guardureyes wrote on 28 Jan 2009 23:20:


Ahhh, there, that feels better already.

guardureyes wrote on 28 Jan 2009 23:20:


OK, so as I said to Ano, I'll say to you, with a little more background.

One week ago I was totally on fire because, for the first time in 38 years, I had finally seen addiction in all its ugliness and I was extremely determined and enthusiastic. So, I got carried away, yes, I have an addictive personality, and, fueled by a lot of passion, and without the self-restraint of face-to-face interaction, I made mistakes and I am neither trying to excuse them nor do I intend to repeat them.

guardureyes wrote on 28 Jan 2009 23:20:


No. I didn't make it clear enough but I personally don't buy into the 12 steps and so I will not be trying them at all. What, doing the 12 steps without the 12 steps? What does that mean? How will that work? If you are really a totally beholden believer in the 12 steps it will seem to be totally meaningless. But if like me, you are not a great believer in them, then the groups may work out for any of a multitude of other, equally good reasons.

guardureyes wrote on 28 Jan 2009 23:20:


If I were going to try out the 12 steps that would be something to consider.

guardureyes wrote on 28 Jan 2009 23:20:


That's a false dichotomy. Meaning, you claim it's either one or the other when really it does not have to be either.

I am going to say something extremely important, that should probably have been said sooner, but it has taken a while for me to able to verbalize it fully. There is no argument over values at all here. Any discussion and disagreement to the extent that it exists at all is 100% about method, strategy and approach and 0% over values.

I value sobriety and so does everyone on this board.

I value personal responsibility and so does eveyone on this board.

I value teshuva and so does everyone on this board.

So in reality, we are absolutely and totally be'achdus, which explains why we can all get on really well when we want to. Because all discussions aside, we are all here ke'ish echod belev echod to become better Yidden and better Ovdei Hashem.

From here on, as a general rule, I will focus on not just my own personal path but lessons that everyone can take from Torah regardless of their attitude to the 12 steps. Once there is a crack in the door and people are willing to
discuss and perhaps listen to something new in addition to what they already know, that is more than enough.

As you will see, your attitude will change a lot more than you expect it to.

Now, as to the real point of the piece I wrote here it was intended to be essentially humorous but also interesting and my main focus was on the manner and method of my therapist.

However I will say that while I have and had no interest in perpetuating the fight over the 12 steps, coming as it does  at the expense of posting Torah messages on recovery, with some of the comments being posted very recently to my other thread in support of the 12 steps  I was determined to go out of my way to make it obvious that my own involvement with a 12 step group is no capitulation.

But that is all in the past. Because with Siyatta Dishmaya and Achdus we can learn from each other.

Ano Nymous wrote on 28 Jan 2009 22:48:


Relax, take it easy.

Before this gets out of hand and before anyone thinks that in real life I interact in the same way that I do on a forum, let me reassure everyone that in real life, I can be a very, very normal guy.

I am not going anywhere to prove any point, one way or another. I am going to the groups, totally matter of fact. To see if there is anything at all that helps me personally as yet another tool/weapon in the fight against addiction. I don't care whether they believe in the 12 steps and I will not be trying to change, either their opinion of the 12 steps or my own.

All appearances aside, what has helped me here on this forum is not the opposition and arguing, but the group dynamic. And they have a group dynamic there too. So, yes, I am going there open, open to finding something useful, regardless of what the actual beliefs are. And no, I do not intend to lecture a secular group on how they should be more torahdik!!!!

Like guard already said, make sure you go with only ONE agenda: to rid yourself of your addiction (or habit if you like that word better). Even if you disagree with parts of their system, if you go in with an open mind you will come out with an open heart. Go in with a closed mind and you will end up with a broken heart.

That's right, you read it right. boruch is in the very near and immediate future, B'Ezras Hashem, participating in a secular group that meets regularly on sexual addiction and works with the 12 steps. That is at least once.

Wait a second, this has to be some sort of publicity stunt. There is some sort of conspiracy going on here. Maybe boruch realized that he would get much more attention by first smashing the 12 steps to smithereens and then announcing that he himself is going to such a group than if he had just announced his intended participation when he originally joined.

Whichever way it is, there has to be something more to this than meets the eye.

Well, actually there is. boruch has a therapist. boruch said so in his first post on this board. For anyone who didn't notice boruch likes a good fight and he likes to come to a fight very well-armed. In fact, as far as boruch is concerned there is no such thing as being too well-armed.

So, boruch has an accountability partner, yes his accountability partner is out here on this board (and got here after they were accountability partners and before boruch took his partner's example and was himself posting here). boruch has his Jnet filtering allowing business only (no leisure at all) which is the highest level of filter available for DSL. boruch has two forms of monitoring software running simultaneously on both of his laptop and main PC. One that takes screenshots locally and the other that emails his accountability partner all activity and content of both PCs. boruch is active on this forum, and doing his best to see to it that he doesn't become too addicted to the forums either (his first week here wreaked absolute havoc on the rest of his life). So, if boruch has all of that, why does he need a therapist? Because boruch does not believe in half-measures.

So if boruch is committed to using everything available why would boruch not just try the 12 steps even once before slamming them full force with everything he has?

Because boruch, when left to himself, is only interested in using what he believes are great weapons. If he is convinced that time and effort can be better spent otherwise, he is not going to do what everyone else does just for the sake of it (especially since he is not particularly averse to being different).

So you may not have envied the job of my therapist last night.

You see, he and I have this very subtle disagreement. It's only a minor thing really. No big deal. I mean, what's so unusual? boruch's therapist is convinced that the 12 steps groups would be the best thing for boruch. And boruch himself? Long before he had ever discussed the 12 steps with his therapist he was deeply allergic to them and was dead set against ever using them.

So, for a moment, put yourself in the position that my therapist found himself in last night. What would you have done to get boruch, your client, to join a secular 12 step group? Taken early retirement? Schedule a got-to-go call for the beginning of the session and hot-tailed it straight to a very warm sunny place for the the balance of the Winter?

Well, my therapist is very smart. For one, he is really soft-spoken. And he is 100% all matter-of-fact practicality. No theories, no droshos, just the real deal. So here's what he did.

We were working on my addiction issues extending to these forums. He liked the idea of moderation, an hour on the forums daily (I am in jeopardy now and will BE"H be gone soon). But he added even more common sense. He helped me recognize that it's not just the forums that I am addicted to but computers as well. So, in the spirit of moderation he told me that I am not going to like it but he strongly advises me to only use a computer (at least for the next 30 days) during a window that is the equivalent of the number of hours in a workday. He also advised me to split the hour on these forums into two parts of half an hour each. One half hour to give me chizzuk as I log on and another half hour just before I log off.

Most importantly he strongly advised me (I have special circumstances -- you may be different) to avoid at all costs going on a computer to go to the forums. He said the forums are best used when you would anyway be on the computer so that they lessen addiction, but once you go on a computer to get forums then at least in my case I increase the risk of feeding my computer addiction.

That's when the subject of the 12 steps came up. He told me that I am not going to like his suggestion, but I should go to a session at least once.

Before he could get any further I briefly explained some of my issues with the 12 steps. I told him that I can manage fine without it because I have these forums. I told him that with Hashem's help I will join others in groups that are very different. etc. etc.

And he did not give up. He said, how do you think that you can make your own groups without having ever checked out the competition? He reminded me of the joke of the guy marooned on a desert island who had built himself two shuls, one that he davens in, and one that he won't daven in. He told me that it cannot truly be the shul you won't daven in, if you never davened there at least once.

Now, of course, neither I nor my therapist were born yesterday. We both knew what he really meant. He really meant to say, I am your therapist and I am telling you, that not only will you do very well in those groups, you will like it very much. He meant to say that even if you try it just once, you'll be hooked for the long run.

And yet, realizing what he really wanted to achieve I nevertheless wholeheartedly agreed to try it out. Even though I am dead against the 12 steps. Why? Because as both my therapist and I know, after all is said and done, boruch is a pragmatist. Yes, boruch will not sell out on his convictions for anyone, therapist or not. That is not to say that he is not open to persuasion. boruch reversed himself when Guard and Ano took him to task for belligerence on the forum. But boruch won't sell out on his convictions. Because open minded as he is boruch has not reversed himself on everything else discussed here, because much as he has tried to look for it, he has yet to hear anything even remotely worthwhile, let alone convincing on any of the topics that we debate so fiercely here (you see Guard you didn't need to worry, the fighting spirit is far from gone, and my style is not exactly cramped).

But what does that have to do with boruch going to a secular group that works with the 12 steps? Even if the 12 steps were 1000% hogwash (which they are not --- look, see --- moderation at work) that's not an excuse to dismiss my therapist's suggestion.

And I can even prove to you beyond a shadow of doubt that my therapist is right. I usually look up everything and source everything before I quote, but as I quote something once posted on these forums I am making an exception, so as not to give credit where it certainly does not belong.

So, let's just say, to keep it friendly and diplomatic, that someone on these forums (we'll keep it totally anonymous, safer that way) so someone once wrote that there are no rules on these forums (there weren't then, B"H there are now -- relax Guard, I am only teasing)  and then this guy continued by qualifying, that is, with the possible exception of the 12 steps.

So, here's a question for everyone here. There's this forum online for frum Jews that deals with addiction. And many or most of the guys are like, you know, really, really into the 12 steps.

Do you think that such a forum would be a good idea for boruch?

guardureyes wrote on 28 Jan 2009 00:35:


That's a cute one. Good old sleight of the hand there...

So now you really see it coming, yes, sure enough, here it is, the Mr Nice Guy bit was nice while it lasted, because you better believe it, boruch's tiger is about to re-emerge with a vengeance, Vesuvius is about to erupt, Nagasaki and Hiroshima are nothing compared to...

Jokes aside, I do have a massive bombshell for this forum, and that is probably an understatement. I have a bombshell unlike anything that I have posted until now.

I have one sentence to say here and I will explain the rest in a separate thread. Yes, this thread will continue to focus on an approach that is free of the 12 steps and an approach that is far superior to the 12 steps. That said, and here comes the bombshell...

But let me first make something very, very clear (I am sorry to build up the suspense but I really have something important to say first). I say this in the most categorical terms, I have not in any way changed my opinion on anything I have written in this thread. I may have tamed the tone, thanks to the good advice of Guard and Ano, but the opinions and the underlying passion are unchanged. And what I am about to do does not come out of any crisis, desparation or surrender.

That said, I have taken someone's advice (I got the advice last night) and I have made specific arrangements and scheduling to participate, at least once, in the very near and immediate future in a secular group that meets regularly and works on sexual addiction using the 12 steps.

Interested in more? I'll post shortly on a different thread in this What works for me board.

Many of us made vows in the past and didn't keep them. That is the nature of the addiction. It is not because we don't have Yiras Shamayim, it is because we didn't know HOW to make the vows in a way that WORKS when fighting an addiction. Hashem will forgive us for THAT. But we can still use the power of vows now to help us succeed and fix the past mistakes. On the links I gave you above, you can learn how to make vows that you can for sure keep - and they will keep you too  :D

boruch wrote on 27 Jan 2009 22:46:


Scary, it is now 23:00 UTC/GMT and I am leaving after what was supposed to be 5 minutes and 25 minutes later the time has gone nowhere... credit of 35 minutes for today... this is going to be tough...

How about the Tuesday call, it's at night when you're home... It's only $10 a session and you get the benefit of a real addiction therapist on the line. I think it's worth a try...

guardureyes wrote on 27 Jan 2009 11:18:


Good for you Guard, you are no good at all to us if you are overspent... novol tibol ... otherwise in the words of Yisro to Moshe Rabbenu you will wear yourself down...

me wrote on 27 Jan 2009 06:56:


I have missed tefilla betzibbur, learning, eating, living and everything all around is suffering, family, finances, absolutely everything has seen it's toll being taken... Lo al haforums levado yichyeh ho'odom... Man cannot live on forums alone.

Anyway B"H today I only got on at 22:35 UTC/GMT and I have no time now so will come on for the balance of an hour later.

I would like to ask the members of this forumn for an answer to this question:

Would it be right for someone who came to this forumn because he is addicted or somewhat addicted etc, to take a job that requires driving women around. For instance working for a car service, even one where the women are not even Jewish usually?

[.

It is very severe to think of Torah while in the bathroom releaving oneself, YET, I saw in the sefer Taharas Hakodesh, that if the Yetzer starts filling one's mind with tumah, then even there it IS permitted to think in learning. WE see how severe this addiction is, and at what costs we are expected to take, in order to avoid it.

And the frummer, (the Y"H) will come and say, "what, to think in learning in the bathroom"?? So, in this case, who is the frummer, and who is the chachom?


[/quote]


This business of "addiction" can get carried too far. I saw something similar (it may have been the exact same thing.) somwhere - about the permissibility of thinking of divrei torah to chase away these thoughts
even in a place in which that otherwise would be prohibited. This applies to anyone, not just addicts, and one who finds himself thinking these thoughts does not have to be an "addict".  [Nevetheless if someone is helped by considering himself an addict I would not recommend not doing so, [b]if [/b] the benefits outweigh the negatives.]

Also what was that you said about "Chochmos"?

Guard, it's painful news for all of us (at least for me it is) but I totally understand.  I wish you lots of success and remember that as soon as you strike it rich your back on this forum full time.  Don't fall in to the money addiction!! 8)

Boruch, see my reply to your post over here - in the form of an "Announcement".

I have a bit of a painful announcement to make (at least for me it's painful):

From now on, unless there are changes in my financial situation, I will not be able to spend as much time as I have been spending on the forum (unless there are emergencies). Unfortunately, this probably won't leave me much time to give Chizuk to everyone like before and I will need to answer only the most urgent posts. However, if I see that I have accomplished enough work for the day, I may allow myself more time. (If anyone sees an urgent post that I missed, such as a newbie calling out for help or a question that needs serious thought, or anything that sounds urgent -please send me an e-mail). I will continue to try and answer anyone that contacts me by e-mail to eyes.guard@gmail.com

Before you judge me, please read the posts below:

Boruch Posted:
I have become totally addicted to these forums in the past 7 days. Unlike addiction to pornography to which abstinence is the only right answer -- fortunately with addiction to these forums, moderation is the right answer. So whereas I could never and would never schedule chas vesholom an hour of pornography a day (especially since I am very capable of stopping entirely) I intend with Hashem's help to deliberately schedule from tomorrow on between 21:30 and 22:30 UTC/GMT daily for posting on these forums.

A reply to Boruch:

"Snax" once posted:
"I have a new addiction. The GUE forum! There is so much chizzuk on the boards. I get the chizzuk from your and all comments posted there. I have seen major improvement since I joined the forum and hope to join the hotline this coming week. Together we are stronger and will be able to overcome our Yetzer Hora. I think guardureyes has a great zechus as people can share their thoughts anonymously. Even people that want to give chizzuk and cannot do it openly, can give out all they have on the forum."

To tell you the truth Baruch, there's nothing wrong with "addiction" per say. I believe that many of our Gedolim were, le'havdil, literally addicted to learning Torah. It was their life-line, their breath, and it was also their "high", in a sense. Halevai we could learn such addictions! The forum here is a good thing. And if it isn't taking away from your Torah learning, davening, family time or job responsibilities, I would tell you that there is nothing wrong with becoming addicted to it. Every post here is a smack in the yetzer Hara's face. I assume though, that it probably does take away from other priorities in your life and that is why you have decided moderation. If that is the case, you are doing the right step.

Your post made me realize that I too have become too addicted to the forum. I know how important it is for me to give everyone Chizuk here, but it really is taking it's toll. My work is suffering a lot, and as a result my finances are suffering. Even my family is suffering. I have less time for my children and my wife often claims that I'm not emotionally available to her. On the other hand, how can I stop rallying the troops, offering advice and updating the charts? So many people are holding on by their finger nails... So I think i will need to take Boruch's example. Moderation is the only answer. I hope everyone on the forum will be able to forgive me.

B"H the forum has grown in leaps and bounds in the past few weeks alone. That is also one of the reasons it is becoming overwhelming for me. But on the good side, there are now so many people who are offering so much great Chizuk. The forum is begining to breath on its own and support itself. Ish Es Rei'eihu Ya'azoru, Ule'achiv Yomar Chazak!. So maybe it is indeed time for me to let go a little and start making limits for myself as well.

While we are on the subject, let me just mention a few of our great Chizuk posters on this forum, to show them how much Hakaros Hatov we all have for them: Elya, Battleworn, Mevakesh, "Me" (not me :-), Jack ... I will need you guys even more now, since I will have to be cutting back a bit.

And everybody, PLEASE, keep posting your daily logs, struggles and Chizuk. We need you ALL. Together, we are a powerful force against the Yetzer Hara!

I am impressed, Boruch, by your ability to take a decision and translate it into Ma'aseh. In these type of things, it's not enough to "want", we have to "DO". That being said, let me define my cut-backs right now on this post. I will bl"n spend no more than a half an hour on the forum in the morning and a half an hour in the evening. (Don't forget, the Chizuk e-mails still need to go out each day and personal e-mails that we get still need to be answered as much as possible. Not to mention updating the "Wall of Honor" chart and the website with new stories, tips, Q&A, etc... )

I ask everyone's forgiveness for this step. Maybe one day we'll have some big sponsors supporting the GUE network that will allow me to spend full time on it. I truly would like to. Not just for the sake of the forum, but there is SO much that needs to be done. We need to network with Frum organizations and find creative ways of spreading the word to all Yidden that there is hope and there is help. Also, a whole new more modern website is now under development (at www.guardYourEyes.org). It will IY"H be a dynamic, blog style website, with RSS feeds and all the modern gadgets. But I just have no time to develop it now.. And I would like very much to write up e-books (PDF files for download) with all the info people need when starting out on the the journey. Not to mention, publishing a real book on the subject one day. There's just SO much that needs to be done in this area.

Speaking of which. If anyone knows of any "well-off" Tzadikim that understand the grave and pressing need for this work in today's world and could be potential sponsors to our network, please, either let me know, or speak to them for us. GUE today is like diamonds scattered in the sand. It has HUGE potential for helping thousands of Yidden in this most vital area (Yesod - the FOUNDATION of Yiddishkeit). If people knew what a Zechus they could have in supporting this work, in helping us spread the word and expand our activities, if they would know how much Teshuva is happening (and would happen ten-fold through their donations), if they would know how much closer we all here are bringing Moshiach, people would be snatching up the opportunity like diamonds... Unfortunately though, Shechnita Be'afra. Maybe one day Hashem will allow me to dedicate my entire life to this worthy cause. I should only be found worthy for this great honor.