Yosef Hatzadik wrote on 17 Nov 2011 19:40:


yes, I think it might be.

I was reading through the GYE in a nutshell, again. And I can honestly say that I haven't' tried all the things listed in 1-6 before joining a live SA group.  Now I dare challenge anyone to say I am not an addict... 

    What do you guys say, once I'm doing the more potent 'cures', do I still have to try all the weaker ones too? I honestly don't have that much time in my day?

Do the ones that work.  Only you can figure that out.  But you must do them.

Day 4

The idea that I may never again in my life, masturbate, fantesize, or fullfill my lusts is very scary... but I am ready to (agree) to this, as long as I don't continue to live like this! My life has become unbearable, because I am a slave to my lust.

"As long as today is day 4, and tomorrow day 5 then my life will not continue like this! I can live and grow, and accomplish my aspirations and dreams!!"
"If tomorrow is day 1, than the living hell which engulfs me will never change."

ShemiratEinayim an Old friend wrote on 19 Nov 2011 18:45:


Keep long-term goals in the back of your mind.  The main thing is to stay clean today, at all costs.

Day 5

ברוך השם today wasn't SO hard, I was busy learning תורה. Ah at least I get to enjoy the calm BEFORE THE STORM. No I'm not letting my guard down, just happy i has an easiER day than usual.

You can act out.

OK?


Go ahead, act out.


TOMORROW, maybe.


Not TODAY!



TODAY WE MUST STAY SOBER!!!!!!

...in the middle of a post for you that Yosef Hatzaddik just said in one line....it's at home on the laptop, but it was time to read to the kid, so I closed it...then forgot.

Clean today is good enough. It's even better than being clean 'forever'. Cuz 'forever' is a figment of your imagination and all it means is terror. Forever is a lie, really, cuz it is nonexistent today. Today we only have today. That is not just a motto to help us 'feel better', but the simple truth. That's why hayom is all G-d asks for in the Sh'ma. Think about it.

Kedusha is right, of course.

And what are you doing to live better? Just 'not looking' is no plan at all. Sure, it will not work at all if we reach for our drug, but the AAs discovered long ago that 'negative sobriety' (just not drinking) does not work. It's almost like holding our breath and waiting till we screw up again, hoping against hope that it'll be a very, very long time from now....lo zu haderech. The way AA puts it (and the White Book ch 4 makes this point very clearly), if all we needed to do was stop drinking, then life would be grand as soon as we quit drinking! But as every addict will attest, life starts to get messy because we stop drinking! Our drinking (lusting, fantasy, porn use, and compulsive sex with ourselves or others) is nothing but a coping mechanism to our real problem: Life, on Life's (Hashem's) terms. That is why none of the steps is about stopping drinking, at all! They are about sanity and accepting G-d as my Trusted Leader. No mention of not needing to drink... though that's what happens!

In other words, for the addicts among us there is an uncomfortable truth that runs contrary to the call of the Gedolim on behalf of GYE, the mussar sforim on shmiras habris, and all the shmiras einayim slogans in the world: Our real problem is not lust or sex or fantasy. Our real problem is sobriety - that is, living without those things to medicate us and make life bearable for us.

Until this is admitted and faced, no non-addict can understand why a great guy, frum, with a nice loving wife, nice job, nice kids...would be sneaking tons of porn and masturbating on his knees in the bathroom so often. Just like those sneaking liquor or heroin. Stupid, no? Well, that's me! I do that. I am an addict. But I'm one of the sober ones today by Hashem's Chessed (Grace).

So you wonder how you'll handle sobriety. Well, at least you are taking it seriously!

But first of all, who says you can't do it again for the rest of your life? That kind of goofy thinking is what got people like us in trouble in the first place. One day at a time is simply reality - there is no such thing as "ever again" right now. It just doesn't exist except in fantasy-land. And that is the same exact land that all those nudes live in....

Oh, so then am I saying, "go ahead and act out your lust"? No. And anyhow, whether you go ahead and use porn, fantasy and sex with yourself, or not, is not my business, at all. Kol Yisrael areivim and hocheyach tochiach certainly do not apply to addicts. For addicts do not ever quit because others tell them to. This is poshut. We quit when we are ready to quit, not before. 'Inspiration' will stop us once in a while for a time, but does not save us in the long run. Only a real, personal relationship with our own G-d does that - and that is the only thing that the steps are for. It creates integrity.

But first we need to have sanity. And "forever" is just not sane, cuz it isn't even real...till it happens. And 'forever' only happens when this trip is over.

So take it easy, amigo. One day at a time is not just a slogan, or to break things into manageable pieces. It is the truth. Something we who have faked so much to ourselves for so long (fantasy) have a hard time recognizing.

We need Hashem to help us see it. Only our G-d can restore us to sanity.

So take it easy. You can live without having sex with yourself today, and that's all that matters. Today is the best day to be sober of all. Not just a slogan, but the honest, simple truth.

Dov, wunderbar!
beautiful, truthful and important piece
thank you

(Gibbor, this is a keeper for the Quotes)

10-4. I read you loud and clear ZS!

This post needs no reply:

    I'm an addict. No interest in fighting, surrender is more pleasurable right now (and the last 2 hours). I'm in the haschalah of the pesicha of the hkdamah... of working sobriety.  (I'll let you understand that however you want).




Here is to honesty:
I have no sponsor, I don't attend 12 step meetings
I am not reading the literature, GYE AA or SA
I sneak peaks of my wife, and pretend it doesn't happen
I created a gmail account and spent an hour "surfing" porn on Buzz, I saved it all on my computer.
I can acces my porn cashe whenever I want, sadly it doesn't have enough pictures yet.
I am not woking on recovery, I am too busy enjoying my hell, and destroying my life further by pursuing it.
I will be lying to my wife tonight when I tell her that all was okay, and she will know it.
I am a porn,lust and masturbation addict

I don't know why I came to GYE tonight, but I figure once I'm here I should be honest.

That's fantastic!! But your use of the word "surrender", I do not get - that's not surrender, that's called being taken prisoner. I surrender all the time! So I never have to act out my lust. Otherwise, I end up acting it out, so obviously I have to.

When your hell is hell enough, there is a Big, Nice G-d waiting for you. He loves you - while you are looking at porn - as much as you will ever need Him to love you. And He has many little helpers in all manner of shapes, colors and sizes for you to grow together with. They call themselves hopeless, beaten, addicts. Like me!

Love you! You are awesome, and so is your honesty!

- Dov

Another post, dedicated to honesty:

  Friday, The baby only let me sleep 4 hours, naturally I won't wake-up for shacharis. instead I wake-up to go get a pachage from the mail, then spend the rest of the day awake. With my wife stepping out of the house I convince her to unlock the computer.  Then....  duh.        I just add every pic to the growing collection stashed away, now I hid 50 porn pics under my wife's nose!

Shabbos, of couse i can't hold off masturbating in the morning, followed by pushing the limits of all hilchos nidah... until I tricked my wife into accidental(for her) touching me. I'm going too hell, in both this world and the next.

now do I really have a problem?  עד כדי כך that I need to work  the 12 steps like a junky?
How is this for an answer, while my wife is bathing the baby( as I type this post) i'll be checking my 'other' email account for the new porn updates on buzz....   

Shmiras נשמה המולבשת בגוף wrote on 26 Nov 2011 19:27:

Chaver, if there is a meeting in hell (and there may be), I may meet you there. I am certainly no better than Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai - I do not know whether I am heading to heaven or to hell, either. Would you share with me face to face in a meeting even there? I am not in this business to go to Gan Eden, Olam Haboh, or anything - just to stay sober and grow up...and I do not even want to grow up - it is just that I cannot stay sober unless I grow up. So I am stuck.

Maybe you do not care right now. Maybe you are not interested at all in quitting. Maybe - like I did for so many years - you somehow think that "surrender", and "giving up the struggle" means unzipping your pants and masturbating. Like SA's White Book puts it: "The only way we knew to be free of it was to do it." That's not recovery, at all, and it is not what "surrender" means, by any means. And it stinks...as you well know!

If you think you can get out of the fix you are in by keeping on acting out your lusts, then who am I to judge you any lower than I? I am plenty immature, too. If I could get away as you are, with porn searches and childish sex with myself, and with stolen touches every now and then, I'd be doing it, too! They feel sweet, I know. And these are not just words.

So again: when the pain you have becomes too great to bear - either inside by dint of your own fakeness, lying, and dirtiness or resulting from the excruciating pain you will eventually cause your wife and others - then there is recovery waiting for you. G-d is very, very big. He is even big enough to accept you 100% happily. If He could take me in and rock me to sleep, then He will accept you, too. And He has lots and lots of faithful helpers waiting for you - all junkies like me who love you right now, more than you love yourself (right now). 

Eventually, we all gotta grow up. For people like us it just hurts more, I guess. My heart aches for you cuz I know the pathetic state of seeing I am powerless and stupid when it comes to our lusting and what our acting out does to our lives.

Until then, you know all the shmuessen - so may Hashem protect you from righteous finger-shakers, personal criticism and from goofy chizzuk to 'keep fighting for the glory of beating the YH!' You are a mess right now. Period. If you choose isolation and a hidden struggle, then I suggest that this virtual honesty is just not enough.

And I know loads of junkies who are doing a far better job of things than the way you describe the man you see in the mirror right now. There is tons of hope.