Shivisi, you are an amazing person. Stopping at the last minute is real gevura. Starting from zero displays great responsibility and honesty. This being despite GYE policy that you did not need to restart. As was written, those 50 days remain yours forever.  In the future are you comfortable removing your glasses if you see a triggering matzav?

bb0212 wrote on 16 Aug 2017 05:44:

tell me about it, i worked on that 50 days very hard, its not 50 days, its 50 x TODAYS....
Thank you

Workingguy wrote on 16 Aug 2017 15:05:



i take this for credit, and you guy's can also take credit, without your courage and support, i wouldn't get to that step ever.... in my old days, i would be long in the dumb's.


i will do it again, thank you for your support.


no clue, someone sent it to me a while ago. its true and good.

Hashem Help Me wrote on 16 Aug 2017 17:01:

i dont have glasses, and now i understand the Chazal

(אמר רבי יוחנן: אחורי ארי ולא אחורי אשה" (ברכות סא א

Sheev, I just want to say that your honesty and commitment to growth are awesome. KUTGW (and the good attitude ) And KOMT!!

Day #1

Yes, im at Day #1, with new energy, and old way of thinking, one day at a time,and I will not give up…. Ever, and only with hashems and your help, I can’t alone.

dont get me wrong, i hate to get to this Matsev, but now im full of energy and Koach to move forward, and i will do it all the way, and Today only....

Hashem, thank you, for helping me to survive, thank you all of you on GYE, I’m clean only because of you, it has nothing to do with me… I’m powerless, I wouldn’t be clean today without your help, I’m very happy that I’m part of this chevrah, without you, I wouldn’t be where I’m today.

Thank you all!!!

Let’s Stay Strong! Let’s Stay Clean! And let’s be positive and happy, Yes! We can! And Together!

Just to pipe in: my first sponsor said that (this is directed for addicts) sobriety is very important for recovery and that i need to count my recovery and every meeting announce how much sobriety i have. (Before this, i was saying "about 2 weeks" etc) Because i cant really recover without sobriety. If i am filled up with lust then how am i supposed to be in the right headspace? How am i going to feel my feelings if i keep running away? So counting is important for me. So i can be grateful to God for keeping me sober! So i can keep moving in the right direction. So i can work the steps probably. Do i only count? Absolutely not. Its not even one of my real tools! But i do announce it at meetings. I dont usually concentrate on it so much as it is one day at a time but it still is important to remember once in a while. 

I will note that as much as it is important to remember my sobriety date, it is even more important to remember how powerless i am over lust and how unmanageable my life is. How i cant stop lusting, how it ruins my life. That is step 1 and that is the foundation of the program. 

(ps. I didn't ask my sponsor about does a person lose what he had before. I could argue both ways. But if this is truly a life or death disease to me then at some point it could be!) 

dms1234 wrote on 17 Aug 2017 04:28:

I think you made some great points. In paragraph 1 you talked about how without sobriety, how can one recover? I think that's brilliant.

I think there is another reason counting with an actual sobriety definition is important. If your definition is vague, especially if it's very broad, (unreasonably tough) you are setting yourself up for failure. If you have unrealistic ideas about what sobriety means you will destroy your ability to see progress, even where it exists. 

In paragraph 2, you spoke about step 1 as being even more important than counting. I think this is smart. For many people, counting and seeing many days of sobriety leads them to feel that they do have power over lust, and that their life is manageable ("Look I've been sober for 90 days"). So, always remembering your history and present reality of powerless is of supreme importance. 

("The word supreme is so cool, no wonder the Ayotollah of Iran chose it for his title")  

In your last paragraph you touched on the topic "do you lose your past gains after a fall".

Here's my two cents: From a Jewish perspective definitely not. You went X amount of time not doing aveiros. Maybe even got a mitzva of sur mera.

From a disease perspective probably not either. Would have been better to be acting out all this past time and feeding the addiction? No, right? So you gained something. You are better off for doing it. 

So I would say the following: I definitely lose something by acting out, but do I lose the past clean days? To say yes would be a bit ridiculous in my not so humble opinion. 

However, using this logic to abstain from taking action (especially when you see that what you're doing clearly ain't enough (you keep falling) probably won't be helpful. 

Peace

Great stuff. My experience shows that I did not lose what I gained during a relapse or slip. In fact, the past 2 times have been a catalyst for more growth. But that's only because I got back on track. If I would have stayed off-road I wouldn't have because I would have been overtaken by my sickness. I don't count days though, because in my experience, counting days has been toxic. It would give me a larger ego and I would go into fantasy about how many days I can rack up. Keeping it in today had been the best for me. My Sponsor does the same thing also.

dms1234 wrote on 17 Aug 2017 04:28:

counting, shouldn’t be THE tool, but it definitely helps going further, knowing where you are on this world, am i doing good or not, counting as a goal is contradicting of working on a daily basis, but counting do helps just to know that I’m doing well...

lust is here to stay, it’s part of the בריאה, so of course we are powerless about it, and we have to take out the good use of it, and not the bad, 

a person doesn’t lose any good doing, every moment we don’t act out, again every second moment hour day days we stay clean, goes on our account, and we will definitely be credited for it.

Ihavestrength wrote on 17 Aug 2017 14:08:

what a great post!!!

It (lust) is/was not part of Creation. There is nothin' good about lust (although I am extremely friendly with it).

cordnoy wrote on 17 Aug 2017 19:02:

disagree, Chazal destoyed the lust for עבודה זרה and left us with גילו עריות for a reason

Shtussim.

Lust is not tayvah.

Lust is the misuse of certain desires.

And, by the way, the reason this distinction is important is because many here see a pretty human on the street and desire to be intimate with that human. They scream, "oy vey, I'm lustin', gevalt, where did I put my sponsor's number?" Wrong! They desired; if they act upon their desire (fantasy, act out, sexual talk, etc.) - that is lustin'.

And further for those who are married: if you desire to be sexual with your wife, that is not lust. It is lust when you misuse that desire (e.g., you fantasize about her naked body, you cajole her excessively into being intimate, you compare her to other women, etc.).

Desire is part of Creation; lust is/was not.