Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by

If you smile through all fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll find the sun come shining through, for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear maybe ever so near

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear maybe ever so near

Now, that's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile
Smile, smile

Keep smiling, keep shining
Knowing you can always count on me, for sure
That's what friends are for
For good times and bad times
I'll be on your side forever more
That's what friends are for

Welcome, W2S!

A good therapist can be very helpful in dealing with past issues. That can be important, but it's not sufficient: therapy, by itself, has a poor track record in helping people stop addictive behavior. Group support, on the other hand, has a very good track record.

What kind of group support? Posting on the forum, working through (not just casually reading) the GYE Handbook, and calling in to one of GYE's 12-Step calls is a very good start. If that works for you (it has worked for me, be"H, one day at a time), that's wonderful.

If necessary, you can add the Taphsic method (see link below). And, if it's still not working, live SA meetings may be necessary. If the thought of attending live meetings scares you, that's a good thing: it will give you a strong incentive to do whatever is necessary to succeed with the other tools. But, if a person cannot succeed without live meetings, he should go for it! My experience is that getting clean - and staying clean - is very doable, for those who make it their top priority (which it is: if your roof is leaking, you should get it fixed before renovating your living room).

Hatzlacha!

guardyoureyes.com/articles/tips-suggestions/item/the-taphsic-method-made-simple

therapy - poor track record?
do you have statistics for that?
tapshic is more impressive?
I didn't study the stats, but I'd assume therapy has a better chance of workin'....no?

Thank you to everyone for your support and advice.

wow, that was close! That was a very rough last 24 hrs but B"H I did not fall!!

I was completely miserable and totally not feelin' it, but I desperately kept coming back to GYE hoping that something would help me. Reading about some other people opening up and being received/supported/encouraged so nicely was able to help me relax a bit. It always amazes me how I can get so caught up in myself that I don't even realize that I am caught up in myself! It was hard to believe I was the same person that was so energized before.

I think that for me right now it is very important to stay out of isolation. This is very hard for me to do. I usually feel (especially when I am feeling down) that have don't even have anything (at least, anything not stupid) worth sharing. Not because I feel stupid, I know I am actually very bright, I just feel like my thoughts and feelings and opinions aren't worth sharing. Even posting here is a big deal for me. In fact, I am still a bit surprised when I see people read/replied to something I posted.

Thank you to bigmoish and PSM for your email addresses, it meant a lot to me for someone to reach out to me like that. I have had drafts open in my gmail since you posted, wanting desperately to email you, but every time I tried to write something I couldn't figure out something to say that I woudnt feel stupid about. my email address is wants2succeed@gmail.com can you email me directly there?

Thanks cordnoy for those lovely words! They brought a smile to my face and for the first time in a day (man, it feels like forever!!!) the world looks a lot brighter!

NIC thanks for post I have been reading your thread and I found it helpful. I can relate to a lot of what you have gone through. I can still remember at my bar mitzvah (and I assure you this is the only thing I remember from the speeches at my bar mitzvah! ) my rebbi got up and basically gave me a bracha to "fulfill my potential" and I was just thinking "Seriously??!? Will I ever do enough for anybody?? It's like it makes no difference what I do there is always more "potential"!!" At the time, I was one of the top students in the class (if not the top student)! (although, to be fair, I did have the "potential"!! )

Shmeichel, you are absolutely right!! I have no idea how you finish with
when you started with
but I guess I will have to wait and hope that I will get it someday!!

Anyway, thank you to everyone for making me feel "part of the oilam"! I feel ready to go at it again and try to make it through TODAY!

p.s. I know I usually post kinda long. I think I feel like I need to put out a "masterpiece" or it wont be worth reading. I am workin on that!!

Maybe check out the Dr sorotzkin stuff on perfectionism

There's a link to his site in my signature. It's really good stuff.

dear w2s
just some interesting and non usual advice from me:
try to change your lifestyle, your routined comfortable daily pattern, try to break that, try to start a once a week swimming, twice a week excersize, one more chavruse for 45 minutes, coffee without sugar, bread with cheese instead of butter, walk a different way to shul, soft shoes instead of hard ones, different type of cigarette, i know it sounds really stupid, but bear in mind i dont mean to change these changes for good, just for a month or so, unless you find it helpful then why not keep them, but the main thing here is come out a tiny bit of your comfortzone and you will see that the social life out there is not sooooooooooooo bad and scary
try it make some small changes
keep us posted of them
freshen up a bit

I just want you to know that I am in the same boat as you brother. When i read your first post I kind of freaked out because If this wasn't an anonymous forum i would have guessed that you are me! We can do this together my friend. It is us against the world. A whole world that has gone crazy. We can do this. We will BREAK OUT.

Well, it has been several weeks since i have posted on this thread and it has been a roller coaster ride. Some very good ups and some very bad lows. I find that staying positive helps me a lot but it doesn't alwayshelp and i can't always stay positive. Also, staying connected really helps me the most but i find it very hard to do. The are some really awesome guys here and very helpful and caring. But, it is very time consuming for me, but even more so it is very emotionally draining and exhausting for me. I'm not quite sure why. But i know i have to post etc even if I'm not feeling it... So, sorry for the boring post hopefully I'll have better news next time

No news is bad news!

Hey wants2succeed,

I really get the emotional exhaustion; I've been there. I guess as addicts, we really don't have a medium setting, a middle position on our mental switches. It's all or nothing, on or off. We're either down and out completely, or bouncing-off-the-walls with optimism -- goofy, grinning Joe Programs. At least that's the way it plays out for me.

Maybe that unbridled optimism is part of the problem; it's something that I've been ruminating over for the past few months. When I'm into something, I'm into it big! Whether it's a hobby, or a writer, or a musician -- I don't know the meaning of casual fandom. The same with recovery. I was so high on the prospects of clean living and this new, exciting paradigm of 'purity' that I lost sight of the little things, like creeping temptations and vulnerabilities in my defenses. And this led to falling, often in very discouraging, demoralizing binges.

Actually, it might simply be that addicts have to avoid over-excited emotional states all together; they're not good for us. We need to mellow out, even when it comes to recovery. "One day at a time," is a call for curbing over-exuberance; think about it. Now, of course, that doesn't mean we can't think positively, and be happy, even high on life. It just means we have to reign in that urge to get carried away emotionally. We have to focus on the central precept of "Letting go and letting G-d," and that probably requires staying grounded to a degree.

I actually have been wondering about this for a long time. We always say things like "us addicts have to..." Does this mean that as an addict, we can never become "normal" again? I always thought of it as just having something that one needs to learn to deal with. For example, someone that is naturally socially awkward, needs to learn social cues because they dont pick up on them naturally the way most people do. Or, someone who has diabetes chv"sh has to learn to monitor their sugar levels. But they can still function as regular people. Is addiction different (i.e. we cant get too excited)? Or is the "getting too excited" not actually what regular people do and it is really all part of the problem (i.e. not being able to regulate emotions the way regular people do)?

I must say that I have always been hoping to learn coping skills to be able to function as a regular person. Being different like that forever really scares me...

Don't worry about forever. You can be normal. I'm not sure if you can ever "indulge" your eyes or your fantasy mind as a normal person does without going completely overboard, but you can lead a fulfilling normal life. Perhaps even better than someone without an addiction.

Hey wants2succeed,

Please don't think that I'm commenting on your exact situation; I only know mine. I'm also still working through things, introspectively, so my insights are, at best, incomplete.

However, "normal" is a tough thing to define, at least for me. The 12-step guys want addicts to see themselves as different, forever; it's one of the foundations of the program. Our powerlessness is never going to disappear. Rather, through giving ourselves over to HaShem, we're going to learn how to cope with our condition. Through this, and only through this -- if you really subscribe to the 12-step model -- will we be able to lead "normal" lives, that is, lives free of lustful behavior.

I'm sure you know this though. I think your question -- and tell me if I'm wrong -- is whether you'll ever get to the point where you just wake up and go through your day without having to lug all of this recovery baggage (the serenity prayers, the occasional white-knuckling, the reaching out to sponsors) around with you everywhere. I really don't know. That probably depends on how far your addiction has progressed, or whether or not you're an addict at all.

Similar questions pop into my mind every now and then. But like Gibbor said, don't worry about forever. That's the pitfall, at least for me. You need a very narrow gaze with these things, even myopic. At the very least, this extra recovery stuff, eventually, will become a more seamless part of your existence; you won't notice it's there...as much. And also like Gibbor said, you might even emerge better than someone without an addiction. Not that such heights should necessarily be your goal with this stuff :-) But it's a nice perk.

I guess what is really bothering me is that many times I see people doing things but I usually see a lot of the "background" motivations. i.e. someone is helping me - but I see the person's insecurity and them trying to ingratiate themselves to overcome this insecurity. point is that it always seems to me that all our actions come from somewhere and when that somewhere is addressed, the action is no longer necessary i.e. as soon as the person becomes more secure, they stop needing to help you as much. The same seems to me the case with addiction. The acting out is there to cope with a negative feeling and if someone can learn to deal with the negative feeling in a more appropriate way, they wont have a need for the acting out. Obviously one doesn't break that association as easily as that, but it would help them overcome the urge by having a better way of coping.

However if that is the case, what does it mean to "give it all up to Hashem"?

Shouldn't we be trying to figure out how we can react more appropriately?