Glad to hear such success!

I want to try the smiling. I want to be a positive guy.

Today is DAY 175 b'H!!!

I had a rough week. I had the flu and missed all my classes. I also went 11 pounds underweight and had a lot of physical pain. In the thick of it all the y'H kept it up. I lost a lot of perspective. (well not lost, but out of sight for the mean) IT took days of fighting and fighting to get to today where b'H I arrived back to sober land. (b'H no actual falls to speak of just a really intense struggle period)

Some things I learned:
1) if lust is the main thing on your mind you will feel like unbearable. Fighting it directly keeps it the main thing on your mind. So, after much difficulty I realized that and began sidestepping again. Vwalla! much simpler.

2) On the shmuz (the fight) I was listening to part 9 and in it R' shafier says very clearly at what point is my battle. It was a very clarifying moment for me. Even though I had known it before, somehow the details slip my mind and I get bent out of shape. It is amazing when Hashem sends just the right thing that I need to hear exactly when I need it.

This challenge is dreadful and awesome at the same time. It is such a challenging fight, but also allows for such amazing gain in personality growth, that I just marvel sometimes at it and how lucky I am to have it. (at other times I get frustrated with it and wonder why. Man the human mind is a fickle thing)

May we be zoche to keep growing and becoming more and more recovered and to keep the trucking up!!!

KUTGW GYE!!!!!

@singularity: me too. smiling is something I find challenging to do very often. But I can say that I keep working on it and I can smile so many tens of times more than just 10 months ago.  

Great share. Realizing that a thought is just a thought is very important. When we are able to label what's happening, we can truly evaluate it and rid of a lot of its power. "This too shall pass."

When I'm sick it's like HALT x 100. I get overcome with lust. Those days are always hard. I need to realize that I'm not going to be 100% on those days and it's ok. I need to remember that the aim isn't perfection. The aim is functioning normally. And most people aren't functioning normally when they're sick. So I don't need to expect that of myself.

Shlomo24 wrote on 28 Feb 2017 05:02:

When I'm sick I feel guilty for being sick. Don't know why. It's a problem because my addiction is a disease therefore I shouldn't beat myself up about it, but I beat myself up about being sick, so... 

And yeah sick times are privy for acting out. um, just gotta know it's also Ratzon Hashem

b'H today is 177!!! One day at a time.

I find each day to be a challenge but different. Some days, shemiras eynayim is the trouble, today was lust. Not actually lusting, but a feeling of need and void. It took me a little to realize that this was the issue and then I was able to focus on dealing with it appropriatly. (void from hunger, workload, tiredness, etc...) The more I go through the recovery process the more I am aware of my own personal cues and bodily needs. 

I guess THE question that I ask myself is why am I lusting? Then I daven to Him to help me find in him what I am seeking in others, and then I surrender, admit my powerlessness and move on with LIFE!!!!



Hatzlacha GYE.

I'm so proud of you. Keep up the amazing work. Are you in 12-step?

Shlomo24 wrote on 03 Mar 2017 01:11:

Stepping?
He sounds like a Tap Dancer

YAY! My favourite smiling guy. Keep up the fantastic news.

@shlomo24: Thank you! No I am not in a 12 step group though I have learned and continue to learn a lot of very great stuff from the program.

Thank you shlomo24, markz, and singularity! It really gives me a lot of chizuk when you guys express such staunch support for me. Thank you. And thank you to the GYE forum for creating a place where we can all support one another.

I have some thoughts on the in between period that falls between the engagement and the wedding. (that's where I am now )

1) It is very challenging to be so close to someone (emotionally) and not be (I don't know how to say it, but...) at that next level of intimacy. Or shall I say, It is hard for someone with these challenges (or frankly even a completely healthy guy) who has been poraish from women in relationships to be in a situation where someone of the opposite gender (that would be a woman ) is very into me as I am into her. I don't want to sound too graphic because that is not the point right now. The point I am making is that the relationship builds in a closeness ('...and they shall be of one flesh..." ) its just difficult to be there. Now a great positive spin a rebbe told me (the one that I spoke to) that it is a tremendous brachah that I am very attracted to my kallah. He said that he knows many chassanim who are not. So On the one hand, these feelings are wonderful, but on the other hand I feel like I'm losing ground in this fight.

2) which brings be to point two. I think the main avodah, correct me if I am wrong, (it certainly wouldn't be the first time) is to not think about what will be when we get to do what married people do. It is a form of living in the future which is not good, and only makes things lust-wise more difficult. It's another angle on ODAAT. So I have been working on this and I think my head is on straight. Sure there are moments that I find very challenging, but there are also some moments of wonderfully sober success. Sometimes I work and work and work, and feel like its futile (YH talking) and not give proper credit to all the times that I have success. Its like letting the lust thing encompass more of my life than it should be. Sure I have a lust problem. I don't believe that it is out of control so long as I keep working on it with REAL tools like those found here on GYE.  

3) I have to remember that life is bigger than this and there is so much more going on than sex. Which I know but that doesn't always help at this stage.

4) I know that the focus and goal of intimacy is to focus on her needs and not on her being the object of my needs. I know and I get it. (I'm on board with that whole heartedly. Until I'm there I won't know for sure. But I truth Hashem to help me accomplish what I need to in that area as well in the best possible way) Are there any indicators to keep in mind that tell me if I am keeping to that in practice? (if its not advised to discuss any of these points until I am married/ in a less public place I would be happy to know that and deal with this discussion at a more advised time )

5) This is more of a question. I know that many have and continue to say on this forum about how marriage does not solve this problem and may in fact even make it worse. (now that is a bit scary, but also realistic, and I get where it is coming from) However, in 'the fight' shiurim by rabbi shafier he talks about how before marriage one must fight the fight in the smartest way possible using the best tools available, but that until one is married it is impossible to totally win the fight. Obviously, marriage does help in some fashion. (in the shiur he explains some of the manners in which it helps) I was wondering if anyone more wise/married had any positive aspects of marriage that contribute in good ways to this fight? (I feel like the other approach is too focused on negatives, albeit not unrealistic. I just feel that it is difficult enough as it is to not think that I'm entering a new and only more difficult fighting ring. To me now it feels a bit like shooting myself in the foot so to speak getting married.) Any good things gained from getting married in this area of potential and growth?

Thank you all for listening. (sorry for the long post) These are some of my thoughts. I'm sure I am not the first person to have them, and I just want some feedback to make sure I am not out to lunch or something and that my thinking is not off the wall. b'H I am in a very exciting time of life, and I want to make sure that I don't mess up anything that I can avoid unnecessarily.

Hatzlacha and may be all be zoche to fulfill our greatest potential and live life the way it was meant to be!!!

KUTGW!!



p.s. will be discussing some of these points and more with my rebbe as well, I just want to hear what works or words of wisdom from the community here that have been so helpful thus far.

Thank you!

You are gonna get a bill in the mail for all your smileys. 
Just kiddin'

Rabbi Shafiers model is "The fight" which supposedly works for non addicts although hasn't helped me. So I don't believe it's Toras Moshe which you have to follow to the tee, unless you're a fighter

A few books I found very helpful- the five languages of love, can't remember by who, the seven principles of a successful marriage or something like that from John Gotman, and another one from Sue Johnson I can't remember- but Markz posted from it once. 

Good stuff in that long post of yours.

Right track.

Continued hatzlachah

Hatzlocha in the in between phase! It lasts but the blink of an eye and before you know it you won't remember what it was like not to touch. 

I just found this now...

gibbor120 wrote on 18 Apr 2013 18:19:

Did he ever get a reply?