A love letter from your addiction-SHOCKINGLY POWERFUL
Dear Friend,

I have come to visit once again. I love to see you suffer mentally,
physically, spiritually, and socially. I want to make you restless so you
can never relax. I want to make you jumpy, nervous, and anxious. I want to
make you agitated and irritable so everything and everybody makes you
unconfortable.

I want you to be confused and depressed, so that you can't think clearly
and positively. I want you to fell guilty and remorseful for the things you
have done in the past and you'll never be able to let go of. I want to make
you angry and hateful toward the world for the way it is and the way you
are. I want you to fell sorry for yourself and blame everything but me for
the way things are. I want you to be deceitful and untrustworthy and to
manipulate and con as many people as possible. I want to make you feel
fearful and paranoid for no reasin at all. I want to make you wake up all
hours of the night screaming for me. You know you can't sleep without me,
I'm even in your dreams. I want to be the first thing you think about every
morning and the last thing you think about before you black-out.

I'd rather kill you, but I'd be happy enough to put you back in the
hospital, another institution, or jail. But you know that I'll be waiting
for you when you get out. I love to watch you slowly go insane. I can't
help but sneer and chickle when you shiver and shake; when you freeze and
sweat at the same time; when you wake up with the sheets and blankets
soaking wet. It's amusing to watch you ignore yourself; not eating, not
sleeping, not even attending your personal hygiene.

Yes, it's amazing how much destruction I can be to your internal rogans
while at the same time working on your brain, destroying it bit by bit.

I deeply appreciate how much you are sacrificing for me. The countless good
jobs you have given up for me; all the friends that you deeply cared for,
you gave up for me.

And what's more, the ones you turned yourself against because of your
inexcusable actions. I am eternally grateful, especially for the loved
ones, family and the more important people in the world that you have turned
yourself against. You threw even those away for me! But do not depair, my
friend, for on me you can always depend. After you have lost all these
things, you can still depend on me to take even more. You can depend on me
to keep you in living HELL, to keep your mind, body, and soul for I will not
be satisfied until you ARE DEAD, my friend.

Forever Yours,

Your Addiction

Thanks Momo,what helped me the most was first and foremost a no- nonsense filter. On my BB handheld I got jnet and at work we have a gateway content filter called sonic wall to which I gave the password to my wife. I didn't get into detail with her re my addiction, I just. Told her that it is yichud for a man to be with un filtered internet connection (I also shared with her the story of Rav Amram Chasida). I explained to her how the filter works in order to make sure that there r no loopholes which the addict in me exploited in the past. Most importantly I told my wife that if I ever ask her for the password she must change it immediately afterwards.
The filters has helped tremendously but as others have said on the forum it isn't sobriety.  

B"H day 9 is here and I am doing well. I had two thoughts yesterday that crystalized in my mind what a sickness I am fightng.

1) I unfortunately had to be in a Goyish area yesterday while it was very hot. The entire time I had to avoid looking up and I was staring at my feet most of the time to avoid seeing Pritzus. This was such a constant battle that I came home with a severe headache. I had never even noticed the Pritzus before. I could not believe how desensitized I was. The amount of Tumah that has gone into my head without me being consciously aware (aside from all the stuff I was aware of) is scary. (BTW it is amazing how I was being attracted to and repulsed by the same things at the same time. Talk about the complexities of human nature!)

2)How come I am so worried about the possibilities of getting caught in recovery, while i never had the same level of concern when acting out. It is easy for us to resist certain measures of recovery for fear of getting caught, but this argument fails us immediately when contrasted with the overall possiibility of getting caught if we do nothing.

On another note, I am working on step 3 and I am having much difficulty. I am not sure if the problem is that I do not understand what is meant by giving my addiction over to Hashem or whether I am just resisting internalizing it. Is this just a general need to strengthen Bitachon, or is there something more specific related to my addiction? i would appreciate if someone could explain this to me better and give me tips on how to internalize this ideal. Yasher Koach!

OK folks, I have to shamefully announce yet again that I had a fall this weekend. Except this was the biggest ever. I will not go into details. Perhaps it is the final push of the Y'H before I start the 90 day challenge. He knows I'll make it, so he's trying to delay it. Did a good job, too. But when I get hellbent on something I ALWAYS see it through to the end. I don't quit, I don't give up or let up until it's through.

I think another, major part of the problem is that I am confounding this particular issue (addiction) in my mind with my personal religious issues (and there are many as some of you know) when this really has very little if not absolutely nothing to do with religion whatsoever. It's an issue of addiction, not religion or issur/heter. But when the two get confused, then it's easy to set off a vicious cycle where I fall in one which leads to a fall in the other, and so on.

I can't live like this anymore.

:'( :'( :'(

Dear Momo,
I have cried for you in the past.  And I am crying for you now. You have already received wonderful chizuk from the wonderful warriors above.  All I want to tell you now is that I feel your pain.  But I know you can succeed.  However, I request from you to PLEASE PLEASE do not give up. 

BELIEVE in yourself. 
BELIEVE that you can prevail.
BELIEVE that you have strengths.
BELIEVE that the yetzer hara has robbed you of your identity.
BELIEVE that Hashem has given you the nisayon in order to succeed.
BELIEVE that you are a worthy soul of great value and great potential.

One small piece of advice.  You may have tried this already, but I figured I might as well give it a shot.  If your addiction is too strong now, and going cold turkey is too drastic, you may have to do the last resort trick.  And that is work on gradual tolerance.  Be Patient and honest with yourself.  Show yourself that you do not have to be so dependent on p**n  and that you really have self control.  You can build yourself up as as you become more and more tolerant to sobriety, build up self confidence and self control.

But of course, READ the handbooks a little at a time.  There are precious gems in those handbooks.  

Dear hoping,
You wrote a few things that hit home for me. Thanks for the reminders. I'll just reflect them back to you and add a bit:

1) I can't "stay clean forever" today. I can only stay clean today, today (...and forever will come later!) You expressed this fact idea very well.
2) Our own experience in failure is the best teacher of our powerlessness. (you said it better!)
3) Each and every time I avoid a look, fantasy, or addiction-driven action, I am being saved from deeper trouble. So right there it is precious! In the past, I'd have used the lust and have just gotten worse and crazier from there.

I have seen a lot of people finally start learning what power they actually have, once they finally give up and admit they can't beat lust themselves. It seems that the Kotzker was right when he said that Hashem is "where people let Him in". Yes, of course He is everywhere, but the true extent of His power is unavailable to us until we are machniya ourselves and give the victory to Him, ie. Hashem eesh milchamah, not us. Hope this helps! Love, Dov

PS a nice vort from shir shel yom of Wed.: "Im omarti motoh ragli - chasd'cha Hashem yis'adeini" - interpret it: If/whenI said (admitted in my heart) "I am tripping/slipping", then your chesed comes in and holds me up. (the poshut pshat is when i feel I am going to slip/trip, your chesed holds me up)

Dear Momo

I have been struggling with euphoric recall today, and reading your post has lifted this from me.  Euphoric recall is where my mind will recall pornography that I have watched in the past and make it seem amazing, the euphoria will make me forget the pain and suffering that comes with acting out.  Reading your post has reminded me that all there is out there is pain, suffering and depression.

What you shared reminded me of what my life was like when I first came into recovery.  I would get into my office at 9am and usually within the first 1/2 hour I was surfing porn, I would spend most of the day at my office (my desk was in a secluded spot) surfing porn and masturbate at my desk.  I would work between surfing!  During my recent relapse which lasted 7 months, I could see that this pattern was starting to repeat itself once again, and the despair was starting to set in - please see my first post on the forum.  The change started when I once again started to call people when I am triggered, if I leave lust in my head unchecked I have no chance of sobriety.  Just this afternoon I was out with my wife and kids and driving home and there were lust triggers all around, I could not pick up the phone in the car, but kept on davening to Hashem “please Hashem help me, I do not want this lust, I cannot do this on my own it is too powerful for me”, I kept on repeating this teffillah until the desire subsided.  When I had the euphoric recall today I davened to Hashem that he should give me the willingness to continue.  Recovery is a simple program for complicated people.  Today I worked steps 1 – 3 to keep me sober, my lust is too powerful for me and will ruin my life (step 1), I cannot do this on my own (step 2) please Hashem help me (step 3).
You write that you cant call Elya as hes in the State and youre in Israel, from my expeirance this is just an excuse, I made these excuses when I first came into reocovery but would not hesitate to spend fortunes on a whim on chatrooms, porn sites and worse.  Today for me recovery is the most important aspect of my life without exception.  My marriage has been so calm the past few weeks compared to what they were a short while ago when I was acting out.

My friend, recovery is possible even though now it seems to you that you are locked in a fortress with no escape, keep coming back, bring the body back and the feelings will follow, listen to the suggestions, keep life simple take small steps in overcoming this addiction, no grand shows of willpower.  When you get into your office tomorrow commit to not surfing till lunch no matter what to whatever it takes not to surf till lunch.

Keep coming back.
London

It's great you recognize the thoughts... they are the addiction talking to you. Oh, he'll tell you the CRAZIEST things. He'll make you believe that jumping into fire is good for you.

Keep viewing Him as a "third-party". It's not you, it's HIM. And tell HIM to GET LOST!  :D

Call Rabbi Ya'ir Shochet  (English and Hebrew Speaker) in ISRAEL
Working with sexual addiction in the frum community for many years.
Trained in the 12-Steps (and author of the book "The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life")
Also helps couples deal with a spouse who is addicted (and general marriage counseling as well)
052-6923065. Sunday and Wednesday from 9-10 PM

Look, you can bring a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink. If you don't want to go through the GYE handbook with us, tool by tool, and you don't want to internalize the principles of the Attitude handbook, and you don't want to make the phone call... then what can we do to help you?

Hashem alone will need to help you. But I'm just warning you, it might end up HURTING a lot more than if you do it now with us, step by step, slowly but surely, showing Hashem you are doing your part... See today's Chizuk e-mail (#497) for more on this...

You may want to give up, but Hashem never gives up on His children... And that could be SCARY sometimes.

Momo, you promised me that right after Shavuos you'll start exploring the tools in the GYE handbooks with us, tool by tool, step by step... What happened? Why are you giving up before even trying to do that?? And also, why can't you accept that every little bit you do is priceless? That every "no", even if it lasts only for a few days, or even a few minutes - is so precious! And that is what will ultimately help you break free completely... all the little "no"s that you thought were worthless!

The fact you noticed my post asking you to "come back" only a half hour after I posted it, means your neshama is still looking for a way out, pushing you to check what's new on GUE!

Momo, please, all that work I put into the Attitude Handbook, was it all for nothing? If it can't help you, who will it help? You are making me want to cry. PLEASE, PLEASE READ BELOW SOME QUOTES:

8. Making recovery our #1 priority.

Nothing worthwhile comes without hard work. One of the greatest obstacles stopping a person from changing is the notion that it can be done without a lot of investment. We live in a generation of instant results, and we come to expect that whatever needs to happen should happen quickly. We tend to forget that our whole purpose on this world is to change and improve. We tend to look at any weakness that we have as an "inconvenience" that needs to be gotten out of our way (or ignored), while in reality it's Hashem's personal message telling us exactly what He sent us to this world for. As it is brought down in the Sefarim (Tzidkas Hatzadik #49 and #181), that the things we struggle with the most in life, are the very things that we came down to the world to fix.

The Vilna Goan (Sefer Yona 4:3) talks about Gilgulim (a Gilgul means that the soul comes back to this world after a previous life).  And he explains that every soul has one major job to fix on its return to this world, in the one major area that he messed up last time. So the Vilna Goan asks, how we can know what the purpose of our soul’s Gilgul is? And he answers that we can figure it out by observing what sins we stumble in the most frequently, and which sins we have the most intense desire for.

So, if this is what we indeed came down to the world for, did we think it would be FAST AND EASY??? Let us make our recovery the number one most important thing in our life.

23. Every Little Bit Counts.

We must believe that coin after coin are added to our “spiritual bank” every time we say “no” to the addiction, no matter how insignificant it may seem to us at the time. Even if someone is sure that they’ll fall in the very near future, they should know that for every second they hold back, they are earning reward that no person or malach can fathom! And when a person has enough “coins” in their “spiritual account”, they will succeed to break free completely!

The Gemara says: "Habah letaher misaayen lo – He who comes to be purified, they help him", and Chazal also say: "Biderech she'adom rotzeh leilech molichin osoh – in the way a person wants to go, they lead him". Why does the Gemara speak always in plural form: “they help him”, and “they lead him”? The Maharsha explains that every resolution and every effort a person makes creates an angel. And when the army of angels gets large enough, it has the power to help one overcome all the obstacles and lead him to where he wants to get!

24. It’s never all or nothing

The notion that we must always succeed, actually turns us into easy prey for our Yetzer Hara. He uses our good qualities, such as our constant yearning for perfection, and he turns it against us by trying to get us to feel down when we had a fall! In this struggle, it is never “all or nothing”. When an army goes out to battle, do they always win? Are there never casualties? People injured? The Pasuk says: “There is no Tzadik on earth that does only good and never sins” (Koheles 7:20).

If you were watching a fight between a man and a lion, who would you be inclined to reward more, a man with a gun who shoots the lion in one fell blow, or the man who needs to use his bare hands? In the latter case, there is a huge fight and sometimes the man is down and the lion is winning, yet he manages to push off the lion again and again and finally overpowers him and wins the fight! Hashem wants to reward us with infinite divine delight, and he gave us a beast inside us to slay. He could have made us mighty as the Malachim, but it is only through human beings who fight with their bare hands in the darkness of this world, that Hashem’s divine presence is uplifted and is able to brighten the darkest places.

Rav Hutner once wrote a letter to a Bochur who was despondent over his personal spiritual failures. In the letter, Rav Hutner explains that what makes life meaningful is not basking in the exclusive company of one's Yetzer Tov" but rather the dynamic struggle of one's battle with the Yetzer Hara. Shlomo Hamelech's maxim that "Seven times does the righteous one fall and get up" (Mishlei, 24:16), continues Rav Hutner, does not mean that "even after falling seven times, the righteous one manages to gets up again." What it really means, he explains, is that it is only and precisely through repeated falls that a person truly achieves righteousness. The struggles – even the failures – are inherent elements of what can, with determination and perseverance, become an ultimate victory.

25. Hashem looks at our efforts, not the results

Hashem doesn’t seek great successes and big achievements from us. Whether we succeed in a big way or not, is ultimately His business. All he asks from us is that we try to get a little stronger every day, and do what we can at this point in time. Our struggle with the Yetzer Hara is even more precious to Hashem than our ultimate success in breaking free. Hashem has enough great and powerful Malachim in Shamayim, but only humans struggle with the Yetzer Hara and can give Hashem a Nachas Ruach through that.

It is brought down in the sefer Menucha V'kedusha, written by a talmid of R' Chaim Volozhiner, that even a person who sins his whole life can still be considered a Tzaddik, as long as he never gives up and always continues to fight. We like to think of success in terms of results.  But Hashem looks at our efforts, not at the results.

The Be’er Mayim Chayim says that in the army, when they would want to test a great soldier to see if he's fit to be a general, they would put him on a wild horse that was impossible not be thrown off of. The whole test was only to see how fast he would get back up after he was brutally thrown down and wounded.

bardichev wrote on 05 Jun 2009 14:02:


I just wanted to clarify my position on youtube. I don't have it blocked, but after realizing a couple years ago that I could just waste my entire life on it, I don't sit and browse youtube anymore. If I have a particular video I want to view (such as a link in an email) or I want to search for a particular video, I go. Otherwise, I stay away from youtube, because it is a HUGE time waster as well as a potential stumbling block, even though (thankfully) my addiction did not progress to the level that I am triggered by small things.

guardureyes wrote on 05 Jun 2009 14:17:


R. Guard: I'm not here to correct every misspelling in the forum (it would be a full time job  :D), but please change
"G-d" to "god" in your second sentence.  In your 3rd sentence, however, "G-d" is correctly used.

hoping wrote on 05 Jun 2009 13:24:


Elya answered this question to battleworn back in Feb.  You can read it by clicking here.  I am sure you will find it helpful.   The way I understood it as that by admitting powerless you are admitting you have a problem.  Once you admit, you can begin on working to solve it. But he first step is admittnce and acceptance.   Elsewhere on these forums dov has spoken about he "revolving door" chevra at his 12 steps.  These people could not truly recognize powerless, and where therefore not committed to long term therapy.    

But of course, like you said you need determination and willpower to win.  When those on this forum were truly determined, they were able to break free in a second.  Defining determination is another topic.  You need true ratzon and the willingness to whatever it takes.  You need to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the the yetzer hars has no more control over you in looking at porn.  But like you stated without Hashem results are impossible.

However,  determination and willpower alone is not enough.  You may also need the determination and willpower to deal with the addiction and work on some sort of recovery. 

I think some of these questions are personal.  You will see different people explain their experiences differently.  It is important to know yourself.  All the chizuk and advice on these forums are supposed to be helpful clues for you to discover yourself. 

And remember, just because until now you have been POWERLESS, recovery makes you  POWERFUL.  The primary midah that is responsible for the sickness we call addiction is lack of self control.  Plain and simple.  The desires is a result of that lack of self control. The primary midah that needs to be addressed above all is learning how to take control.  You need to take action.  Hashem will bring the results.  

I wish you the best of luck.  I can see you are in this for the long term. 

Keep up the great work!
Keep growing!
Keep inspiring us!

Lover of All Jews,
yaakov

Kedusha wrote on 05 Jun 2009 13:49:


Kedusha

I have modified my post, thanks.  You have hit the nail on the head though, my lusting is exactly an Avodah Zara, when I am in the addict mode I am so religous with my acting out and worship the objects of my lust - this is how insane I am when I act out, that lust becomes a religion with mad rituals, I do not underestimate where my addiction can take me and in recovery know that my acting out besides gilu aroyos is also avodah zoro in every sense of the word.

To an addict's mind, they are godessess. They are his god at that moment. The true G-d seems far away. This is indeed a form of Avodah Zorah, as the Zohar in Parshas Kedoshim writes:

We have learnt that it is forbidden for man to gaze at the beauty of a woman lest evil thoughts be aroused in him and lead him to something worse. When R. Shimon went through the town, followed by the Companions, if he saw a beautiful woman he used to lower his eyes and say to the Companions, Do not turn. Whoever gazes at the beauty of a woman by day will have lustful thoughts at night, and will transgress the precept, "You shall not make to yourselves molten g-ds".