and there is a time and place for them and that time is not necessarily now.
Ultimately, the best and surest path is the path which does whatever it takes. That means not setting artificial limits on what will work for you. If the 12 steps are really not for you then they are not for you, and that is all. That has nothing at all to do, however, with getting into attempts to define shittos. So, if you want to say that the 12 steps are not for you, say it like it is, "I don't believe that the 12 steps are for me". That's what I originally believed and said for myself. The truth is that the 12 steps are certainly not an obvious fit for you, and by the way, they weren't an obvious fit for me either.
shomer wrote on 17 Feb 2009 20:30:
While the 12 steps may be the best choice for boruch, my decision to do it another way in no way constitute less of a commitment than boruch.
As things stand right now, I will bezras Hashem hit the 6 week mark tomorrow.
It is not your decision not to do the 12 steps today that is a problem.
It is your creating shittos that could decide today what your are not prepared to do in the future.
shomer wrote on 17 Feb 2009 20:30:
Apples to apples (and I use comparisons very reluctantly here), as far as what is lemaysa, I am running just a little bit ahead of boruch with regard to what can actually be measured.
My commitment is no less than his, my strategy no less effective and my resolve no less firm.
If you want a real apples to apples comparison then, do yourself a favor, ignore totally how I do, for better and for worse, because we are very different people, with very different nisyonos.
The real apples to apples test is how you actually do against how you could have done. To the degree that you are ready to do whatever it takes at the right time and to go the full distance, I know you will do exceedingly well, and to the degree that you attempt to set artificial limits in the guise of shittos that will only serve to artificially maintain the status quo, you risk seriously short-changing your effort to break addiction, your path to teshuva and your potential growth.
Don't let this become a competition, because you risk needlessly boxing yourself in a corner. You don't need to copy me, you just need to do as you have until now, to continue to do whatever you can and to keep an open mind.
shomer wrote on 17 Feb 2009 20:30:
Boruch ... you should have much brocha v'hatzlocho l'orech yamim tovim ... and I mean that
And so you should want my hatzlocho because without you I would not be posting on this forum, I would never have meaningfully addressed my addiction, I would have no accountability partner, no accountability software, no filtered DSL, I would never have even gone for treatment of my ADHD, without which I would never have realistically gotten anywhere.
EVERYTHING I have today is thanks to you and if you want such zechusim to continue, you had better keep davening for my hatzlocho and you had better mean it too.
