SHLOMO24

The 12 Step Programme has not worked for all people dealing with sex addiction issues.
There are those who have not achieved positive results from it.
They instead used other methods which have worked for them.
But if it works for you, great! 
I would never tell someone to avoid it, but people have to know it is not the only option.

GROWSTRONG


I am on this Forum because I recognise my compulsion for pornography and acting out, being on here is part of me dealing with my problem.
My explanations might strike a chord with someone else.

On average I fall every two months.

I have been white knuckling it too much, and am putting place a self-help program which I intended to use a while ago.
I thought I didn't need it, but I was wrong.

I find Shabbat the hardest day for my lust addiction.

For me it is the inability to work, (combined with the inability to phone someone for chat if one needs to).

When I work, I feel I achieve something.

When I do not work, I feel a lack of achievement and so my self esteem falls, then my mood falls, and I am tempted to artificially boost it with acting out.

I will try to "achieve" by studying something on Shabbat...so I can feel I will grow spirituality, to make progress.

It is the day when we are meant to be "complete", to rest from work. A taste of the world to come when our work is done.
But I find it hard to take a day off.

From another angle, maybe the extra Kedusha of the day also provides potential for extra Tumah?

GROWSTRONG

If the 12 Step programme has worked positively for your lust addiction, then great!

The person who told me it was not suitable for lust addiction was not charging me any money at all.
Merely stating their point of view that the programme did not work for everyone because they felt sex/lust addiction was fundamentally different from other addictions.

MARKZ and GROWSTRONG

There will be those who have self confidence issues and lust addiction who went to mixed gender schools.

But in my case, my issues are in part connected to going to a single gender school and having minimal contact with females in my teen years.

There is a school of thought which believes the 12 Step Programme not useful for Sex Addiction, because the drive for sex is natural, whereas the drive for alcohol is learned.
So instead the remedy is to focus on building a healthy romantic relationship leading to marriage.

Aryehtahor, it's so nice to read what you wrote about how living one day-at-a-time is not like telling the YH to come back tomorrow. Though I believe that it can be that too, that eitza isn't realistic for most addicts I know, either. It tends to make the whole thing a waiting game, and the "pressure just builds up", as they say. Never worked for me.

The idea that it's about realism, is much more the way I see it, as SB said above. Practically, that means some things we tend to like, while - if we really take it seriously - it also means some things we don't really like that much. But consistency=honesty, right?

For example:

*no asking for Hashem to keep me sober this week, year (even on R"H), or just "in general" - it's always for today and only for today. Just cuz other people can daven for the year or week, doesn't mean I can.

*worrying about "what will be with" me/my kids/whatever, in the future is a negation of living one day at a time - can't afford to do it much. I need to find and use tools to let go of my emotional load from the future - while not being a moron about it, of course. That takes learning simple trust of Hashem, and not much else.

*focusing on what's really going on today is what it's all about. Before recovery, the only thing that made "today" bearable was the fact that I had a rendezvous with some lust adventure planned tomorrow, or living in the euphoric recall of the schmutz I watched yesterday. How the heck are we supposed to ever live right if it's never actually today in our hearts?!

*remembering that today is OK. It's the best Hashem has to offer for me, if I make the best of it.

It's more of an attitude than an action, but requires actions like mantras or affirmations of the above repeated a few times per day and trying to reduce the actions and thoughts that contradict it in the way we live. When a lust opportunity presents itself, it is time for surrender of the opportunity by bringing it into the light and sharing it with a friend, explicitly admitting the truth to Hashem about intentions and doing our best to give the struggle up to Him right then, and not worrying about what will be tomorrow - or admitting our hypocrisy based on our stupid behavior from yesterday. All that stuff is shtuyot. As realistic, honest, and sensible it may seem at the time, living one day-at-a-time demands surrender to Hashem right now, I guess.

There's a lot more to it, so thanks for opening this chashuv issue up for exploration.

Of course, living it is all that really matters, not figuring it all out. In fact, the only way I have anything to share about this at all is from living it a bit. Nothing i wrote above was what I had figured out about it before recovery. I threw all that in the trash with every other well-intentioned hashkofa/advice that didn't  work for me at all. 

Hatzolcha!

I am a sex addict - for the last 36 years...
I really want to stop now and discard completely that side of me - concentrating on the many good things in my life.