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 much for me. I turn only to Hashem and the handbooks for help. As I type and cry, I only wish things were different. I want to be able to sit and learn all day again to get a relationship with the Ribono shel olam and to have my own family again. Instead, I have brought this terrible illness of lust upon myself and I feel that until I break it nothing positive will come to me anymore, as I do not deserve it, as I go against Hashem. How can I expect Him to be good to me, or even provide good for me, if keep on falling to my yetzer harah and defying Hashem?
Dear Yankle,
#1: I love you because you are a fellow creation, and especially because you are a yid; and especially because you are a fellow addict. "Love" means I will do anything I can to help you, gladly, with no expectation of receiving anything in return at all. The only thing you can do for me, would be to benefit from my help :-)
#2: Certainly Hashem loves you more than I do, and more than anyone ever did or will. Actually, He must also even love you even while you are acting out. Not approve, but love - and love all the same. This is very important to internalize.
Whenever I calmly think about:
then I am able to recognize that "bishvili nivrah haolam - for me the world was created" really means that Hashem is 100% totally and unconditionally ON MY SIDE, and always will be.
How about you? Can you accept that? Even partially? I believe that acceptance of this fact was an indispensable foundation of the 12-step recovery for me. I actually came to it by doing my fourth step ("We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves"), which helped me truly recognize and accept for the first time who I really am (good and bad) and realize that Hashem still has a relationship with me! Shortly after that (1.5 years into the program), I discovered completely by chance that I could actually smile at who I saw in the mirror for a change. It was incredible, and it still is.
#3: You call acting out "defying Hashem". I doubt you ever acted out to defy Hashem at all. So, let's get perspective here: I believe we all "defy Hashem" (even non-addicts), as we are ultimately all selfish ignoramuses when it comes to recognizing our total and constant dependence on Hashem Yisborach, and we probably always will be. And there's not really very much we can do about this. Our purpose here in this world is to recognize that we are handicapped by virtue of the fact that we are human, and yet react with a resounding: EVEN SO, HERE I GO! - and do mitzvos be'simcha anyway. Moshe Rabeinu answered the Malachim: "hey, do you die? do you have jealousy, desire, stealing, etc?", and yet Hashem still wants our little avodah!
This is not to say "why bother trying to be a tzaddik, or even any better at all?". I am just pointing out that if you want to call your choices "defying Hashem" or "evil", then at least recognize that the best any of us will likely ever do is still rather pathetic, even though every bit of improvement towards goodness and perfection and towards Hashem's Ratzon - is precious beyond our imagination. That's just what we are! Like babies without any understanding, compared to Hashem.
So please consider some alterations to your perception of reality and "cool your jets" of self-condemnation, and then you'll be able to get better.
Are Hashem's hands ever tied Chas veshalom that He can't be in love with us? I believe that it is our Yetzer Hara that tells us: "Hashem only really loves me when I am good (if He loves me at all), and even then, only after I do some Teshuva".
These are normal sentiments, particularly for us frum Yidden who have been taught the standards that Hashem wants us to live up to, for our own benefit. But they are poison, and for me, they were a convenient cop-out actually, which led me only to a downward spiral and to a more unrealistic understanding of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
You wrote:
"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'd like to know who fed you the idea that if you only try hard enough you will "beat it". Who told you that you are locked in a mortal combat of wills against lust? Whoever it was, they may want to re-evaluate their thinking, because it seems that you only need to fail a few more times before you have no more ability to fight. And then what? Apparently you will just keep losing, basically giving in to what you call the "Yetzer Hara" completely, no? You sound just as I did, once upon a time. I was sure I'd get better. Later I wasn't so sure. Finally - after medications, psychiatrists, therapists, near-arrest, near-death twice, and near-divorce, I was finally sure that I'd never get better. I drew comfort only from the fact that I'd keep my secret to the grave. Not a life for a nice Jewish boy.
My dear friend Yankle, this is not the way of the program that I am familiar with at all. No, the 12-step program that works for me and others is not for the man who needs help to try harder. It is for the one who is hopelessly lost and realizes he cannot win because there is something wrong with him. He needs an honest and realistic partnership with the G-d he thought he had. (You can read about this in "The Doctor's Opinion" at the beginning of the AA Big Book). The program I know says to this person: There is hope, even for you! Just take these steps. (You can read exactly this, at the start of ch. 5 in the Big Book). Yankle, we are talking about your life here.
You also wrote:
"How can I expect Hashem to be good to me, or even provide good for me, if keep on falling to my yetzer harah and defying Hashem?"
Well, see the above (and the Tomer Devorah) to see that Hashem is big enough to be really, really good - even to you. Please see the Heiligeh Divrei Chayim in Vayishlach on the posuk: "vayikra lo keil, elokei yisroel" to see exactly how Hashem takes "revenge" on people like us! Amazing. (It tells my life story all the way through, BTW!)
Again, if you have a love-affair with this "Yetzer Hara" business, good luck. But if you look honestly inside and decide that it's not a Yetzer Hara issue anymore, but rather that something is wrong with you (you are addicted), then consider reading the first couple of chapters in the big book for Bill's story, and then decide if you are just as hopeless as he was. If you are, then we have an answer that may work for you as it does for us.
And you wrote:
"Instead, I have brought this terrible illness of lust upon myself and I feel that until I break it nothing positive will come to me anymore, as I do not deserve it"
More of the same. Maybe you are at fault for bringing this terrible illness upon yourself, maybe not. I don't know. Kaballah seforim have much to say about proclivities, responsibility, bad levushim from one's parents, etc. It is all a complicated and confusing issue really. But it is also irrelevant. What I do know, is that you are calling it an "illness". To me, that is a worthy of a dance, as it may mean that you feel in some way ill, and that it's not just a Yetzer Hara issue. Now, maybe you'll consider that perhaps you are handicapped and stop beating yourself up over it. I truly hope that you will get the help that ill people like you and I need, instead of doing what I did for over ten years; watching my life go down the drain in a valiant struggle against the Yetzer Hara.
You wrote:
"I want to be able to get a relationship with the Ribono Shel Olam".
Bingo - You hit the nail on the head! If this is what you really want, then you'll be OK. But first recognize the relationship that you already have - as above, and learn how to go from there.
You wrote:
"The loneliness gets to be too much for me. I turn only to Hashem and the handbooks for help."
Again, you are obviously a deep and holy Jew, yet you are still lonely. Now how about connecting a little more than you currently are, with other lust addicts? This forum is a nice start, but being in a LIVE chevra and having a human sponsor/role model was indispensable to me.
I love you!
Dov