Of course it haunts you. But you can't tell me that one who acts out on occasions is obssesed with it. Its not affecting him 24/7. Your analagy to a disease is perfect. but I would add one more caveat. Its analogous to a controled contained disease. Every now and then it flares up. At times it comes back to haunt you. But a contained disease no longer controls and takes over ones life. in my mind one who achieves that goal has already reached a high level. he should no longer be depressed when it flares up. Of course eridacting the disease is better. But its a great step not to be taken lightly.

Again I will repeat I am only taking issue with those that use terms as "depressed, sad, not happy etc.. I am not knocking any other approach other than the depressing approach.

waydown wrote:


All the best!

b'hatzlachah

I don't get it. All of a sudden depression is the answer to our problems? Am I missing something? I was always told and raised no matter how rotten and bad we are depression is not the answer. That does not mean we shouldn't want change. But depression, sad , not happy? And no I am not breslov.

By the way I had a huge urge during work to browse unkosher sites. However, thanks to our fiesty debates you cordnoy helped me out. So Kudos for you help brother!

תּחת אשׁר לא עבדתּ את ה׳ אלוקך בּשׁמחה ובטוב לבב

waydown wrote:


Glad to hear that.
My pleasure.
I don't know why you keep bringing up depression. ...a word I haven't used in this entire discussion.

Well, I believe that everyone here is right and do you know why? Because we are looking two different points the first point is the disease as the way it is, without the religion point of view and the second point is the religion side of the disease even if I dont have my addiction in a higher stage (it means i can really control myself for shorts or mediums periods of time)

The difference between them is that if i look just for the disease so it's ok to act out in medium periods of time and if i look for the religion side just if i do this once in my life and didnt made teshuva so it is sufficient to receive a real big onesh that is karet.

So I think that the magic is when you mix this points into one receipt and how can we do this? It is simple if i fell today(lo aleinu c'v) what is my reaction? i will be sad and etc.. Then i will be the rest of my day doing other aveiros because im feeling "sad" And cannot get up or i will geet up and look to the point of the disease and say "ok, no worry it is a disease and this have a treatment, if i follow the prescription i will get up if not next time so after it but i just need to follow the prescription" and then you will get up and maybe find strengh for the next time and the rest of your day.

So where is the religious side on it? Well i have to say that we must leave it for the proper times like yom kipur that we really need to feel guilty because we really did some aveiros. It is not just yom kipur we are able to do this even in a normal day if you do at the right way not just feeling sad right after you did it, you can take 15, 30 min. or more every day to think about your sins and make teshuva, but i think never do this immediately after you fall, because right after falling we need chizuk to make the right choices during the day in others decisions of our lifes.

To conclude I believe that both feelings are inestimable to everyone but they have the right time to apply each one.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, this way is how i try to look at my situation.

Chazak18 wrote:


What!?

Well from a religous point of view, I look at it like this. The yetzer hara will fight with you till the day you die. Only pure tzadkim never slip. While chas vasholom for me to give heterim to slip. But as long as we keep on fighting there is no reason to get sad about our pitfalls. This is what hashem wants. And I would venture to say your schar for fighting this battle far out numbers the anush of falling every now & then. That is providing you really fight.

I think Cordony is suggesting that beating addictions don't work that way. With addictions you are either totally in the game or totally out. Truthfully, I have posted this question on prior forums. Perhaps a lust addiction should be analagous to a food adiction where you diet but you never just totally abstain from food. On occasions you slip but the key is to train yourself on a steady course to generally abstain from overeating. However, the experts seem to feel no its like alchohl where you need almost a total abstanation.

Sex with one's wife may or may not be a manifestation of lust. Let's just leave that issue aside.
But we must agree on the following:
Porn and masturbation are absolutely never okay, not even once.
Again, leaving any sex with one's wife out if this, would you not agree that it is fully possible to eternally abstain from lust? (Meaning, never watch porn or masturbate.)
And yet, many of us have difficulty even with that.
I think it is quite different from a food Addiction. Sorry.

If we accept that addiction is indeed a medical disease, can a "pure" tzadik be an addict? If no, could a pure tzadik have any medical disease and why would you differentiate?

Sorry I don't think logically you can divide masterbating and sex. You need to do it with your wife. So yes you can phsyco anyalze how to diffrentiate between lust and love etc.. But at the end of the day mastarbation and sex come form the same hormones. Just we must challenge it correctly. So we do dabble with those hormones. In fact maybe your body works differnet but usually the next morning your lingering tavois are physcally much stronger than on nites that no relations with your wife occurred. So it is all one shorosh. Alchohol is really something we never ever need to dabble with at all. Thus for alchohol total abtsanation is a fine approach to tackle the addiction.

waydown wrote:

I recall reading studies that have shown otherwise.
You are welcome to your opinion, but the discussion cannot really begin until we at least agree that abstinence from porn and masturbation is possible.

Let me clarify what i said regarding two things:
1- when i said that for the disease point is ok to act out medium periods of time it is mean that for a normal person he maybe can do it for all his life and will not get addicted because he maybe don't feel "i need it now", but of course for an addicted you need just once to have back the past behaviors so even if the addicted try do do once in even long periods of time he will get his past behaviors back.
2- for sure we need to be happy always even after a fall, but a few times we need to avaliate our actions (like yom kipur or 9 be av)

Abstinence from porn I believe is totally possible.

Absitnence from masturbation is "nearly" impossible but not impossible. It is aid on big tzadkim that one of thier tzidkus is they were never motzai zera levatla their whole life. That means for us binanim its "nearly" impossible. I think Dov who is sober for 18 yrs straight is one in a million. Unless you mean abstinence like in a general term, meaning only acting out on very rare occasions (once in two years). And even that I think is difficult.

waydown wrote:

Perhaps learning mussar and involving ourselves in Torah didn't help us, but to say that abstention is impossible is dangerous territory.
Why are you even here if you feel its literally impossible? By rebutting every attempt to help you with nonsensical claims, you are hurting yourself more. As far as we can tell from reading your posts, you have not so much as seriously put any effort into stopping.
That kind of attitude does not belong here. If you want to keep making excuses to allow yourself to keep masturbating, Kol hakavod.
But please don't mislead anyone else and waste our time by pretending to be interested in stopping.
Hatzlocha

If a person falls once a week and during the period of the fall he cannot control himself, is he considered an addict?

If a person indulges in alcohol once a week, with no freedom of choice, even though the rest of his week is manageable, is he not an alcoholic?