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The Vicious Cycle

Sunday, 12 April 2015

Teshuvah is great for non-addicts. Incidentally, I believe that many GYE readers are not addicts.

But for the real addicts - that is, those who have suffered enough and are essentially ready for step 1 (of the 12-Step program), I'd avoid and remove and reference to Teshuva and avodas Hashem completely until at least a year sobriety and step 11, for I do not buy that such people have the capacity to use them in any sense at all. Torah motives have already been so horribly twisted in frum addicts, that in almost every case I have come across they are fuel for addiction and nothing else. It's as silly to me as working on 'getting the sex healthy in the marriage' as a tool to release the addict's need for masturbation. Yes, of course using sex right is a great fruit of recovery - but focusing on it at the start is like pouring gasoline on a fire.

I have found - and continue to find - it is exactly the same with what addicted frum guys call 'Teshuva'. It's nothing but poison for them. Frum addicts often obsess and lust for Teshuvah (usualy davka Teshuva Gemura, of course) at least as strongly and sick-ly as they lust for sex and erotica... So they stay in the cycle as long as they keep trying to get both.