The Library

I've been slipping a lot lately, doing things and going places I know shouldn't. It's so hard to fight this addiction. I feel a desperate need inside me for a loving and intimate relationship. I wanted to know what you think about marriage. It's been on my mind lately, I ...

Reading "divrei chizuk" (from R' Tzvi Meyer) on the topics of Tisha b'Av on Tisha b'Av afternoon is fantastic. (Almost any busywork is better for me - a touchy recovering addict - than focusing on feeling yucky!) There are other people on this forum who have regular and d...

Ahron Posted on the Forum: I have gotten to the point where I can occasionally understand why "normal" people view p***n as repulsive (not all the time though). I'm happy about that. However seeing pretty women on the street, even with no further thought beyond the first ...

Instead of counting the days, let's make the days count! Life without acting out is certainly a wonderful thing, and it should last us another ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty... whatever years, right? I cannot eat or go to the restroom for tomorrow or for yesterd...

Dov Answers as follows: The answer of my heart to your question is "no", I did not know these things. Furthermore, I believe that had I known them, I would never have needed SA. But let's get honest here and define "knowing these things". The emphasis is on the quality of...

Dov writes to him as follows: My dear fellow, You are certainly not alone in the inability to bear loneliness! (Actually, that's kind of ironic, no?)Anyway, as your insight into yourself grows, you certainly will add weapons to your arsenal, but relying on weapons - no ma...

We have discussed in the past how one of the foundations of the 12-Steps is learning how to "Let Go and Let G-d". Well, another major foundation of the steps that helps us find freedom from the addiction, is learning how to live for OTHERS and not be "self-centered". As o...

Once we stop acting out, we embark on a journey of recovery. "Recovery"? from what are we recovering? We are getting our Sanity back! (we probably did have it when we were five or six years old...). After all, it is insane (see Websters, really) to be doing all kinds of t...

Someone posted: "having a handle on the lusting is proving to leave me with enough energy, which can be more profitably used elsewhere". R' Dov responds: Please consider that you are really only recognizing the tip of the iceberg when you say this. It is much, much more...

For my wife, the best day of our lives together was the day she realized that I had started to change. It was after about a year of sobriety, soon after my 4th & 5th steps (which incidentally, I felt I had done a lousy "job" on). We have never watched our wedding vide...

The basis of addictive behavior is "I want to feel good right now". Certainly being be'simcha is a yesod of yiddishkeit (and as AAs say "if you are sad all the time you are not working the steps right"), but nowhere do we see any Torah source saying "if it feels good, do ...

When my house is on fire with lust, and my body is telling me "I need it, I need it," and it feels clear that it is in my absolute best interest to do this crazy thing, I need to remind myself that it is a 100%, total, lie. But that is not enough. I must also have a truth...

I was frum before and I'm frum now, but it is clear to me that my relationship with Hashem was not personal and not real to ME, before sobriety. All addicts who recover through AA feel the same way, it seems. So I say, without what you call "the Yetzer Hara" - I call it "...

One of the most inspirational members of our Forum is a guy named Dov (see his story here). He is sober in SA for 11 years and continues to join SA meetings until today. He often posts how the 12-Steps help him remain sober and live with Hashem day by day,...

Yankle posted on the forum: I regret that I have lost yet another streak. I do not know if I should stay on the list or chart, as I can't seem to fight any more. How far I have fallen from who I was! I am divorced and alone. The loneliness gets to be too ...

Intro from Dov: A guy wrote back and forth with me basically saying that he really wants to change - yet every suggestion that the program has made for him to actually do, he has refused. All he wants is to recover secretly, on his own. He is sure that unlike everybody el...

GYE Writes: We all know that Chazal tell us how Torah is an anecdote against the Yetzer Hara and that learning Torah protects us even during the times that we are not learning. The question is, why didn't our Torah learning protect so many of us in our struggle with lust ...

"Noorah" posted on the forum: I find that the more holy the day or season, any time we are enjoined to be happy, the Yetzer Hara will go to great lengths to pull me down. The seforim all say that when we say that a Tom Tov is a "zman" ...

The program (12-Step) way of looking at the whole business, is actually different than what we are used to. It is even different from what normal people without these problems are used to. The program is not about answering questions of how to beat the desire. It is not a...

Before Yom-Kippur, some people were discussing on the forum how they think their Yom-Kippur will be, based on where they are "holding" in their struggle, and whether they feel inspired or not. Dov posted the following importan...