dear dov, where i went was home for shabbos.i do not have internet at home, nor do i ever want it.the rabbanim said not to get it, so i didn't get it.forget my kids protection - i'm talking about myself! so, i only have 90 minutes a day at work, and maybe at the library if there is no line.
anyway, i love you for what you are doing, even if we can't agree on the methods. reb dov - we are both trying to get to the same place! a place of kedusha and sanity.if you take the grand central parkway and i take the long island expressway and we both get off at lakeville road, you make a right, i'll make a left, and we'll meet in the middle! if r' guard loves you, you can't be bad, no way.more later, after i do some work. jack

dear kosher, you will get different answers to your query, depending on who you ask.if you ask me, i think you are right, you do not have an easy task.the mesilas yesharim says we in a milchama chazaka - i'm sorry but there's no easy way out.you will have to 'white-knuckle' it. you need to have a human being on the phone to talk to.unless talking to Hashem works for you. for me, i am so low that i needed a human being to talk to.and i found one.i call him every so often to keep up the kesher.he really only has one deficiency - he still thinks the civil war is still going on.well, elya, i'm sorry to have to tell you this, but the war is over and the north won.seriously, he is the (second) BEST thing that ever happened to me in this battle.the first best, is GYE, because without GYE i would never have found him.he was there for me whenever i needed to talk, and in the beginning, it was pretty rough going.he does not want to take any credit, but don't listen to him - without him, I poshut could not have accomplished what i did.

so, kosher, if you can learn how to meditate, that might be helpful.get the book 'the relaxation response' by herbert benson m.d. and find someone to speak to on the phone. but i can't order anyone what to do. jack

I am in 100% agreement with you.

But where do you find someone to talk to about this?
That is a lot easier said than done. The time zone and phone access in remote parts of the world don't help, but I'm not up to those issues yet, I don't have anyone at all.

(And yes, I am aware that Dov has a contact in Beijing that is desperate to talk to anyone available.)

kosher, so dov has someone, get his phone #. or email guard at eyes.guard@gmail.com.he will try to find someone for you.but you can't do it alone.you need another human being.did you ever try to climb a mountain all by yourself? well, that's what the battle of shmiras eynayim is - a mountain, azoy zugt guard.
as far as what white-knuckling means, lefi aniyus dati it means the opposite of giving up the battle to Hashem.it means fighting all by yourself. it is of course true we can't accomplish anything without Hashem's assistance, and we can daven that He help us, but in my view, Hashem wanted us to be masters of our own fate.He wanted us to make our own bed, and sleep in it.He wanted us to prepare on erev Shabbos, so we will have something to eat on Shabbos.this is the way He wanted it.by the yam suf it says 'lama titzak ayli? daber el bnai yisrael vyisau!' He wanted someone to jump in the sea! only after Nachshon took the plunge did Hashem split the waters.
this is an old fight between the Jewish people and Hashem - who should take the 1st step.
jack

I just posted something in my thread about this pain of not acting out.  You might find it interesting:

www.guardyoureyes.org/forum/index.php?topic=634.msg103938#msg103938

--Eye.

jack wrote on 11 Apr 2011 16:09:
Dear Jack,

I know you didn't address the above to me, but I have thought a great deal about the issues you bring up and have some thoughts to share about them. Just ignore it if you want and don;t hold the highjacking against me. No truth here, just some thinking, possibly truth - as usual, only Hashem knows...

You wrote that we need to take the first step and that it happens from our own "power" and is not done by Hashem. This is in distinction from most stuff that keeps us alive like digestion, breathing, etc. If that is what you meant, I agree 100% and have recently posted about R' Elazar ben Durdaya and how I see his "ein hadovor tolui ella bee" as exactly the 1st step surrender of an addict. (I do believe that he was not just a rosho, but also a pervert who has the same illness as I do.) He wanted us to be masters of our own fate in some respect, certainly. And while He guides us in so many bazzilion ways, here He stands off to the side. We need to contribute that first part and He seems to wait for us to do that before he does anything to help free us. And so I have been working the steps beyond the 1st one - none of which have any mention of our addiction in them, of course - to progressively let Him in, now that I have started to do my part because of my illness. 

Till then, many of us daven and cry our heads off and "do teshuvah" though to our chagrin and faith-pain, it does virtually nothing except confuse us even more, as you have written.

One more thing:

I have not accepted that the avodah of an addict is the same as that of all people. It may be so, but I feel more comfortable living with the perspective that an addict is ill, and that a normal Jew (or goy, lh') is not. Of course, there are many parallels between our avodah and the avodah of normal Jews (and b'nei Noach, lh') - but they are just parallels. Convenient metaphors. Not identical, for they do not have a progressive, chronic, and fatal disease.

In the same way, while I guess that R Elazar Ben Durdaya was a fellow addict, I do not see any of the other people in Tanach (the yidden who messed around with the b'nos Midyan/Moav, The Nochosh [!] wanting Chava, and the majority of the yidden out there who have porn and even infidelity problems) as sex/lust addicts. It is just completely untenable to me to say that all the efforts at exhortation and mussar regarding tzniyus and sexual restraint in tons of Chazals and seforim - are mistaken! NO. I say every word that Chazal say is true - but they were not referring to people who were like me: memvers of the walking, talking insane.

I am not waiting for any responses on this, and offer no argument. But I do feel that much of the strife that breaks out on GYE over this issue every few months is fueled by the simple fact that many of the folks who deny that addiction is a true illness (of the lust variety) simply cannot accept that all the stuff they were trying to use is essentially irrelevant to some people - and people who are in fact doing aveiros, yet!
They, I feel, are getting distracted by the fact that lust addicst are doing aveiros. As a result, they lump the problem and solution under the rubric of all aveiros challenges. It just drives them crazy that the normal tools Hashem gave us do not work for something that we think they should work for. It's out of ahavas Hashem that they do this. Nu. That's what I believe (among other things, like, that there is a G-d in the world, that He is the Best, in the Torah, and...well, never mind ).

It really is an impossible mess, this one. Things that are philosophical and not lema'aseh usually are...

And all you and I can do, Jack, is stay sober in our own different ways with G-ds loving assistance and hope we will be of some assistance to some others that come along the way.

What more could we really ask for? We certainly don't deserve more than that, I figure.

Love,

Dov

i lost - not that i ever wanted to convince anyone of anything, i jsut wanted to put forward my opinion and see what people would say.i see that my opinion is NOT well received by the majority.well, people that were much much much greater than me suffered persecution for their non-conforming beliefs.like the ramchal, the rambam, rabbi soloveichik (of YU) and there might be more that i can't think of.it's lonely thinking different than everyone else, but i won't change until i am convinced that that position is logically correct.and you want to know something? i admit that i might be wrong! lehitraot - jack

I seriously thought that I was saying basically the same thing you were, Jack.

I too, have sufferred a great deal of abuse and name-calling myself (mostly here on GYE - though Guard only rarely passes on the harsh criticism of the 'Daily Doses of Dov' that he puts together - I never read them cuz I never get the Chizzuk Emails), so we are indeed brothers!

The point of my above post was to share my conscience - what I like to and do not like to believe - not to 'prove' anything. As I have said plenty times before, we cannot 'prove' anything and may all be wrong! We just share a lot and try a lot.

Did I goof?

dov,dov,dov - if you were here right now i'd hug you to death (well, not really death, but you know what i mean). i just want you to stop calling yourself sick, ok? yes, you have an addiction that's annoying.there are methods, but get out of that 'sick' mode! in my opinion, it's not emotionally healthy to go around thinking of yourself as sick.more later, after i do some work.
signed
we're-trying-to-do-the-same-thing-jack

Sorry about the megillah, but it was time. And it took up my alloted 1.5 hours on the forum for the day! 

I know you are sincere, Jack, and that you mean what you say, and I love you for it.  Your concern is a lesson for me. I know that what your heart tells you is plain good sense and yashrus! But there is another perspective. One borne out of pain and a hard-road travelled. And I see it as derech Hashem al taharas haKodesh - for me.

I am aware of the Sha'arei Kedusha who writes that one of the greatest obstacles people have to really succeeding at avodas Hashem and teshuvah is their lack of faith in their own innate beauty and greatness. I was raised in yeshivah on 'Slabodka' food, more than 'Navardok' food, too, so I am no stranger to the school of 'Tif'eres ho'Odom' and of the great value that focus has in healthy personality development and avodas Hashem. I have read a good bit of Rav Twerski's writing and feel I understand his reasons for being focused on self-esteem as a goal for people with difficulties. OK.

I have come to the conclusion that all that is very, very nice. Gorgeous, actually, and I love it. Sadly, it does not help me (and others I have come to know well) to live right, and I have come to see why.

I discovered that while other frum yidden can look at porn occasionally, watch suggestive TV occasionally and even masturbate occasionally, I cannot successfully get away with doing those things. I have met frum yidden, and lh' goyim, who can even be unfaithful to their wives - yet it does not become a pattern and does not make living impossible for them (unless the guilt is driving them crazy, but that is not what I am talking about, at all). Many of them get over it and move on, often living quite well and not returning to their aveiro. They have tayvo. So do many of us. Sadly, they gave in. Nu. These are normal yidden. The kind in all the sforim who need to do teshuvah. It's what a nig chunk of yiddishkeit is all about.

But I am not that way. Sex and lust-related fun becomes a pattern with me, the struggle against my desire to do it becomes an epic and romantic obsession of religious proportions, eventually taking over my mind and my life. For whatever reason, I cannot just do those things once in a while - I try it and I need it. And apparently, I keep needing it even more, even after running away from it for a long time. That is a good bit of what I mean by, "I am sick". I am primarily sick in that I cannot 'lust like a gentleman'. Just as the alkies discovered they cannot 'drink like a gentleman'. Same problem.

To you, that may sound like a 'madreigah'. Some may say that it is a sign that I possess a 'higher soul' that cannot tolerate such things. I do not see it that way, because while my nature leads me deeper into what I feel is kedusha and awesome ecstatic connection to avodas Hashem at times, it has a flipside: it is why I end up acting out my lust. All the ecstatic connection to Hashem and His Torah that I could muster did not fill me up. I had a hole in my pocket, apparently....

When Rav Dessler wrote about how running after earthly desires is our way of trying to fill up a spiritual hole in us - he was talking about normal people. And thank-G-d for that, for 90% of us are normal! But I tried very hard to do just that, and it did not work at all. All the Tikkun Klalis, mikvah, learning, chassidus, and going to tzaddikim that I could engage in had no traction in the end. I'd return to my old standby of fantasy, sex with myself, and searching for satisfaction, eventually.

What was the hole in my pocket that leaked out all the 'Kedusha' I was getting as fast as I could shovel it in, I wondered?

And though it is related in some general way, this is not what the Ramban is referring to in the beginning of Parshas Kedoshim where he writes that giving in to tayvoh creates more tayvoh until a person discovers that he is doing things he'd never imagine he'd ever view as acceptable. What I am talking about is a pattern that proved itself beyond the highs and lows of the katnus of normal life. It was over decades. Marriage ('pas be'saloh') made it much, much worse. My behavior eventually revealed to me a dependence on sex and lust as a sort of 'inner currency' to rely on for peace of mind. For what feels like my survival. I can do a real good teshuvah and be omeid in nisyonos that 'proved' how far I have come into 'teshuvah gemurah' per the RMb"M in hilchos Teshuvah...only to fall a few months or a year later and return to the exact pattern of tolerance, obsession, acting out, and withdrawal. And it progresses over a lifetime inexorably lower and lower, until it becomes intolerable. At least that is the way it happenned for me - and for practically every addict I have met, frum, Jewish, or not. Eerily, it is the identical seder that the AAs and heroin addicts describe in their own torrid stories.

Were I a person like others (I call them non-addicts, but prefer "normal"), I really believe that if you (and enough other people) would hug me enough and smile at me enough, I might finally accept that I don't need the lust anymore. Some well-meaning people have told me and other addicts, "it's all because you think xy, or z", or because "you don't do a, b, or c." And often, they seem so sure of themselves.

People seem to understand me pretty well, you know.

Where were all of these chachomim when I was masturbating in the peep shows? Everyone means well. But until you wake up in the gutter holding your tehiilim/Mesilas Yeshorim/Tanya again, you don't know what it's like.

I am not here to share for the sake of those who can use tools (even the Torah) to keep out of trouble. I am primarily here for those who have come to see - it has been proven to them beyond a doubt - that they are completely hopeless and they cannot make it.

Unfortunately, there have been many who have followed the same path as mine, gotten better - and then cocluded that they've 'got it', now! That they must be 'recovered'! They usually get destroyed. That is not a threat or a warning, I have no reason to do that, for I sincerely believe that there are some people who really do get healed and really do recover. But I have met more who do not, and I love people (and their families) like you do.

I would rather appear like I am trashing the party-line that the masses (not you) consider "avodas Hashem" (Torah must work for you!)- yet save a few families from the torture I have known.

Halevai the chachomim out there can save them all. But it is not happenning.

Well, I am not a chochom. I am beaten, that's all. Leiv nishbar v'nidkeh Elokim lo sivzeh. For me, the admission that I am broken and cannot beat lust was - and still is - the wellspring of my leiv nishbar. And Hashem loves a broken heart more than anything else in the whole world, the Kotzker said. Sure, with mussar and chassidus I have other sources for knowing Hashem besides my personal experience through tragic and pathetic failure. But I know that if I ever get shaky and 'wonder' who is really Boss...I can pull out my first step and read it. That is why I still got to meetings - so I do not forget who I am. An Ud mutzal mei'eish.

The day I have 'the answer' and can keep myself sober, I'll let people know it! But it is plain to me that Hashem - not Dov - keeps me sober because I let Him. So big woop. I am not a suicidal moron. For that I deserve credit?

I think not.

And is this a bad attitude? Does it lead me to depression? No. Does it embitter my relations with others? No. Does it hamper my avodas Hashem? No.

Dependence on Hashem because He is a Power Greater than myself. If I could keep myself sober - even with yir'as Shomayim - then I would not really need G-d any more! And I suspect that many normal people do not really need to need G-d. They can live OK with just a faith in G-d.

That is how I see it.

dov, thank you for explaining all that to me.i now know why r' guard loves you so much.people out there will make fun of me (again) for being so emotional, but that's the way i am. of course i am like you in all the descriptions you gave of what an addict is, dont forget - i went 38 years straight without treatment - but the question is what attitude will help us move forward.i will, like you, get right back into that bad pattern again, if i don't use the methods that work for me. and i call my buddy in the south every so often because he calms me down, and he always has time for me. so, rabbeinu dov, as r' guard wrote to me, have a great 'festival of freedom'. FREEDOM, get it?
jack

So I'm not a suicidal Moron ;D today. Thank you Hashem!

dov wrote on 13 Apr 2011 18:17:


Dov, you remind me of something a good friend of mine once said: "I do not particularly care exactly which 'lav' suicide is. I'm not interested in it for other reasons!"  :D ;D

LOve you all and a happy Kosher and free Pesach to us all!!

dov wrote on 13 Apr 2011 20:40:


A free Pesach?  That sounds great!