Ihavenostrength wrote on 02 Apr 2017 18:55:

spoilers much?

full disclosure. i dont expect anyone to read this. i dont expect anyone to understand this. i am a writer, i just need somewhere i can write.

Its been about 3 months since i started this journey. im in the same place i was when i created my account and wrote my intro piece. only thing that has changed is that im using a better computer to type this up. 78 days clean, then not so clean. then "Hey! lets get clean". then not so clean. lather, rinse, repeat. 

i come here and on my 90 day chart, i hit "i had a fall" and i get a popup of what caused my fall and what will i do to not fall again. well the first one is easy - i had a fall because i am driven towards something human. from day 1, sex was a driving factor in the world. look through the torah - every page you turn there is another reference. gemara is not any better. and here we are trying to fight against it like the idiots we are. trying to avoid it. failing to understand it. but what is the solution? have a free for all? thats not going to work. well, answering what caused the fail received a "?" the latter question is tougher. what will i do in the future to not fall. tzedaka - been there, done that. fasting - been there, done that. filters - been there, done that. be more outgoing - been there, done that. learning - been there, done that. therapy - been there, done that. that too received a nice big question mark. 

so what to do...

i thought - well maybe i should hold off shidduchim till i get this sorted out. then reality hit me that a big factor of this issue was that fact that im not married. and before all the "marriage wont solve this" people yell at me - my issue is NOT sex addiction. my issue is depression and anxiety stemming from a lack of interpersonal affection. ask my "(ex)-therapist". so to quote Einstein - only an idiot does the same thing and expects different results. maybe instead of thinking that i can beat this on sheer will power and motivation and support - maybe i should look beyond that and actually find the cure for the actual problem. 

and before all the "your wife wont be a continuous stream of love and affection" people start yelling at me - yes, i know marriage is not a walk in the park, but to quote a man much wiser than I - "Marriage cured a lot of my issues. however, I was faced with different issues". so no - all will not be cured, and marriage wont transfer me to a universe of gumdrops and lollipops, and i dont expect it to. i expect it to give me a responsibility to my wife and children, to love them and care for them. to be the best i can be, because i love them and want the best for them.

not here i am, writing my second topic this week - (i started this as a new topic because i was proud of my title and opening) trying to figure out how to survive this nightmare. has the time come to stop stalling and push full on ahead with marriage stuff? has the time come to get some strong strong medication? has the time come to roll up in a ball and just cry? has the time come [again] to make a bunch of kabalos that are just going to fail? has the time come to try to contain this ticking time bomb again until the stuff hits the fan again, and i find myself here again in the middle of the night typing out a diatribe against myself and my flaws [stay tuned]? 

to end off on a happy (bittersweet) note. i saw a poster a little while ago advertising a series of shoozen or something having to do with masturbation and stuff. across the top in big letters was "our rebbeim did it, our fathers do it, and we do it too" and that kinda got me thinking. having worked (hypocritically) with a whole bunch of teens - 20yr olds struggling with these issues, i noticed that along with some of the guys i reached out to, there was a lot of guys for whom masturbation was quite commonplace. not to toot my own horn (bad pun?) rabosai - we are blessed with having the self awareness and drive to come here to get help for our issues. we are blessed with having our nisayon so blatantly obvious. we are blessed with the ability to feel remorse and guilt over the destruction that we cause. i was always bitter (and still am to a certain extent) of why this bothers me so much when guys all around me are so comfortable with that action they are doing. why cant it not bother me the same? but then i recall what another man much wiser than i said - hashem isnt looking for people who start as 100s. hes looking for people who are 20s and want not to be 20s, whether they make it out of the 20 zone is irrelevant - its the fight that matters."

so i have an answer to what caused my fall - I caused my fall.
and i have an answer to what i will do to not fall again - keep fighting. anyways possible. mind, body and soul. and if i do end up here again, i'll have my answers still lined up - i did this, i own this lapse in judgement. and i will get up. i will fight it. and i will beat this - or run out the clock trying.  

I read this whole thread over the past day.
Its a great thread.
StrugglingDude pops in every couple of months to get more change for the merry-go-round meanwhile the deepest and most relevant and important discussions on the forum happen while hes going round and round.
One of the reasons it could happen here, in this thread, is because StrugglingMan is a classic example of an addict - and B"H this thread is eventually going to be a magnum opus of recovery.
All StrugglingPerson needs to do now is find his own rock bottom - its looming in the hazy distance, just beyond his grasp.. so near yet so far.
He didn't yet truly grasp the meanings of the words, but he is so so close.
Around the middle of the third page the true significance of the discussions show such clarity of relevance to his journey.
StrugglingGuy have you had a chance to read this thread from the start since you started it? Its an amazing thread.
You don't have to stay StrugglingForever, you can change your name to ManWhoUsedToStruggle...
If you really want to.
I hope i didn't offend with the way I posted this.

Day 51: )"A platform of recovery for Jews who find themselves struggling with addictions to pornography, masturbation or other sexual problems. 


Ten points if you can tell me what's wrong with this sentence. Hint: I put it in italics. 

Suggestion: Subsitute find themselves with "are".

Ihavenostrength wrote on 02 Apr 2017 04:02:

You should write with a pen. Your post was missing the point 

Day 50: When you start putting some distance between yourself and Insanity​, you don't expect life be going great. After all, you're quite new to the whole life thing anyways.

Gratitude. Gratitude for being given a chance to live.

This shabbos I was lucky enough that something clicked for me. The whole "don't be so humble you're not so great thing". (Check out my post from day 48 for more about that.) 

Many times I feel self-conscious. I used to think it was because I genuinely thought I wasn't that great. Low self esteem or whatever. In reality though, I think way too highly of myself. I give myself credit for things I haven't even done. Merely by thinking I could do them. Like become a talmid chochom, a great musician... whatever. Ok, so I'm​ not really any of those, so I feel sad/low self esteem. 

Now I realized, that maybe I do think I'm not great right now. But really, as in the real me or whatever, I think I could be amazing.

Maybe you're reading this and thinking that this sounds like healthy ambition. Well, it's not. This is the worst for me. I'm most healthy when I view myself as I am. Most confident too. 

Ironically, having such dreams stunts my growth. For subconsciously I think I'm already great!

Obviously if you ask me point blank, I won't tell you I'm amazing, I'd say "no, I'm not that great all", and I would mean it. 

(I can be rational after all, hence the endless pontificating of addicts, closing with some nice masturbation.) 

But, inside I'm thinking I could be so great, which the subconscious treats as, "I'm already great"! 

Do you know why? It's because the mind doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality.

That's why when I have sex with myself it's so beautiful.

Yes, I said beautiful. Heck, I'll throw in pleasurable and meaningful too. 

Yes, painful, soul sucking, and mind altering for the worse, but beautiful. 


(Realized after I wrote this that sex with myself is "real" and not just fantasy. However, I still like what I wrote even though it's not relevant, so I decided to leave it. You can substitute​ "fantasizing about naked women" for "sex with myself" if you'd like.) 

Ok, back to the point though. Having these dreams/fantasies of being great encourages me not to work to become better.

Whatever... Unfortunately, my "metaphorical hand" is too weak to write clearly and my mind is super lazy to organize my thoughts. But hey, maybe I'll get lucky and this will come out as clear writing. 

Gut voch! 

I hope it's okay if I'm a bit of a jerk here. We needed someone to fill in one day for a shiur and someone suggested a particular guy. I happen to know that guy is an active sex addict. I do feel bad to have said no based on that. I mean there are plenty of guys giving shiuring who are not practicing what they preach and I don't know what they do in their private lives. This happened to be a mussar shiur. To be honest I thought I might get nauseas hearing him give a mussar shiur when I know what hes's doing in secret. Is that fair of me? Probably not but I politely declined. Just so we are clear before I continue I was that guy at one time. I was living a double life and it was eating me alive. Therefore I feel it's okay for me to say this. Why do you/we/this guy think it's okay to give people a shiur and put ourselves out to be something we are not. And of course it goes way beyond this. We lie to our wives, our children, our friends and to the people we are giving shiur to. I know that I'm way to grumpy and lack the necessary patience to comment in this forum, so I try to avoid it. I happened to have been subscribed to this thread so I check in once and awhile. So apologies for my negativity. 

mike dupont wrote on 01 Apr 2017 21:45:

Yeah, trouble's wife

Seems some people here need to go on diet.
My experience is that losing weight gives a good feeling which helps with the addiction. Loving ourselves is the first step.

Due to some circumstances (not related to my addiction) I gained weight recently and Pesach is just around the corner.

Anyone willing to start a joint effort shedding pounds?
My aim is to lose 20

Hey everyone, I had realized I am a sex addict for 2 years already, by the will of G-d i started attending SA groups 3 month ago, since then i had been taking serious steps to recovery, However i had not make it to even a month of sobriety yet. I attend 2 meetings a week and make number of phone calls daily. Staying connected to others is what had been the most beneficial for me so far. Just joined GYE and hope to connect to more people here. I will be posting on this thread updates on my journey. Thank you brothers, and May G-d bless us with a will to trust him,much love. 

Today was a big lusting day, mainly because i was home a lot by myself. I still say i'm clean according to the letter of the GYE law, but i don't feel so clean.
l'm still working my way through the GYE website and b"H i am becoming more educated, but i still can't figure out if i'm an addict and/or to what extant. 
As always you are all great, and i'm often humbled by many of you posters.   Keep up the good work!

Day 48: Trying not to make my life about staying clean. Dov is so right when he says an addicts problem is not staying sober, it's real life. I listened to the recording of Dov's call today about bein hazmanim. He spoke about how having low self esteem many times comes from having an inflated ego. When you think I'm shayich/deserve to be so great it's depressing when reality doesn't match up. This is so me. Not so much about being a tzadik or talmid chochom, as in the example he brings, but in other areas. 

(for clarification this next part is my own hogwash) 
BTW even if you think you're shayich to true greatness or success in any given area, you won't achieve it by thinking you're great. The ones who become great don't think they're so great. So they work hard to get better, they practice... This is a logic for those who are scared that abandoning their dreams and fantasies will mean they won't accomplish anything. Quite the opposite indeed. 

We live in a culture of exceptionalism, but you don't need to let it ruin your mental health. It's your choice really... Hold on to your fantasies or accept reality. I believe reality can be beautiful, although I must admit I'm still looking. 

i joined GYE 78 days ago - 78 days clean. i had a "fall" tonight. in quotes because this was more of a mind-cause event that a simulated event. i had felt this coming for a few weeks already - somewhere around day 60, and here we are. 
i had a whole thing typed out here trying to express something i wasnt able to. so, from scratch. 

sexual content opened up a void within me begging for affection. [yes i know porn is fake. i dont watch porn.] coming from a family that was very supportive but not affectionate magnified the issue. that void has been growing. impure thoughts numb the void temporarily. trying to stop thinking about sex worked great to not thinking about sex, but the void was still there.
the void, however, is also natural. its supposed to be there. that void is what drives people to want to love each other. to want to build a family.

im "in the parsha" as they say. im struggling to keep a clean mind. but the issue isnt the filth. its the void. i feel these 78 days have been like taking advil to heal a broken bone (or some other analogy). 
so here i am back at day 1 because bad thoughts are.. well... bad. but still struggling with the void. trying to make sure that trying to marry as well as filling this void dont end in debacle. 

and before everyone comes out and goes into a rant about how marriage wont help - marriage wont help addiction. the cure for addiction is the the same cure for a lack of personal affection. i dont dream about have a wife i could have sex with at nausea. i dream of a wife i can spend time with. literally. a companion. and, despite how cheesy this is, a soul mate. 

am i nuts?
any input would be much appreciated 

Day 47: Grateful to have made it this far. My life isn't​ being managed that well right now, but I'm hopeful. Read through the entirety of my thread last night. Listened to the first 2 calls of Dov's 12 step workshop. I relate to his descriptions of his own addiction almost entirely. 

is loshon hora an addiction?
do peoplr trying to stop have the same hard time as this ?
is there the same enjoyment ?
i think the y"h wants to fall in this area more hence more guilt 

i think l"h is also different because its accepted by society you also automatically need someone else so there is less guilt