"I started getting better because I really reached out for my G-d and kept using His help, from that point forward."
Please help me understand this. How do I do this??? When I am caught in overwhelming lust, what do I do? "Hashem, help me out of this"? I have not found that very effective. I have instead found myself alone with the yetzer hara in a battle that I have virtually no chance of winning. How do I get G-d to step into the ring???
What I was told was: Instead of getting Hashem to step into the ring, you need to learn how to step out of the ring. And it worked.
But to step out of the ring, I cannot be going-it alone, I need to bring other sober people into my struggle, and as often as possible in the heat of the moment. Because if I am doing it alone, I am most likely saying inside: "I can beat this! I have the trick now!". There are no tricks and no easy ways out.
It doesn't seem to ever work if I am really saying to Hashem: "Take it away G-d, so I don't have to give it up"! (as the White-Book puts it so well).
And we cannot assume that our faith in Hashem is so real that when we talk to Him it has the same emotional value to us as talking to another person does. If that were so, we'd never hide from people when acting out - would we? So we must really have a disconnect there. Face it.
And the answer, for me, was to establish real connections with people, and only then with my G-d. And as I have posted before to someone (see Chizuk e-mail #553 on this page), this is the way Hashem made us. We were created to establish human relations (parents, then friends, then a spouse, then children) all to model and develop our relationship with Hashem.
Trouble is, addicts get short-circuited somewhere, and they remain eleven-year-olds in their own head, still fighting their parents. Hashem becomes a ritual, to some extent. If you were G-d, you would not want to be a ritual, would you? And the relationship with G-d doesn't work either.
So How to do it? The 12 Steps spelled it out simply and clearly for me, and I worked them with my sponsor and continue to work them today, with Hashem's help. And if I can, anyone can. Trust me. You may not know how screwed up I was, and how grandiose, self-centered and fearful I am, by nature. ANYONE can do this.
The trick is to stop thinking about it. Just stop. Work the steps, in order, and with another person who already did it and for whom it is still working. No deep meforshim and cheshboinos need apply.