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 addiction? And what secrets do the "12-Steps" have that our (obviously defective) approach to Torah learning wasn't able to give us? Are the 12-Steps just a "technique", or do they hold some intrinsic "holiness" as well?
In a lively discussion on this thread on the forum, members debated and shared their enlightening and inspiring views about how the 12-Steps and Torah learning are not at all mutually exclusive in our struggle with Yetzer Hara.
Although there were so many amazing posts on this topic, I would like to share today one of Dov's posts. I chose Dov because his addiction was one of the most advanced of anyone on our forum, and yet, he's sober already for 11 years!
Besides for being quite a Talmid Chacham, Dov's honesty, humility, wisdom and hashkafa are inspiring us every day on the forum.
We love you brother Dov. Don't you EVER leave us!
Hi Brothers!
Although I use the 12-Steps in my recovery, I do not accept that I have fallen off the wagon and am lost from the derech Hashem for me.
The advanced level that my addiction reached - and the ensuing 12 steps, seem to be - in retrospect - the only way I could have "found Hashem and myself". Yes, perhaps if I had learned more Torah and had had more mesiras nefesh I may have merited to accomplish the same thing without the steps, but this is not the way Hashem did it for me! I did try, and lost. I choose to believe that this was my destiny. It may not be yours, but so what?
What my experience has taught me is that I - and many others I know - learned Torah rather well while they were addicts. I gave a shiur in Mishna for Kiruv while in the midst of the very worst part of my addiction, sometimes even acting out the very same night. Some people (like me) would either learn Torah and soon afterward shock themselves at how fast and far they could fall; or first fall deeply and very soon afterward feel a religious high. Sadly, the high gave me a kind of "condolence" for my acting out, and in the long run it allowed me to "save face" enough to continue my stupid struggle. Here was a man proudly standing against a tsunami wave; what an idiot.
But I did not know any better and I really thought that I was supposed to struggle and be patient. Patient - as my relationship with my wife deteriorated under the weight of my mounting secrets; Patient - as I became well-learned in my twisted brand of "avodas Hashem" that was all about a new kind of "veHachayos Ratzo Vashov": looking at porn, lying, chasing lust, more lying, hiding and acting out, and then I would come (really) screaming and crying to Hashem, "Take me back!" Ach and Vei. Not exactly the type of "Ratzo Vashov" that the Malachim are doing around the Merkavah, is it?
So no, learning Torah as an "active addict" did not seem to "protect" me from my addiction. If anything, it made it worse at that time.
However, I do not accept that most people are addicts. I do not accept that Dovid Hamelech struggled with addiction, though he surely knew of it like he knew of every other type of suffering, L"A. I do not think that normal people are really made for the 12 steps, as presented in the AA literature. The actual implementation of the Steps (i.e. "working them" - not just reading them) usually seems to be unnecessarily heavy for normal people.
I needed the 12-Steps for all this and - as I was - I could not get it from Torah. Theoretically, maybe it's unfortunate for me, but I choose not to accept that. You don't win a battle with a dirge, but you go ahead to victory with lively marching music! So it is a good thing that many of us in the groups just accept the facts as they are on the ground, hold our heads high, and grow using this path as though our very lives depend on it. It may. At that point, it is certainly a precious and holy derech of Hashem for us!
B"H today I rarely feel I am fighting. When I do have a temptation in lust, I choose not to look at it as a "Yetzer Hara" issue. I view it like a "little tentacle" of the beast of my addiction. The Yetzer Hara had total and relentless control of my life and that approach seemed to be a sure bet for keeping it that way! Now, B"H, it's "body" is locked in a "dungeon" guarded by Hashem, until He decides to "recycle" it - bimheira beyamieinu.
In the meantime though, it's tentacles are still dangerous, having a connection to the beast and can destroy me totally, though they now appear to be weaker and thinner (just a "thin string", if you will), but bitter. Till today, I use the same tools in the same way as I always did from the very beginning. Today it's just faster usually, and not as big a deal as it used to be. (Occasionally, like the last day or two, it has been scary. But Nu, what do you expect from an addict? B'H I'm feeling better, and your support is appreciated)!
Along the way, some people think that because of the way I share and frame/describe my challenges, that I am still listening to or watching or running after shmutz or acting out just like before! Although this is B"H not the case, I know I need to face it the same way as Dov-the-newbie, or I'll trip, get stuck, fool myself, act out, and eventually - die. (I once sat through a long verbal thrashing about selfishness because I shared that I believed in some way that I was still selfish and disrespectful to my wife. Phew! The guy had 2 years of sobriety and I had five, but I kept me mouth shut tight, even afterward. Who knows, maybe it was good for me!) Better to be a (safe) fool in peoples eyes for a few minutes than to Hashem (permanently).
I have no evidence that I will ever be cured. I do not know if what they say: "Once an addict, always an addict" is true. I just choose to apply it to myself for lack of a reason not to. I assume I'll be going to meetings till I die, which is good because it seems I am more pleasant to live with when I have meetings in my life. And I get to help addicts too, just by being there. If I somehow become certain that I am cured, I may not go to meetings any more and I hope to let you and others know. If you think you are cured, gezunterheit, and I will assume you are right until proven otherwise. (But it is not clear to me exactly what the litmus test would be though; feeling cruddy? acting out once? a pattern? arrest?)
My goal in life is to be a pure and total eved Hashem. I know this deep in my heart. But most of the 12 steps are truly Derech Eretz Kodmah LaTorah as far as I am concerned. The 11th Step ("We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out"), it seems, is about moving on from the steps and truly starting your life as a Yid (in my case), no?
Is the 3rd step (turning our will and our lives over to the care of God) Kriyas Sh'ma? Yes, in retrospect. But I could not - and would not - have "gotten it" from that, had you taught it to me that way. I had been saying kriyas sh'ma all those years in addiction and yet in my mind, Hashem still wasn't truly in charge enough, He wasn't on my side enough, and He wasn't able to help me enough, as far as I was concerned, and I wasn't able to really trust Him. It was all too complicated in my experience of Yiddishkeit.
I had to hear and learn all that in a different way. I had to get off the 18-wheeler (or airplane, helicopter, whatever!) and get on a nice, quiet bicycle with training wheels. That's the 12 steps. Simple, focused, and real.
Now, certainly Torah is the ikkar and hopefully a frum recovering addict will be able to maintain enough sanity to make Torah the ikkar and grow in it. But unfortunately I have met some who can't yet. Let's daven for them, that they should have what we have too.
Hoping some of this megilah was helpful,
Dov
Dearest Dov, your posts are so beautiful they bring tears to my eyes!
I think to sum it all up, we can say that the 12-Steps teach us how to live and think right. But "Living and thinking right" is not the end goal in itself. Perhaps for a non-Jew it is, but for a Jew, we can go much higher. But how can we start with XYZ before learning ABC? Once we know ABC, we can take that WITH US into the XYZ. We need to take this honesty, humility, selflessness, and this close connection to Hashem that we learned in ABC - into our TORAH as well. And if we do this, then our Torah and Avodah become truly powerful, much more than before; they become nuclear weapons against the Yetzer Hara!