hi 1daat, thanks for sharing such good happenings and good attitudes
KUTGW
be'hatzlacha

Dov, forgive me, I fell off the wagon and peeked at my count.  Which is hard to do from under a wagon.

367 with one itsy sliip. 

Why do I count?  Because each day had its history.  Each one a story.  A beautiful story.  And I look back on a strand of diamonds that Hashem made, that He lets me wear, to remember the great miracles He works.  One day at a time.  Forever.

So, it's off to maariv, and then day 368.  But who's counting?

Congrats on having such a great G-d for your very own. Most people do not know they have that, at all. We are the luckiest people alive, I say.

368 is over a year. You are an inspiration 1daat!
(Dov, you're OK too.)

BB, you are an inspiration and OK as well

Zem, thanks for consistently letting me know you're keeping an eye out.  (from such heights, he sees much, even with those funny little ears that keep twitching).

UAJ, I haven't checked in with you for a while.  I'll be over soon.  thanks for staying in touch.

BB, my BB-lehBlind Beggar wrote on 30 May 2011 11:47:
  I remember when joking and laughing didn't come so easy.  I agree, Dov's ok, too.

Dovy, Lucky beyond words.  Thanks.

I'm typing away here and a young lady walks by my window (I'll leave the triggering attire comments out), and as I'm typing I track her for a good couple of seconds. 

This just never ends.

1daat, could you have tracked her for one more second? Could you have got out of your chair and stuck your head out of the window and watched her for a few more seconds?


Yes, you could have, but you didn't! You were a tremendous tzaddik for that last second that you could have looked and didn't. If it happens again, please daven for Moshiach because we need the tefilos of tzaddikim like you.


It will happen again, because it really never ends. This is how Hashem wants us to serve him. I would prefer to be a soldier in Dovid Hamelech's army or the Rov of  Seville (maybe I was) but Hashem has other plans.

1daat wrote on 01 Jun 2011 01:43:
If you still have no one with whom you can be direct and explicit with (in other words truly honest with), then how can you make it at all? I poshut don't get it.

BB, you are an endless fountain of chizuk and love.  Thanks for your amazing post.

Dov,
dov wrote on 01 Jun 2011 16:59:


Could I please have that at the p'shat level? 

What does "making it" mean?  That's the point of my post--there is no making it.  "It" never ends".

As BB put it, Blind Beggar wrote on 01 Jun 2011 05:50:



Why do you assume I don't have real live people in my life who are intimately involved with my recovery? Maybe you forget?  I've talked a lot about the people in my life who support, and to whom I am accountable for my sobriety.  I totally agree with you:  Real sobriety doesn't happen in a virtual reality.  Friends and a Rov like I have I wish for every guy here.  I have no secrets.  I have been publically humiliated; the thought of hitting bottom again scares the krap out of me.  Call it "scared straight".


we are given opportunities to see our powerlessness every moment, and then to do what we can, Be"H.  To laugh at myself, that after all this time I'm still a sitting duck, is to remember I'm an addict.  And like I've said before, a sponsor once said to me that the most important word in recovery is "remember".

So catching myself in a hypnotic trance, and noticing that "this never ends"...this is a good thing, yes?  ...And maybe not such a serious thing. 

Did I completely misunderstand your post????

a beautiful and inspiring yom tov to you and yours, 1daat

Sorry. Yeah, "it" never ends. But if by "it" you mean temptation, then I have to say that I don't see things that way. Of course temptations are out of our control, there are and always will be beautiful people out there, and we have testosterone...and some of us are also addicts, too. Still, I feel we are not at the mercy of our environment in any sense whatsoever. And no, I am not speaking from my 'ivory tower of sobriety' - I am a powerless lust addict. I'll try to explain what I mean.

To say that we can serve Hashem by withstanding temptation is true. But do not accept that "Avodas Hashem" can be boiled down in any respect to: resisting temptation. I think that is actually obscene. Though, perhaps you don't mean that, really. But some I know, do mean just that. There is a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer I read once about a ficticious frummy who was gripped with lust and ended up condensing his entire yir'as Shomayim and avodas Hashem into that one thing: resisting his lusting and fantasy about a particular woman he was infatuated with. He eventually becomes progressively self-ceneterd (for 'holy' reasons, of course) is rendered totally useless (but 'fighting the good fight'), and eventually insane. OK, Singer was certainly not pro-Torah! But taken in context, he is making a good point. 

As far as I am concerned, the place that "resisting temptation" has in avodas Hashem is this: to be road-kill. The goal of the recovery that I know is that my lust be less and less relevant. Not to give temptation the time of day. Whether I am struggling with it or giving in c"v, does not matter all that much in the big picture. Either way I am missing the point of what I am here for: real living.

Avodas Hashem does put a great emphasis on resisting temptation, true. And in the same respect, driving does put a great emphasis on not running into oncoming traffic, walls, trees, etc. But to say that the main object of driving is not to get killed, misses the entire point of driving! The purpose of driving is to get places!

For a normal oved Hashem, the katnus of rolling his or her avodah into resisting temptation and not being metamei, is still katnus - and a pity. But for an addict like me, it is suicidal. That's why none of the steps have anything directly to do with drinking or lusting - except the 1st one. The second and third are not about not drinking/acting out. They are only about getting back into the reality of life as it is. The 2nd is admitting that we think insanely about G-d, people, places, and things in our lives (not the porn and stuff! that's the 1st!) and coming to trust our G-d to restore our sanity, we will be able to start to take the 3rd and begin allowing Him to run the show for us. As a result, the need to use any drugs will be eliminated automatically. The only reason it doesn't usually work that way permamnently, is because we do not really let Him run the show - because we have character defects that make us hold on to the 'steering wheel' real tight (that's what 4-7 is about), and have unfinished business with Hashem and other people (that's 8-10).

Yes, there are times when our total focus must be on avoiding or letting go of a powerful temptation. We are all subject to crazy and very misleading thinking that really feels that using her image is truly in my very best interest - really! But then we use honesty with G-d, and l'havdil, with our friends, to let Him help us let go of it and move on. Yet our general focus must revert from the problem and back onto the solution: real and useful living. That's the rocovery I was taught and try to use, be"H. There is little room for accolades that I did not flush my head down a toilet and drown...gratitude to Hashem, yes, but I do not need much patting on my back for not being an idiot. OK, maybe I do need a pat or two for the first couple of times, yes, but that's for kindergarten - I am proudly in 3rd grade, now!

If I am coming across as criticizing, then I blew it again. Let me know, please.

Thank you Dov, that was a lot more useful than:


dov wrote on 01 Jun 2011 16:59:

dov wrote on 07 Jun 2011 16:49:


Ahh, now you speak to the point of my little post.


1daat wrote on 01 Jun 2011 01:43:


and the one that came after...1daat wrote on 07 Jun 2011 02:33:


That little post was meant as nothing more than a little irony:  There I am typing some chizuk to a gye chaver, and at the very moment that I'm deep in concentration about shmiras eynayim, I have a couple of seconds that remind me I'm still an addict alright.  And I had a little laugh at the irony  of that and thought I'd share it in the moment. 

Rereading it now, though, I can see how it was taken seriously.  A good thing too for what you posted.  Not bad for a third grader. 


If I am coming across as criticizing, then I blew it again. Let me know, please.

I don't exactly know why you so often put those little disclaimers at the end of your posts, but we all know by now that your intentions are to give each of us the benefit of your experience and love.

On that note, it's time I told you that I love you.  I know that can be brushed off easily in this virtual community of ours.  But how I think about it is that if we met on the street and somehow miraculously knew each other, we would embrace, in joy and love. Amen

Same here. I admire you a great deal and would really love to meet every single one of the folks on GYE one day. Probably will not happen in this life, but that's too bad. Thanks for saying it, though. Really.