This is a very good question. Honestly it was before i was even 11 probaly 8 or 9. Im not sure what the answer is.

A point which relates both to the topic of whether we've been put here originally to deal with this particular nisayon, and also about what we can do to protect the children: many (if not all) of us have emotional issues which are related to this addiction. This is usually related to feelings of neediness, emptiness, insecurity, etc.

It doesn't always come from parents, but very often, in one way or another, we got these issues as we were growing up.

So, 1) we were put into those situations, and given those issues, so that we could deal with them and all of their "offshoots."

And 2) We can be become the best people we can be, so we can bring up the healthiest children possible - which gives them the best defense against all this.

rashkebehag wrote on 10 Feb 2010 18:31:


Dear Rashkeh -
A bit of a megillah, but hopefully worth the 5 minutes. It is the season for megillos, you know... ;D
First I'll lay out a couple of essential factoids in my daily life. If they seem like contradictions to you, I am sorry. Then some feedback about the above(especially the blue part):
If I forget that I am and addict, it is only a matter of time till I am reminded of it. I thank G-d for the fact that - thus far - I have not had to actually lose my sobriety in order to be reminded.
If I am an addict that means that I need to live by different rules than others. I need TLC. Much garden-variety yiddishkeit is (thankfully!) for normal people. But I am an addict, rather than normal.
This means some things that many people (especially the normal ones) may find unacceptably counterintuitive:

I need to be able to live with with my imperfection and the imperfection of others, and learn how to let many of my daily failures (and theirs) roll off my back rather than load myself with the poison of otherwise healthy guilt (or justified resentment). I must recognize that I have bigger fish to fry.
I need to plug myself into a much more basic and deep yiddishkeit than many others need to. What for others is "a madreiga" is the bottom of the barrel necessity for me. Real emunah and yir'as cheit, for example. Living with Hashem. It's irrelevant whether it makes my life as a yid "Kodesh, beautiful, or meaningful": it keeps me alive. That is the point of it.
As such, I need to run away from 'madreigos' like I run from lust itself. Taking any credit for it is poison because it makes me and most addicts I know feel like they are OK now. They say "it's Hashem's credit! Only with His help!"....but that's what normal yidden are supposed to say, too. So it can't be enough for me. I see frum addicts over and over falling to the perception that they can control this thing, davka fed by their "success"!
No. I learn from others mistakes. And my heart tells me that it isn't enough just not to take credit for a madreiga. It needs to be something that I look at as the lowest acceptable level for me. Selfish. Self-preservation. Is that Kedusha? At best: I don't care.
So the day I start to "see" the emunah and d'veikus (as evidenced? by long term sobriety) I am in deep trouble. I need to live with it, not "see" it. Kind of like living with humility. It's to be used, not to have.
If I see a non-addict yid (in other words, presumably any other yid) who really does not appear to be acting like someone who lives with Hashem (he's looking around the room through shmoneh esrei, coming late to t'fila and leavig early, treating people with apparent lack of respect), I desperately need to dan him l'chaf z'chus in order to save my own skin. He must either not need the relationship, or he already has it - though I can't tell. Oy vei. It's time for me to stop looking at him and start looking at myself, instead. Whatever.
At all costs, I must not be any higher than him - especially because I came to whatever gifts I have been given by Hashem only through my own sickness (or aveiros, if you will)! This mindset is very important for me.

So.
When you say the blue thing above, my feedback to you is: Funny thing seems to happen to all the folks I meet in recovery after they are sober for a while: They take on this mindset that they are not in this world to overcome lust. They begin to see their sobriety as a gateway to real living. See the start of step 4 or 6 in AA's "12&12" for more on this, if you like. In fact, freedom from lust is the very last thing I feel is my tachlis in this world. There is this giant thing called "life" waiting for me out there. My wife, kids, the people I come in contact with, the Torah to learn....knowing G-d. These things beat any struggle hands-down.
My tachlis in this world is to beat lust? And I don't even really beat it anyway - Hashem does....this is a goal for a yid? Don't you think you'd want better for your kids? A father of a boy with emotional problems wants his son to eventually see his struggle with depression as 'road-kill' - at least in some respect....not to stay in it seeing it as 'the great purpose of his life'! Gevalt! What about living? Is this not poshut? Am I missing something here? OK maybe I am, as some mussar purists might tell me (with a Messilas Yeshorim squarely to the head); but as an addict this is totally unacceptable way of life as far as I am aware. I have not seen the 'tortured strugglers' get better. Frumer - maybe. But rarely sober for long. I don't personally know any, as a matter of fact. Nu. Perhaps I need to get out more often! 
Yes, yes, in the beginning of recovery - yes - the struggle to stop struggling and give up completely on my ability to use lust successfuly needs to be the prime focus of everything. The opposite extreme of how I was living before. But over time it needs to reverse itself to simply living as G-d's boychik (or girlchik). And living mit ah brehn! That's why the rest of the steps don't mention my problem at all. It was just a symptom of being screwed up, after all!
Furthermore, to me, this kind of talk is just more romanticism. Which is ultimately about me, me, me. Romance with challenges, struggles, and madreigos. I know the pull to it is tremendous. It is very attractive, getting "healed". I - a pickle - need to learn to live as a pickle (ask Steve). It is probably fine for normal yidden to make 'the struggle' the entire point of life, and possibly even a great madreiga - difficult as I find it to accept. Yet, I have been there as have many others and for me as an addict it's just useless.
Just a share, for free, chaver.
Marbin beSimcha! 
- Dov

Rashkeh, are your there?? Busy with klal?? If yes sorry for the disturbance!

Dov - just trying to understand - in other words, the point isn't the struggle itself, our goal is to get past the struggle and live. And not because it's a higher madregiah, or because we'll have some external label of "haveing dveikus,' etc - but because living with hashem is essential, and an absolute necessity for us.

Am I somewhere on the right track? or am I lost, an need a search-and-rescue team to come and find me?

Dov. I just don't understand what your getting at. The megila is a bit too long and new to me. I am afraid it is understood by those who do the 12 step program. I never did and that  may be the reason why I sometimes feel the pull and am so distressed by it. Are you saying that its not our tafkid in life to overcome this thing it just puts us on a different plane? If so please elaborate a bit more. Is it somehow an advantage to having gone through this? I really don't get it.
I want this thing behind me. Just today I innocently downloaded updates that  were offered for my ipod and there it was - the utube and safari with all its shmutz. Boy did I feel tempted to go on it. I ran in a panic to my expert and he put on for me the necessary restrictions and i was able to breathe easier ( while in my heart i had this crazy feeling of regret that: why couldn't I explore it a little, just a little, before he did that). So I am still an addict and so proud that I was able to stop in time. with hashem's guidance, of course. But all the years of addictions, oy, they really hurt.

Yes we can feel your pain. Or at least some of it!! But good move by you. Sounds all to familer. I block another site and not even two seconds lwter im like, ah why didnt i check it out one more time. But the more pain the more gain!!

M
A
B
B
;D

Bard, I am not into your code so i don't get what you mean. Please explain or am I thick?

I think it's Mishenichnas Adar Bamba B'simcha.

Good guess, you mean Bumbe Besimcha (Bomb it with Simcha). Pass the Woodford.

I think he did it bedavka to make us all crazy trying to figure out what it means!! It probaly has no real meaning! :D :D :D :D

Oh, I meant Bamba - I love those peanut-butter crunchy things with the diaper-clad baby on the front! have you ever SEEn the nutritional information on those things? It's like a freaking multi-vitamin!

ok i will be modeh imisvaddeh

i was "trying" to write
MAMB

WHICH IS MISHENICHNASS ADAR MARBIN (OR MARBIM  GYE OR GUE ) BESIMCHA

BUT MY WOODFORD,

MY LACK OF SLEEP,

LACK OF A HEALTHY LUNCH,

GLOBAL WARMING (YUP 30 INCHES OF SNOW)

MALE POST PARTUM DEPRESSION

BEING IGNORED BY MISHPACHA MAGAGAGAGAZINE SYNDROME,

THERE IS ONLY ORANGE JELLY HAMANTASHEN SYNDROME,

I CNAT FIND
MY KEYS
MY CELL PHONE
MY HAT
MY BOOTS
MY COFFE MUG
MY FAVORITE SQUASH RACKET,

SUSHI IS RAW (ISNT IT SUPPOSED TO BE)


SO I MISPELLED

SORRY

thanks for helping us all be Barbeh beSimcha bards!! - Join us in Bard's Bar! ;D ;D