Dov in an email wrote:
re 'one day at a time'...I just wanted to take the opportunity to say that GYE et al typically take that to mean, "Be encouraged! If you see that you can hold your breath for 1 minute, then obviously you can hold your breath for another 1 minute, for it's the same 1 minute, right? And you'll just do that simple formula for the rest of your life (translation: if you held back and put off masturbation and porn pleasure for the whole day yesterday and survived, then obviously you can do that again just for today, for it's the same 24 hours!)A little absurd, no? I don't know anybody who can hold their breath for 2 whole minutes. Hence, lots of disillusioned and frustrated good people are walking around blaming themselves for 'falling' again.But in my travels so far, I've learned 2 ways to understand and use the 'one day at a time' idea, and both are dramatically different than that:1- My experiencing today, has practically nothing to do with yesterday. Because yesterday is over. And the same thing goes for the future that is not here yet. (Actual planning for the future, and serious assessment of my past behavior, are of course today's business and today's business only. Nearly all emotionally-compromised people make do something very different than planning for future responsibilities and assessment of the past: they live today as if they are in and re-experiencing the past or in and re-experiencing the future. That makes living right today practically impossible. That's what paralyzing guilt and fear are: not living in the present. Unhealthy Guilt is emotionally living in the past and pretending in our hearts that it's still going on - and unhealthy Fear is emotionally living in the future and pretending that we are facing it as we are now.)So living one day at a time just means living in reality and thereby remaining free to be busy doing only today's job today and tomorrow's job  tomorrow. It's about not getting distracted by our bulls***. How often are we dragged down by the past and the future. Learning from the past is entirely different than being pulled down by it, and planning for the future is entirely different than being paralyzed by it. The only way I know to be free of that is by surrendering the past and surrendering the future, no matter how tightly I want to hold on to them. Yep, I and others have spent decades holding on to the past and the future because the present is scary, annoying, or boring. And on the way, I ended up on a 20 year journey trying to go where no man has gone before! ...which brings me to:How does that relate to living sober? Well, it's certainly not a funny mind game of pretending that tomorrow doesn't exist or that yesterday never happened and it's certainly not about tricking myself that 'if I can hold my breath today I can hold my breath another day, too'. (I've seen both of those frequently on guard your eyes and from very well-intended motivational Rebbis)I think the main way that living one day at a time also helps people stay sober is that unnecessary pressures cease to exist for us when we accept G-d's Will and live out the day that he has prepared for us. As we Jews said today in hallel: "This is the day G-d has made for us, let's enjoy it." (Accepting it comes first and only after that can someone really start enjoying it.)In the same way, the 12 Steps mention nothing about self-control techniques anywhere. Instead they are completely focused on living a life that's real and acceptable by reducing the nonsense we get ourselves mixed up with.2- I can't recall the second way, right now. Oops.Dov