Hi All,

I am a guy who just jumped into the site, and it's definitely saving me. I just wanted to start a thread, finally, to remain free of the alienation and isolation, as I head down the path of the second 45, which will start for me motzei shabbat, b'h.

I am so grateful for the support I have already received, and to a kind nefesh who agreed to sponsor me in hopes I can make it to the 90 days and its honor.

Best,
NefeshPashut

Great move - YOURE IN THE RIGHT LANE!!!

You wrote recently



Theres many coaches around here
If you could explain to us how you've been batting the first great 45 days, you'll get better input

The first response many will give you about the next 5 days is focus only on ODAAT

KOT

Markz,

You are right, without considering how I got through the first 45 days, I can't really plan for the next 45 (now on 53!). What were the lessons? What gave me strength? First, definitely, Hashem gave me so much strength, and while I have read here about people (Dov?) who said that during recovery davening can be distracted, I felt I gave myself over in davening the best that I could. What else? Avoidance. Avoidance is critical. The filter is about that, which is very strong on my devices, but not my only fence. I have tried to remain off the internet if home alone. There is a real question about what I will do in the coming 40 days or so, as I may need to be home alone for a period of time. I will be living alone temporarily. Perhaps I should cancel internet and use the office only?

The toughest thing for me is still guarding the eyes. I just went to a baseball game. It was horrifying: my own brother caught me ogling a woman. He caught me! I am supposed to catch me, before it starts. The baseball game was just a morass of visual temptation. Or I drove into my town today, a university town, and the first thing I see...."NO, STOP," I say to myself -- or is it to the world? The world is not going to stop anything. I have to be talking to myself on that....

Please decode for me ODAAT?

Best Wishes and Many Thanks,

Nefesh

ODAAT =One Day At A Time 

Simple and sweet. Perfect.

So, the interesting thing is, you never know which of the many fences you need to put around yourself will be the one that saves you. Sometimes, I feel like it's a game of wack-a-mole, whereby you wack one threat down and two more pop up. But it's seems so tenuous sometimes: one important fence is removed and the yetzer hara comes roaring back. I guess this is why it's important to have multiple fences, be constantly maintaining them and rebuilding them. It reminds me of the work that Odysseus sees his father Laertes doing in Homer's Odyssey, maintaining the vineyard, building back up terrace walls that crumble. You have to constantly be building up new fences, but also maintaining the old ones!

It's exhausting. I recently found myself a) alone more than in my first 45 days, and b) under more pressure, with the prospect of a new and more secure job (young university professor, and it's very hard to get security these days at the entry level).

The challenge is really to erect new fences. For example, I got rid of internet in the house altogether. This was such a blessing, I realized, when it kept me from falling.

I try and surround myself with people as much as I can, look for the tzadikim wherever they are....I know many are here!

best,
Nefesh

Lonliness and isolation can be deadly in this struggle.

Make sure to keep posting. 

Also a bit of good news. After a while (and I don't mean 90 days) it becomes easier. The urge subsides aside for occasional spikes every so often. So not exactly like Laertes. Of course the struggle doesn't end until we die, but it does change.

Thanks very much inastruggle.

That's great news, actually, about the subsiding of urges. That's long-term, I know. I felt a real cooling out effect after the first 30 days or so, but I got a spike around 50 days, and it was strong. It must be something like learning a new language (currently learning Turkish) -- or learning to lehn even (only learned that recently, and quite poorly...). You are re-learning how to be a human being -- how to be a Jew -- how to be kadosh, tahor, etc.

Probably has something to do with the brain rewiring itself. 

A lot of people fall around 90 days as well. So make sure to watch out for that.

So I will stick to one day at a time....

Had a thought yesterday, and then a dream, which was connected closely. I caught myself and averted my eyes, but later, I looked at an entire crowd of people. I wasn't looking for what had drawn me in earlier, but just looking over, through the whole crowd, and I thought, "All of these people, they came out of their mothers dumb and innocent, the same way, dropped on this earth."
I had a dream and I saw newborns squirming on the ground in their mothers' fluids. I saw my own future children (? b'ezrat hashem). And I thought of the last line of Sefer Yonah:

"and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?’

 Persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand...And I see some commentators who see the "b'hemah rabah" as likening Ninevites too cattle who don't know their maker. In a way, not knowing your right hand from your left is really the condition of a newborn; stupid, but innocent. But of course, as the story shows, worthy of Hashem's hesed too.

I am not sure who to cast in the role of the Ninevites; since of course they aren't innocent. Perhaps we who struggle with these problems are in fact they.

I made it to 70 days, Baruch HaShem. That's all I can say. Just breathe.

Been holding your breath for 2 months?

Haha. Not quite. But not breathing deeply enough. I started going to in-person SA(A) meetings. Been to two. I saw it as another fence. Taking it to the next level. I am torn between a feeling of empowerment and resignation, the good kind of resignation, which the program(s) promote. Only Hashem can really deliver me from this. Something bad happened to me when I was a child, I am convinced. Many things, really. But then there are years of patterns of behavior, self-reinforcing. I have long thought that davening and Torah study alone could cure me. But there was something missing in that approach, namely, facing the ugliness head-on. So facing the ugliness head-on is thrilling, in a way, and that is the empowerment I now feel. A friend in whom I confided that I was an addict cheered me by saying, "The thing has met its match in you!" I want to wrestle it to the ground and destroy it. But that's not how this works; it's more complicated. It's NOT in our power alone. And THAT is where the powerlessness comes in, the resignation. I am working on STEP ONE, recognizing that I am powerless over this and that my life (because of it) has become unmanageable.

"We admitted we were powerless over lust and our lives had become unmanageable."

 

Well, I made it to 89 days. One day to go, and living one day at a time! When I think back to my earlier attempts to quit, it's like looking at a different person. Since I was 13 or 14, were there two weeks in there that I was clean? And I tried! I really tried. I imagine that I approached two weeks, once or twice, but these were very rare stints, coincident with quirks in my life. Certainly, what I had hoped would work did not. Isolation did not work. And growing into myself as a BT did not do the trick either. Something was missing, spiritually; and with isolation, I was running in precisely the wrong direction.

There are so many triggers out there, society awash with schmutz, I am still amazed that I can do this. But I feel stronger every day, and I pray that I will be strong enough to reach 90 days and beyond. I am learning a new way to be. I am learning, and I love it.


 

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