The Library

Someone wrote to Dov: When I want to leave to get on the call, go to my office, go daven, etc... she yells at me and says that the only reason why I'm going anywhere is so that I can go look at porn... so I stay home to show her that it isn't my intentions to look at ...

Frankly, I do not understand the yiddin-recovery connection. I am not disagreeing with you, it's just that I do not understand it in my own experience. Here's why: I am not sober because I am a y'rei Shomayim - if that was enough of a motivation for me then I'd have gotte...

Reading all the posts of Yidden here admitting to the exact nature of their sickness makes me feel like crying for the first time in a while on GYE. Not just because we are talking about sweet yidden here, but because of the pain in our sickness and the pain it causes the...

Please consider taking one little, real step at a time and you won't get ahead of yourself. Then you won't lose hope so often. It seems that change that is real comes slowly. Recovery does not happen in a test tube, greehouse, or beis midrash - it only happens in the cruc...

Many see talk of "giving up" as "giving in", but they are completely wrong. I know of many men and women who have come to give up - and quit, amazing as it is. And the majority of folks who are in the program and still keep acting out admit that they have not given up. T...

Re safety in the group: Please remember that you owe the group no sacrifices. Each one of us is hopefully here for his own need. Trying to save his own life. And you are here for yourself. Paradoxically, this is a selfish program, they say. Selfishly learning how to mostl...

A typical struggling Yeshiva guy wrote to Dov for advice. (He had not progressed to a real addiction level yet). Here is some of what he wrote:"I guess I would say that my ratzon does not meet up with what I intellectually know and want. After Yeshiva, when I first "stumb...

This recovery thing is about recognizing the facts as they truly are about ourselves, accepting them as the way we are and accepting what we are given to work with by Hashem, and now moving forward - working with our real selves rather than just fighting and denying ou...

I must confess that occasionally it helps me to go through in my mind what chazal teach us: "kol hanosein eyno b'mah she'eino shelo - afilu mashe yesh lo, notlin mimenu -whoever puts his eyes on that which is not his, even what is his is taken away from him". In other wor...

There is a shleppy miskein who lives in my house with me. He has a little flat in my head. Somehow he is exempt from rent... I can't dislodge him from my head, either... Every time I tried, I found out that I believed in my heart of hearts that I no longer needed G-d!T...

The "why" might still be a mystery to me, but although I have walked away from juicy situations a few times, the basic and inescapable fact for me is that I have a pattern and it spirals downward. Nothing I have done has arrested it. Looking at my case in a clear way, rem...

Dov wrote: The Torah's requirement is not to be lust free, but not to go after the lust that you discover yourself having.   Someone replies: I'm not sure what you mean to say, but I think it is assur to lust after your friend's wife even if you do not act upon it. In fac...

So. You are still acting out. Well. I need to ask you what it is that you really want. And I am serious. No pat answers and "oh, well, of course I want to quit" - answers allowed here. Do you want to stop? Or do you want to be able to feel spiritual, respect yourself, hav...

Part of your subject line is: "is Emunah the answer?"... nice name. Well, I am here b'Shem Hashem to say it is certainly not the answer. Having all the emunah a sefer can give you or a rebbe can teach you, is all nice - but it is not the answer for people like us. The a...

Our problem is not sex, but lust. And the solution is an inside job and not a behavioral one... Though only by behaving differently can we ever seem to experience any inner change at all. It is no wonder that we lust addicts will have some sex problems - heck, even many (...

It is normal to have both a need for affection and to have lust for sex! In fact, even though it is completely ossur, perhaps it is even within the realm of "normal" to have a lust for sex with someone other than your wife once in a while! The Torah's requirement is not t...

On the mornings that I wake up in pain after a disappointing night (that it feels like resentment, sadness, or squirreliness is irrelevant - it is pain that expresses it self in whatever way. The fact that it is pain that I am experiencing is the point, as far as I am con...

As far as I have seen, all the warnings about the 'badness' of lust seem quite silly. The silliest warnings of all are the religious warnings, though the moralist ones are a close second... If I was really motivated by goodness or halacha then I'd have never been in this ...

Someone writes to Dov: A paradox: After I have acted out, do I say to myself "your intensity in davening is just a cover up, just be normal"? But then I feel that I am being callous about the fall, which is the reason for the intensity; it is a sort of statement to HaShem...

A Bochur writes: I can't get rid of the feeling (it might be more than a feeling) that I really want to "be" with a woman! How can I go till I am married without it? It's overrated. Ha! Actually, being curious is so natural, but it's just a pity we all have to struggle s...