Yosef Hatzadik, Not overstepping at all at all.  Such a beautiful vort.  Thanks

Out of touch for three weeks.  I've been getting scared and feeling dread.  I come back and start to read chizuk emails.  Back to the beginning (while still clean).

Here's where I've been blind (as far as I can see for now).  Isolated and didn't even realize it.  Lost touch with being an addict (while maintaining shmiras eynayim with care).  Lost touch with letting Hashem take care of outcomes (all the while having pumped up study, kavanah, being more machmir).  Started running my own show again. 

It's utterly amazing that all the while I feel like I got things under control, and I've completely completely lost touch with one simple all-encompassing fact of my life:  I'm an addict.  period.  I need to open that part of myself up to Hashem, and to other people.

We don't know who discovered water, but it certainly wasn't a fish (John Culkin).  I keep slipping back into the shmutzik water and don't even know it.  That's why I need to be committed to my recovery.

So two new remedies.  The State Board requires me to have psychotherapy (weekly soul-searching with my Rov doesn't count, it seems).  So I found a frum therapist and will be open about my addiction and use the opportunity that Hashem has brought me to keep myself from forgetting.  Two, I must join an SA group.  Not just to keep clean, (#1 priority though that is), but to keep reminding myself that I'm an addict, and can slip into oblivion at any time, spiraling off into my particular brand of isolation, and craziness feelings.  To keep myself open, learning, and maybe being a little use to someone else.

ok, so we'll see if I keep my commitments.

What a brocho Hashem saved me from having to fall again to learn the same lesson again. 

Abba, what can I say?  You've saved me again.  Please let me stay open, not closed.  Please keep reminding me, gently if at all possible.  Thank you again.  Please be so kind to all of us suffering without you close, near.  Amen

Amen!

Let's talk about emunah.  Now as a pathetic control monster, emunah is in very short supply   Nevertheless, I've been worrying about how I am ever going to afford to pay for all the therapy the State Board wants me to have.  Today my therapist reminded me that I'll be getting Medicare in two months which will cover most of all the cost.  So who needs emunah with a G-d like this?

Hey Yosef Hatzadik, good to hear from you.  I'm going to bed. I'll check in with you tomorrow.

Menschen!  All youse guys.  Wassa mattah fah you???  Just KOT.  One little day at a time!

Love youse guys.

hi 1daat,
you sound good, which makes me happy
more happy times to you!

Still truckin.  no slips no falls. I'm somewhere around 130+ days second time around.  But then, who's counting ;D

My off the derech daughter wrote to wish me a good Shabbos.  Progress.

I haven't forgotten about my committment to join a live SA group.  I've got two that I think will work. Do any of you guys go to mixed groups?  And if you do, how do you handle shomer n'giyah at the end where people hold hands.  Do you just make sure you got a guy on either side?

Today I had my first play day in years.  I just goofed around.  That is major progress.  The lawn didn't get mowed.  the laundry didn't get done.  The desk didn't get straightened.  The carpets didn't get shampooed. 

Nothing terrible happened.  It was a nice day. I discovered that I'm not my shmutzik mind.  I'm me, and that craziness is what it is.  I can turn away from it, and turn to...  Uh, I forgot, He already invented T'shuvah.

KOT guys.

1daat wrote on 14 Feb 2011 03:06:


KUTGW

Jus checkin in.  AOK

Been posting elsewhere.

Now that's progress.

A gutte voch y'all

1daat glad to hear all is well. Continued hatzlacha. By the way it may be helpful in your own mind to view your daughter as just that your daughter. She may be off the derech but we are all a little off the derech otherwise we probably wouldn't be here. Sounds to me like she's coming on the derech she's just a little further behind. But whether she's on or off she'll always be your daughter and you her father so cherish it. KOT.

1daat wrote on 14 Feb 2011 03:06:


That sounds like a very good idea - for Halachic and other reasons!

By some miracle still clean.  Great news..I can feel. 

Al nisecha shebchol yom. Each day is a miracle on its own..  May Hashem keep on sending you miracles, Amen.

hi 1daat, thanks for checking in with good stuff, hope things keep being the very best
zs

Steady.  this is as good as it gets--steady.  Still getting through today, with extra help needed as summer comes in. 

So instead of kvetching, here's some happy stuff:  My son calls me yesterday and says he just wants to come  visit me (Phoenix to Los Angeles). 

I'm now scheduled to go visit my daughter from whom I've been alienated for years.

The IRS sends me a letter that They owe me $17,500.  Haven't a clue what that's about.  Have to find out some halachic issues here.

A lawyer called me and told me I'm getting at least $10,000 from a lawsuit.

Tzedakkah check is going to be a whopper.  For me these kinds of numbers are huge.  I'm totally month to month.

Right now I'm going up to the loft to vacuum and put fresh sheets on my son's bed.  Instead of coming home, this first night he's in town, he called to say he's going to hang out with a friend he hasn't seen for years.  AND MY INSTANTANEOUS REACTION WAS, "HOW FUN!"  Why is this such a big deal?  Because a year ago I would have felt hurt and unappreciated and angry and and and...  And I would have tried to hide my feelings and it would have turned everything sour.  Instead I'm going to do housework.  B'simcha.  I cannot describe to you the feeling of being able to feel love to just do something little like that that will surprise him (so he doesn't have to do it himself when he gets home late).

It's not always wonderful like this moment.  But for now, for most of today it's been wonderful.  I know for a certainty that I've been personal witness to a miracle.  Just for today.

Tomorrow I go out where the sleeveless ones are.  Back to work.  Abba Abba,  please help me not undress her with my eyes, please let me just have a peaceful day punctuated with opportunities here and there to gomel a little chesed.  I'll take another "today".  It's plenty.  Steady is plenty.  Thank You.  How do I thank You. 

1daat thanks for the wonderful update. Continued hatzlacha. Have a wonderful shabbos.