Dov answers a newcomer who posted on the forum for the first time (Dov's replies appear in between the lines below, in bold).
Today is my first day clean.
Actually, it's our only day.
Today I will try and go on a journey to break free of this addiction once and for all.
"Once and for all" includes the rest of this week, right? How about making it just for today, till you go to sleep. Then you might do the same thing tomorrow...
Consistently, over and over and over again for the past 17 years, I have endeavored to break free... but I was always alone. Never, ever, have I had the ability to share my feelings with others who share my addiction as well as the desire to break free.
You are right, we are very lucky. Having a chevra is like having all the gold in the world.
The longest stretch I had was from the middle of Nov of this past year until some time in January. It was around 50 days and I thought I had beat it because a Rov had told me that I was free of this addiction.
Please let me have a word with this Rov...
I really want true d'veikus and I know that I can't have that d'veikus without breaking free of this addiction.
If you had a choice to finally get free of this stuff even without the deveikus, would you agree to that? Or would you still hold out for better - while simultaneously acting out?!!
Some innocent, well-meaning folks here are blinded by the light of Torah and d'veikus. They need to stick a pair of sunglasses on their noses to see that they are tenaciously holding out for gold while sitting in excrement! Is this acceptable? This is where a Jew belongs? Get out of the excrement at all costs, I say! A lifestyle of acting out with lust and lying to our loved ones (and everyone else) is just no place for a Neshomaleh!
After we are out, there will be time for madreigos, on the condition that we remember that it's good enough just to be out of the excrement. Lusting after d'veikus can also be a mistake if the timing is wrong.
I'm so scared right now... as I become more recognizable and more watched, that chas v'shalom, if someone would see me stare the way I know that I do, if a child from my community who knows and respects me well would see me do something inappropriate... ribono d'alma kula!!! What would be of my neshama???
Is it really just your neshoma that you are worried about, and not getting caught, arrested, and embarrassed before the entire community for the foreseeable future?
I have asked gedolei Torah if there is teshuva from this and they have said yes, but let me ask you, my new friends... as I begin this journey... is there teshuva from b'ilas zona? Will Avrohom avinu block my entrance to gan eden? If so, maybe there is no point. Maybe I am lost forever?
Is there teshuva? Have you read the opening of Chovos Halevavos on Teshuvah? He basically says there that teshuvah is just going from doing your own will against His, to doing His Will (or even just to doing His Will better than before). It sounds to me that you are equating "Tikkun" with Teshuvah. You want to get rid of the horrible guilt, I understand. But I ask you how you know that it would that be a good thing at all for you to lose that guilt before you are on the derech of Tahara that you desire so much?
Perhaps the Tikkun will have to come many years hence, and till then you (not any person, just you) will need to retain some of that guilt in order to remind you of the pain and stupidity of acting out so that the next time it strikes (later today) you might get help rather than just isolating and falling again. Is this a possibility you can entertain?
Finally, I'd like to share with you that dumping our guilt, doing "teshuvah" and being accepted again into the life of Tahara, etc., can be a purely self-centered pursuit - just like the screwing around we did before. That has been my experience.
True, getting a filter and the other stuff you mention below is the only way to really exercise commitment, but if you really want to change, then I'd ask you to consider keep working on changing your motivations, rather than mainly on changing your behavior. Looking at the number of days we were sober is silly. It's great, but not a proof of anything. "It is an inside job", they say, and pointing to externals can be a way for us to remain far away from the real problems we have that screw our lives up. And the main motivation many of us share is total self-centeredness. The fact that it's for kedusha or tum'ah is irrelevant, in the end.
As tears stream down my face because of the brutally chaotic and damaging decisions I have made in my life; will this journey bring me to the true home I am looking for...a home of kedusha/tahara? A home where the Tata Avrohom will embrace me and not send me away???
Avraham Avinu will not send you away. Do you really think he is a mean old man and hates you? Why would he do that? Would You "send away" your grandson?
Thank you for reading some of the thoughts that I reflect on this day.
I have followed the suggestions sent to me and have signed up for the 90 day chart and have also installed the k9 filter on my computer and my business partner is the admin for my computer, and I asked my wife to install the filter at home "for the sake of the kids". I got started early when I found my father's pornographic magazines... chalila v'chas, my children should never have to deal with this issue as I do... it's true gehinnom.
You bet it is.