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Yaakov's Ladder

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Scientific studies show that it takes 90 days to break an addictive pattern in the mind. Start your own Log of your journey to 90 days! Post here to update us on your status and to give each other chizuk to stay strong!

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TOPIC: Yaakov's Ladder 185202 Views

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 28 Sep 2014 13:08 #240383

Watson
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Pidaini wrote:

Important Note - I got a hold of that 12 step partner yesterday and we should be starting that right after yom tov!

I hate to be negative but "half measures availed us nothing". If you want to work the program you need a group and a sponsor. Having only a 12 step partner is like two illiterate people teaching each other to read - they'd make some progress but they'd get a lot of things wrong.

It's like two people leading each other through the darkness because they don't know where the light switch is and refuse to ask. It's like two lost people asking each other for directions. It's like a poor person asking for a loan from other poor people. It's like a sheep asking a cow how to make great steak.

Half measures is doing just enough to not hit rock bottom, i.e. just enough to not ever need to fully recover.

Having a group and a sponsor is like having a kevius with a Rebbe and a chabura to do chazoro. I can put you in touch with SA members in Yerusholayim if you want, just message me.

It is interesting to note that you very rarely post any SA material but you did last Tuesday. You said that you "went through the first three steps in my mind this morning" which is half-doing the steps. What happened the very next day? It's no coincidence.

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Re: Yaakov's Ladder 28 Sep 2014 13:48 #240385

ineedchizuk Current streak: 13 days OFFLINE Gold Boarder Posts: 300 Karma: 21	Woah! That's one of the tougher tough love posts I've seen! I mean , we're talking about Mr. OINK here בכבודו ובעצמו! But limaase, you're tayning good, doc. I guess it doesn't hurt as much when you know the doc loves u!

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 28 Sep 2014 14:59 #240394

dd
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Hi Dr.

Very thoughtful post there. I just don't really get it. Many of us do know what we need to do to stay clean. All we need is the action so if someone has a friend to work the steps with why should that only be half measures? Not being in it on your own should get you to take action. Why do feel full recovery is only with sa?

I don't mean to argue, i just want to understand.

Thanks in advance and a G'mar chasima tovah!!

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 28 Sep 2014 16:11 #240397

Watson
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dd wrote:

Why do feel full recovery is only with sa?

First of all I never ever said that. There are other groups and methods and if people recover with them that's wonderful.

I am suggesting that if you want to work the 12 steps you have to do them properly which means getting direction from someone who's already done them successfully, within a fellowship of other people who are doing likewise. Otherwise you have no idea if you're actually doing it right or not.

When I learnt how to drive I read the book and spoke about it with my friends, but there was no way I would have attempted to actually drive down a real road with real traffic without an instructor.

When I was in yeshiva I went to shiur and learnt from my magid shiur. But I then went and discussed it with my friends as well. My friends didn't teach me anything new but without them I would not have understood the sugya.

I need a sponsor as much as I needed a driving instructor. I need the fellowship as much as I needed my chavrusas and my chavrusas' chavrusas.

These things are clear to all. Yet when it comes to this addiction there is a huge resistance to the idea that we can't manage by ourselves.

I found that I need to daven to Hashem for willingness to accept my powerless, to work the program properly and to ask for help. I'm so unmanageable that I need to ask for the help to ask for help.

It's not a strange idea. I daven to Hashem every day for all sorts of things because I can't do them myself. But before I even ask for those things I first ask Hashem for the ability to ask. Hashem sefosay tiftoch ufi yaggid tehilosecho. I can't even ask for help without Hashem's help.

I say all this not as a recovered addict but as a person who is struggling and needs help. If there's one thing I know for sure it's that I need help.

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Last Edit: 28 Sep 2014 16:13 by Watson.

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 28 Sep 2014 16:36 #240399

cordnoy
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I have found in my path towards recovery (which I am still on, and will probably always be on) that the moment, and I mean the very moment that I decide to step out of my comfort zone and take action, I must do it right away, for us fellows with egos (talkin' about myself), we tend to think we got it all figured out. Case in point, the day after FT. Lauderdale, when I knew and admitted to another human that I needed serious help, I joined GYE and contacted therapist in Israel. The day I wallowed in the West Coast beaches is the day I reached out and joined SA. The day I sunk in the pits of Appalachia is the day I contacted a specialist.

Waitin' till the morrow
Brings nothin' but sorrow

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Re: Yaakov's Ladder 28 Sep 2014 17:23 #240403

dd OFFLINE Platinum Boarder כל זמן שהנשמה בקרבי מודה אני לפניך Posts: 879 Karma: 42	Thanks Dr and cordnoy. I hear what you guys are saying and i'm trying to get it straight in my situation. Somehow i feel i need the guys and i need to stay in touch but don't need sa or therapy etc. I might very well be wrong but the way i see it i need to learn how to put the ideas into actions and keep away from isolation. KOL TUV!!!

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 30 Sep 2014 03:19 #240528

dd OFFLINE Platinum Boarder כל זמן שהנשמה בקרבי מודה אני לפניך Posts: 879 Karma: 42	Yankel where are you? i hope all is ok. keep us posted please.

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 30 Sep 2014 16:24 #240553

Pidaini
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Thanks Y'all. (no exclamation point, really not feeling exclamatory right now)

Very subdued, or humbled, or depressed, not sure which one, or maybe all three.

Clarification, the 12 step partner is someone who has been in SA for over a year now and is currently working the steps with groups and one on one. I'm not calling him a sponsor for a) he says he's not ready to be one and b) I don't want one

I admitted to him right up front that I'm not ready to go to meetings yet, and I was very happy to hear him say that he is the most resistant type, doesn't do anything until he realizes that he really has to so he's not gonna push me even though he feels that they are essential in order to hear other people's experience.

This itself is actually going quite out of my comfort zone, being ready to take suggestions that are suggested specifically to me from someone else who is doing better than I am. (I'm sure others can relate to that, or, at least, I hope so. Let me know if you do, please)

Was in touch with him today, (and with Doc because it was before I saw his posts

) and I'm looking forward to completing my first step inventory which, after hearing from him, I realize I haven't done before.

A gmar chasimah Tovah!!

Yankel | My Ladder | Talking to Hashem
I'm just a dude, another guy on this bus.

Have a great day, unless, of course, you made other plans. ~ obbormottel
"Nothing changes as long as everything stays the same" ~ Dov

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 30 Sep 2014 23:29 #240585

dms1234 Current streak: 767 days OFFLINE Platinum Boarder Posts: 1106 Karma: 49	YAY! i like the progress! KOF (KEEP ON FLYING!!!!)
	I am happy to speak on the phone. Please email me at dms1234ongye@gmail.com My name is Daniel, I go to face to face meetings and I work the 12 steps with a sponsor.

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 01 Oct 2014 00:07 #240592

ZemirosShabbos OFFLINE Platinum Boarder pass the compote Posts: 6153 Karma: 72	Yankel, kol hakavod!
	Sometimes life is like tuna with not enough mayonaise ~Inna beshem ZS Give, Forgive ~Cordnoy The reason I'm acting as if I'm pregnant, is because I'm expecting. I should be accepting. ~TZ

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 01 Oct 2014 09:31 #240616

lavi
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yeah
can relate to the suggestion problem...but hey...it is YOUR gain, and i find that a person doesn't have to feel EVERY bump in the road, if you take someone elses experience, and try to live it through, even if you don't understand the whys, you may save yourself more bumps,
and although everyone is different, ideas and methods, can be transplanted or modified, with siatta dishmaya.
and in the end it is gonna take a lot of work on your part anyway, no matter which actual methods you use.
May Hashem give us all the "bren" to face our challenges, and do what it takes, whatever it takes, to shake ourselves free from this vice.

i love you all

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 01 Oct 2014 16:05 #240625

Pidaini
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WOW!!

Thank you 9494 for reminding me to look this up (you didn't mean to, but you did)

I'm so happy I wrote this, and even happier that I'm reading it!!

Pidaini wrote:

dd wrote:

ok this fall took longer then it should of,

now lets try to put some things i was thinking about the past few days in words,

i'm trying to really not focus on the sin part for i see and hear from all the guys here that it doesn't really help out the situation, but i don't really get it fully as i mentioned in the past i don't really feel that acting out is killing my life even though it really is but i dont feel that way, i cant take a trigger and say this is a life or death decision i just don't feel that way, so i try not to focus on the sin part but if i do so i dont know if i'll really stop,

OK, here's my experience with "sin".

To put it simply, if this wasn't assur, I wouldn't be on GYE, but I didn't come to GYE because it's assur. Simple, right?

Without getting into the conversation about what my aspiration is in life, it is certainly a life without acting out, no question about it, and that is because of the way I was brought up and the ideals that I was taught and BH believe. So if those ideals wouldn't include Kedusha I don't believe that I would be here, at least, not yet.

But now that those ideals do include moral integrity and it is something that I am seeking to live with, my acting out dug into the deepest parts of me, it shook up the inner core.

My acting out does much more than just hurt other people and mess up my schedule, make me tired and irritable. My acting out was (and does) make me despise myself, despise my life, it takes away any last good feeling about living, hence it is death, thus I couldn't take it anymore!

So the question is yours to answer for yourself, not for anyone else here or anywhere, How much does it bother you? How much is it ruining your experience of life? How painful is just being alive becoming?

I mentioned this to you, and I'm just gonna throw it out there again. It may be a good idea to start writing your history of acting out, and maybe put an emphasis of capturing the way you felt and feel about life while lusting and acting out. If you don't think that you will do it by yourself, maybe use friends as encouragement, maybe use the forum, post a few episodes.

Form the little bit that I know you it seems that it is bothering you quite deep, you just know to much to rationalize why you shouldn't let it bother you. But seeing it in front of you writing may be just the thing to hit it home.

KIT!! KOP!!

Thanks for reading!!

Yankel | My Ladder | Talking to Hashem
I'm just a dude, another guy on this bus.

Have a great day, unless, of course, you made other plans. ~ obbormottel
"Nothing changes as long as everything stays the same" ~ Dov

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 01 Oct 2014 17:59 #240633

Pidaini
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Just wanted to share one interesting twist that my friend told me today.

"On Yom Kippur we do not ask for forgiveness for acting out, not for watching porn and not for masturbating (or calling sex lines, or whatever), for that stuff we ask for a cure. R'fa'einu.

What we ask forgiveness for is for not making a call to a friend."

Put things a little in perspective for me, the point of my bechira is then, whether to reach out or not, if I miss it then after that......I'm powerless!!!

Yankel | My Ladder | Talking to Hashem
I'm just a dude, another guy on this bus.

Have a great day, unless, of course, you made other plans. ~ obbormottel
"Nothing changes as long as everything stays the same" ~ Dov

Re: Yaakov's Ladder 01 Oct 2014 22:19 #240648

unanumun
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My dear friend Yankel,
I have been following your thread. I don't anything substantial to add to the conversation. I just wanted you to know that my heart goes out to you and your struggles. I think about you often throughout the day and really feel for you.
In the zechus for all you have done for me and the others on GYE, may Hashem take you out מאפילה לאור גדול.
חזק חזק ונתחזק.
גמר חתימה טובה!!
Your dear friend,
Unanumun

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Re: Yaakov's Ladder 02 Oct 2014 06:11 #240699

nitzotzeloki OFFLINE Gold Boarder Posts: 311 Karma: 11	yankel i love you and respect you just wanted to tell you that
	i used to look back all the time saying "oh no! what have i done! Hashem help me erase the past." and i never heard a response. finally i started looking forward saying "Hashem i'm leaving the past to you and i'm forgetting all about it. help me have a good future. help me from here and on be the person You want me to be." and that's where i realized Hashem had been waiting to help me all along