You know what we sang this simchas torah? we sang baruch elokeinu shebaranu lechvodo VEHEEVDELANU MEEN HATOIM - WE ARE separate from those that are mistaken!! Hashem separated us from them!! you know what else we sang? ashreinu mah tov chelkainu - how good is our portion!! No one in shul could know what my kavanos were at the times we were singing that - but everyone here knows. It's the first clean simchas torah in my life! I'm feeling so much better at not having to hide from my friends, my rabbi, my chevrusas, my wife, my kids, my work colleagues, who else? anybody on the street who, when they see me, think i 'm a religious jew. but now, i dont have to hide, and it makes life so much better.
Don't we know halacha is for our benefit?? G-d cares for us, and he wants us to do the what's good for us - uvacharta bachaim - choose life, He says in the TORAH. but we have bechirah, and this is the only way that life can make any sense. because without the struggle, there can be no reward.
So, everybody, fight on, and enjoy the results, because this IS what Hashem wanted, and wants for us.
I went to therapy 22 years ago. i had a genius of a therapist who was able to explain to me what my parents had done to me. This took 2 1/2 years. after this, i knew the work was still to be done - the therapy only served to enlighten me on what my life was all about - and enlighten it did! i then 'stumbled' across a group of people running an exercise class for Jews where the people there were much like the people on this site - willing to help a fellow Jew in need, like i was. i wasn't criticized, although i was one of the slowest progressors in the group. my self esteem and self-confidence were lowwww. they helped me build it up. this took me 20-25 years. my self-confidence is still not that great, but it's way more than it was before i started therapy. The porn was ALWAYS there, it 'helped' me feel happy, although temporarily. i would need a 'fix' every so often, just like a drug addiction. of course i knew it was wrong, but it was what i 'needed'. Then for one short second, this site popped up in yeshivaworld.com, and i quickly copied down the URL. that was about 2 1/2 months ago. i was lucky in my life to have 'chanced upon' the people who helped me, and when i found them, i didn't let go. There are so few people like guard, and the others here, that when i saw what was going on here, i knew that i had finally found the help i needed. i started out life very rough, with a traumatic childhood, a holocaust survivor father who was brutal to me, and a very tough young adulthood, but then, 'somehow', i met all the right people. You on this forum have also met the right people, don't let them go, and join that phone group!!! you cant do it alone, it's too powerful a force! this man guard is standing at the top of the mountain pulling us all up - don't you see that?? but, who is pulling HIM up?? I think Hashem gave him special kochos that he has chosen to use for the greater good. But i think that rabbi Twerski is HIS inspiration, and who is rabbi Twerski's inspiration? Years and years of proper mesorah stretching all the way back to avrohom aveenu. Just read rabbi Twerski's books about living each day, etc, and you can see the wisdom of life that he has, and he has also has chosen to use HIS special kochos for the good of klal yisroel. i wish all my friends out there hatzlacha raba from the depths of my heart.
As you may know, the issues i am discussing with you and Elya are much more than just the addiction - it is a matter of finding satisfaction in the things i do so i don't need non-kosher forms of satisfaction, which is all i knew up till now. Now, learning this at 49 is pretty late, most people have it already much much younger. me and Elya talk about these deep issues every week. Elya can relate to my feelings of low self-esteem because he comes from the same place. As i said, if i am successful, i will find out much more than just how to control the addiction. We are discussing the essentials of a happy life here.
Get the whiskey ready for day 90!