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Only Frum SA Groups?

Should I be looking for an SA meeting with mostly frum men (there are some)?

Saturday, 31 December 2011

Frankly, I do not understand the yiddin-recovery connection. I am not disagreeing with you, it's just that I do not understand it in my own experience. Here's why:

I am not sober because I am a y'rei Shomayim - if that was enough of a motivation for me then I'd have gotten sober long, long ago! Right? But I didn't.

Rather, the reason I became ready to give up acting out and start living sober was - and (I believe) still is - only because of the same stuff that motivated the goyimI know in recovery: staying sane and alive. Sure, my life was stinky while I was acting out, but the fact that I did not stop means to me that it was not stinky enough for me, yet. It had to get unmanageable. And even that was not really enough, till I recognized it as unmanageable.

So what does the Torah, or other Jews, have anything to do with that?

Sure, being sober and working the steps fits into my Jewishness (and helps it a great deal) - but the sobriety comes first. As long as I am sober, there is room for Yiddishkeit in my life. If I am not sober, there is no room for anything but lies. And, as we know, Chosamo shel HKB"H is Emess. So there is not room for Him, and no room for the real me, either. Just a dead shell of me. Real life is 'on hold' for me.

That having been said, if you feel more comfortable being honest around other yidden, then go find a Jewish meeting! But I would not look for sobriety in their Jewishness. I just do not believe it is there. And I have seen my share of desperate addicts who saw their recovery as a Jewish thing, only to discover that they still needed to have one more layer painfully stripped away from their egos before they were finally ready to drop lust for real - not just to live up to a standard that they held very dear, but for themselves.

One more thing. I believe that many people do not really comprehend how screwed up they really are until they humbly sit through to a few (live) meetings of sober sexaholics - and see their own reflection shockingly reflected back to them. Then the truth about how ridiculous their lives are, finally sinks in. And that's a good thing. No?