I can understand that, there's only so much time in one day.

At any rate I was asking about just seeing people in the flesh, making friends with anyone would be pretty tough for me. As an example, I have a pretty good friend at work. He knows I had a nervous breakdown years ago and I found him a therapist when his wife died. But I never seek him out, never ask him how he's doing. I never chat.

It's been like this since I was a little kid. I think it's basically reactive attachmenf disorder. It hurt too much when people rejected me as a young child so I keep a distance.

When people engage me I'm pretty generous with my time and efforts, I just keep to myself. I think being frum makes it much worse, seeing as deep down I get off hurting women.

I've been reading more posts by Dov (8 pages out of 666 ...) It's amazing how different we are. I think he's a lot of things but I think what I like the most is that he's an artist, especially in his humor. I think it's a waste that people cannot know his last name.

I also think that he uses language in a modulated way, like women do. There is a message modulated on the message. If you know a little science you know what means.

My mother used to schmooze me like that. A long speech chips away at your brain until you think that deep down you are a goooooood person, a beautiful flower. She got me to divorce my first wife that way ...

mzl wrote on 26 Jun 2018 02:08:

The comparison ends somewhere near the beginning...
I believe Dov has saved many marriages

I don't doubt it.

mzl wrote on 26 Jun 2018 02:08:

How would knowing his last name be any beneficial to me or you?

Try to speak to him. He is a master artist, but not the con artist type you are describing.

mzl wrote on 26 Jun 2018 02:08:

I know his last name, and so do many others. Many people know my last name as well.

Vulnerability
Humility
Honesty
Humility (yes, again)

Those are the traits that can lead one to recovery. I'm still learnin'.

I don't think he's a con artist at all. I think he's a real artist. I was just describing what I saw in hie writing.

I was saying that he'a an artist that everyone would appreciate, so it's sad that he has to be relegated to the sex addiction world.

mzl wrote on 26 Jun 2018 10:02:

Spoiler Alert:

mzl wrote on 26 Jun 2018 10:02:

I'm not sure why you feel sad. Perhaps it is bec. you view this whole community as "the (lowly) sex addiction world".
I have a totally different view point. This community is a community of recovery, comprised of great people that are taking the herculean steps to recover from their overpowering struggle/addiction with lust.

Dov inspires so many thousands of people around the world via GYE that would otherwise "be left to the curb". How many artists/authors/rabbonim etc. have had such a direct and profound impact on people's lives as he has? 

I think it's sad that healthy people don't get to enjoy his good posts. Hope that makes sense.

I've been reading more of Dov's posts (page 10 so far.) It's pretty interesting, and like I sort of already mentioned, refreshing writing.

Fortunately he rehashes a lot of the same concepts over and over again for the benefit of different people, which makes his culture not as large as it might otherwise have turned out to be.

Some of his concepts that I noticed recently:

1. Website forums are dangerous because unlike meetings they really are anonymous.
2. Not everyone is an addict by his definition, which will probably turn out to be hard to pin down, but basically I get it.
3. He spends a lot of effort and skill dangling something in front of people that may turn out to be happy in face to face meetings, but that's as far as he can go, which must be frustrating sometimes.
4. He only gets his victory when the candidate chooses to use the behavior of going to the face to face meeting, because everything flows from the behavior.
5. He can't really go past the point of describing what to do (show up at a meeting.)
6. He's a true citizen of his culture, more than most of his proteges can appreciate.

I think that a lot of different consequences must flow from the behavior of going to face to face meeting. These are some that I can think of so far:

• When you go to a meeting you watch yourself reject your desire. You watch yourself (and others, presumably) say "this is not really who I am."
• You can get help with a lot of practical issues that come up. It's teamwork.
• Encouragement.
• You can whine when you feel like doing it.
• You are ashamed to throw in the towel because you'll be letting your buddies down.
• You remind yourself that you have a problem, which your "real" life makes you forget about. Biofeedback. The physicality of the meeting makes it impossible for you to minimize or disqualify your mental health problem.

It's an interesting concept to hammer into yourself that your true nature is good. You would never know if you are right because there's no such thing as your true nature. But people hang their sense of self on whatever they want, and there's no reason why this shouldn't be so.

Luckily for me I still have a lot left to read ..,

I hope you don't mind me asking, and perhaps you've answered this already: Have you gone to any meetings?

Years ago I went to some meetings but I didn't talk to anybody because of my attachment issue, and I'm pretty sure I was on one of my ego trips (bipolar disorder.)

mzl wrote on 27 Jun 2018 01:41:

Oh, ok. Thanks for answering. Any plans on trying it again, if you think you need it?

I was curious because some of the "consequences that flow from going to meetings" that you wrote did not sound at all like what I've experienced and learned so far. So just was wondering if you were writing from experience or speculation.
I only joined SA 4 weeks ago, been to around 20 meetings so far, so I could be totally wrong.