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A Problem Bigger Than Us

Saturday, 24 December 2011

We struggle so hard to "figure" our way out, to try to understand what's happening. But my experience has been that my understanding "availed me nothing" (as the AA saying goes).

Maybe you are beginning to understand that this is a problem that's bigger than you, than you can't fight, no matter how hard you try. Maybe your life has become unmanageable, maybe it feels a little crazy and out of control.

If you have come to that conclusion - that you are powerless over this vicious cycle, and that this whole 'getting clean' business is just too much, then you are, I think, starting to bottom out. You are blessed. Because you are bottoming out "from on top". You're feeling the craziness this addiction puts us through--up, down, clean, falls--and you are getting so upset that you are ready to make a decision to let Hashem restore you to some kind of sanity.

If you want to stop, then you will probably need a lot of fences--filters, accountability partners, SA group, virtual, real, people you can call when you've forgotten and are lost in the hypnotic trance of lust and porn, and when you've forgotten the conviction, the KNOWING that the answer is shtus. And nobody can tell you different in those moments. So thinking and resolve doesn't really help. It has to be as impossible as possible to get to the stuff that's triggering. We need to have people we can call on our phones with one speed dial. Picking up the phone is way easier than struggling for half an hour in front of the screen.

This is such a lot of work. At first. But we have Hashem helping us every step of the way. Yes, even though you are caught in this cycle, you are growing, and He is right there next to you. But to a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish. To a Yid in front of shmutz, the whole world is shmutz, and there's not much room for Hashem. So we need to turn to the phone, to the group, and to our chevra at GYE.

I understand the terrible struggle. We all do. And you will ultimately find your way to the closeness you seek with Hashem. Just keep on struggling. It gets easier. Any sense of clarity I may have, came AFTER I got a little sobriety, Be"H. I don't think most of us get clarity, and then stop.

So just keep on trucking. Just keep struggling. He's right there, right HERE.