Several people have asked me in the past few days tell me what you're doing that has allowed you to stay sober.  The truth is I've given the question alot of thought.  My feelings range from well maybe I'm not really an addict in the first place and that's why I am not having such a hard time to I really don't know, I just really want to be sober.  But here are my (long) musings on the subject. 

Before I actually get into the musings there is one point to be made.  Just like middos come before the mitzvos.  For me personally GYE comes before any other principle.  GYE is like my personal תיבה.  Whenever a lust storm rages around me, I know I can come to the site or reach out to someone I met from the site.  It's like base in a game of tag.  If I'm on GYE or with someone from GYE then I'm safe.

The first drink principle.  I am sure that there are different stages of addiction.  For me, I never can just go onto the internet and type in "Images of naked woman."  It's a process usually starting with something relatively innocent and working my way into the trance state where I will do anything necessary to get my fix including something as direct as "naked woman."  For me therefore I had to recognize that I CANNOT do those "innocent" searches, I CANNOT go onto facebook even for business reasons.  Since the day I joined I have not sat down to read a tabloid or a magazine.  Even though there were things in there that were not problematic at all.  For example, I would have a weekly habit of reading all of the cartoons in The New Yorker since I like cartoons.  Inevitably, however I would come to the point where the was a story somehow tied to sex and it was the beginning of the downhill process.  I'll confess, I have a filter it was one of the first things that I did when I joined GYE, but I have the password.  The filter is there to remind me to stop.  You are going somewhere you shouldn't.  If I am not going to respond to the warning by rethinking where I'm going, a filter is pretty pointless.  If I wanted to do something I have six ways to sunday to get my fix even with a filter.  Although I will say that as an added precaution I also have webchaver.  I actually got it for my kids, but I like the added protection that it gives me that a real live person is looking over my shoulder.  The first drink principle also tells me that I can't set my homepage to google.  That just invites me to search for something as soon as I open internet explorer.  If I can't accept this principle, in my view I'm lost.  Sooner or later I'm going to go down the path of lust.  This same principle applies for me in the bedroom (although I have a harder time with it there).  I can't have an expectation of sex on a particular night.  That expectation becomes my first drink.

I was reminded of this just last night.  In the past I would buy my wife lingerie.  Which of course is a dangerous thing.  If I'm browsing through a room with a hundred bras there is only one place where my mind can be.  Yesterday I was out with my wife shopping.  Right in front of the dressing room was the lingerie department.  It was too much for me and against my better judgment I commented to my wife that she should feel free to get something.  Which prompted her to ask well is there anything that I like.  The whole exchange was a mistake on my part.  Since it just put me into lusto mode.  And even when we got home and my wife was telling me that she wasn't feeling so well, it didn't register with selfish me since I was in lusto mode.  Fortunately, I was able to come to my senses before things really spiraled out of control but I was able to see vividly that there are certain paths I can't walk down if I value my sanity.

At the end of the day, this principle is not enough.  Since at some point we just need a fix.  I feel guilty saying this because it implies that I've gotten this next point down.  I don't.  But I am aware that it exists.  I call it the הנורא principle.  If there is one word in Shemonei Esrei that really talks to me it is the word הנורא as translated by Pathway to Prayer:  "And he alone deserves to be feared because no being has the ability to do good or bad except him."  It is one thing to accept that Hashem is in control of who harms me.  Its another to accept that Hashem controls who does good to me as well.  In other words, whether I will have sex tonight is dependent on the One upstairs.  So at the end of the day, when I have some perceived need I have to turn to him since He is the one who will determine whether my needs will be satisfied.  Turning to lust will not cut it because at the end of the day even lust if it ever is able to satisfy, it is still dependent on Him.

Of course the flip side is also true.  If I am walking down the street and I see a billboard of a scantly clad woman.  I have to recognize that G-d is behind this as well.  I recently wrote somewhere else

ur-a-jew wrote on 31 Mar 2011 17:01:


I had a further insight into it yesterday as to why, this is such an appropriate tefillah.  What are we doing when we lust after someone.  We are making them into a god.  It's a simple as that.  We are giving that person or image god-like characteristics.  The remedy, in my view is to recognize that they are not a god.  There is only one true G-d and that is Hashem.

These two principles can carry me very far.  I think for months on end.  But at some point.  I know that these are not enough.  I can't articulate it any better than Eye did earlier today:

Eye.nonymous wrote on 12 Apr 2011 06:46:


In other words, we can't expect to stay sober without living life itself.

Finally, tefillah.  Reb Zilberstein has a story of a young child who was informed by his parents that he had cancer and he would need chemo which among other side effects would cause his hair to fall out.  The boy started crying and he turned to the RBSO and said.  RBSO the sickness I accept, the pain I accept.  My payos falling out that I can't accept.  It's the sign that I am a jew.  Please RBSO not my payos.  Rabbi Zilberstein writes that the boy went through full chemo and to the surprise of all the doctors his payos never fell out.  There is nothing in this world like the koyach of tefillah.  And it doesn't make a difference how bad we've been.  No tefillah goes unanswered. 

Thank You Hashem for everything.

reb UAJ, your honesty, clarity and insight are gevaldig!

Saw a chinuch this shabbos mitzvah 188 - שלא להתעדן באחת מכל העריות
that warrants extra emphasis. 

ובמה שלא הזכירו הם יש על כל אחד ואחד לעשות כפי מה
שימצא את גופו מוכן כמו שאמרנו, שאם הוא מוצא את עצמו שצריך גדר אף
על המותר יגדור עצמו, כמו שמצינו אחד מן החכמים שאמר הזהרו בי מפני
בתי ואף על פי שמותר לאדם להתיחד עם בתו, כמו שנכתוב בעזרת השם׳ לפי
שענין זה קשה מאד ויצר חזק בו, על כן צריך כל אדם להרבות בשמירה

In other words as Dov likes to say that may be good for a normal person but not for an addict like me.

Wishing everyone a wonderful, sober Yom Tov.  And Thank You Hashem Sehechiyanu, VKiyamunu Lzman Hazeh.

BH Yom Tov is great. But life goes on and that time of month comes regardless of my schedule. In anticipation I was hoping I would have one more night. In fact I was even dreaming that perhaps I would have at least the morning before the night. While I joked about it with my wife I knew it was mostly a dream especially when all the kids kept us up way too late the night before. But this was the frame of mind I woke up in this morning. Es chatai ani mazkir hayom, I even had playing in my head the line of a goyish song of my youth:  "one more night . . ."  At that point I stopped myself and thought what's really going on here.  It was really two problems. First, I'm making my wife into a god. In the sense that I'm placing my ability to find happiness and satisfaction in my being with her when it doesn't need to be. Its a nice thing to be with her but I don't need it to be happy. Second, I was living totally in the here and now without giving any thought to the future. If life took its normal course in less than two weeks she would be back in my arms. Looking at the big picture its not like I would be somehow better if something happened today.  What I was looking for would happen its just a matter of time. And if c"v I died tomorrow I doubt I would be lying in my grave saying if only I had been with my wife one more time. A morbid type of thought but one that allowed me to put life in a little perspective. Which was a good thing since by the time I got home from shul it was too late. But I was already mentally prepared.
G-d is good and He makes life good. Thank You Hashem.

As I am learning now, be"H, you can still have "one more night", Mr Collins. (haha : )
The two of you can be together any time you like, whether you two are mutar or not. You do not need to be sexual or even physical to enjoy each others company tonight. This fact came as a shock to me, though my wife has known this forever....

While I was out there busy trying to find a fake or real woman to be 'really fake' with me and make me feel loved...even just by her image sometimes....she was waiting at home for me.

Very sad, really.

Nu. But at least we are finally together again. All because I am sober today. 

ur-a-jew wrote on 18 Apr 2011 17:32:

thank you wonderfool shtikel!
(by the way he speacks to non addicts also that they simply have a huge taava....)
thank you again for sharing!

Yesterday as a result of talking through an issue with one of my close GYE friends I gained clarity in a different issue (I think).  At one point in the conversation the observation was made that it seems there is a difference between a sex addiction and other addictions in that we don't need to drink alcohol, we don't need to eat certain foods by contrast we all hope to get married and sex is an essential part of married life and it involves another person and their needs as well.  The answer of course is that we are not attempting to limit sex we are attempting to limit lust. If I'm masturbating I'm lusting, if I'm looking at porn I'm lusting, if I'm having sex with a participant that's been pressured to submit that's lusting and if I lose my sanity because someone doesn't want to have sex that's lusting too. I do have the ability -- certainly with Hashem's help -- to not do these things.
All this I knew. What I got clarity in was that I'm not going to reprogram my brain to never lust or to only want sex when my wife wants it.  G-d made me in a way that I want sex often. That's ok.  Its no different from the fact that even if I resolve not to look at provocative images I have no guarantee that I won't be faced with those images again.  The trick is how I handle it from there on. If I pressure my wife into having sex then I'm acting on my lust and acting out. If I sit and sulk because my wife doesn't want to have sex I'm also acting out.  By contrast, If my wife wants to have sex. I'm giving then.  While there may be some people who can make that act wholly altruistic and have no lust wrapped in it. That would be demanding perfection and I'm just not there yet. I'm not going to eat myself up over it. If G-d made me a luster that His chesbon and my job is to direct it in permissible directions and refrain from impermissible. 
Last night I really wanted to have sex. My wife didn't.  Armed with the clarity and with a little tefillah to Hashem I accepted it.  I'm a more content person today notwithstanding the fact that I would still like to have sex with my wife. Thank you Hashem for bringing me to this point. I'm sure there are higher heights to reach but I'm grateful that I got to this point.

Excuse me dear chaver, but don't you think a post like this better belongs in the baal habatim's section? Really. I will not remove it, but will flag it for the other mods. Hope that's OK w/you.

Just saw a sign with a quote from Babe Ruth "Never let the fear of striking out get in your way."  In other words, just because you think you may fall don't give up on trying to stay clean. 

dov wrote on 17 May 2011 16:34:


Dov,
I'm a big fan of UAJ, so maybe its coloring my vision, but what he wrote is a balm to the soul. And the earlier us testosterone filled  >  beings read about it, the better!

k

I am also a tremendously big huge fan [& talmid] of Ur-a-jew (Even bigger than you!), but it also seems to me that his last posts ought to be in the Married Persons Section....






No. I am NOT referring to the Babe Ruth quote....

I am also a huge gigantic fan of Ur-a-jew maybe his biggest one yet and I'm not sure that it does.  My reasoning is that the majority of people here are here because they have a lust problem.  If they are married it doesn't make a difference.  If they are single and addicts they should know that married life doesn't solve the problem.  Now I know you'll tell me that there are 643 quests viewing as I write, and half of them are 9 year old kids that don't know what sex is.  I guess I have no answer  to that one.  Of course if we are discussing . . .  then that should definitely go in the ballei batim section.

Maybe yer right. Whaddever. Gut voch!!

dov wrote on 29 May 2011 11:42:


Too late, I already made up to start a new thread in the ballei battim section:  Thank You Hashem (the Rated R version).  Coming to theaters near you.

I was reading through my wife's 12 and 12 on the first step and she had a handwritten notation which I thought was right on the mark and apropo of Parshas Bamidbar and Shavuos.  It said: "Abstinence is not the foundation of sobriety, Willingness is the foundation of sobriety."  We all have stopped "for good," some of us more times than other, but it never seems to somehow last.  Because there is more to being sober than simply being abstinent.  Those who are successful in staying sober do so because they have a willingness to recognize that they don't know how to do it on their own.  So they swallow their pride and say to somone who has been sober teach me how to do it.  I am willing to do it the way you suggest that I do it and not the way I think it should be done.
The same lehavdil -- I say lehavdil hesitatingly since this is all a part of Torah since a self-centered person cannot be an oved hashem -- is with Torah.  Torah needed to be given in a midbar.  A person has to make himself hefker and then he can be mikbal torah.  It doesn't work any other way.

Thank You Hashem for sending me this timely message.   

Funny how it works. Sometimes I am brought to abstinence by first becoming willing. And sometimes I am brought to willingness through first being abstinent.