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The basic steps

Saturday, 05 May 2012

This was a really great post on our Forum by "battleworn" and I want to share it with everyone:

I've been thinking that the website is really loaded with great advice, but it would probably be helpful to some people to lay down the basic steps. So I'll try to start and I welcome your comments (on the forum).

1) Accept the situation as G-D given, regardless of how you got there. Don't feel bitter or frustrated. The disgusting filth that you find yourself in, is the fertile soil that the real "you" needs to grow from.

2) Accept that there is no quick-fix hocus-pocus solution.

3) Take responsibility to deal with it in any and every way necessary.

4) Establish that you will not give up no matter how many times you chas vesholom fall.

5) Daven to Hashem at least once a day to help you succeed.

6) Stay away from bad places and from unrestricted internet as much as possible. Also keep busy.

Now it starts getting a bit more complicated... (webmaster's note: a competent therapist may be required for the following steps):

7) Figure out if the addiction is just a vicious cycle that feeds on itself (this can be the case even if it was originally started by something else), or, is there a different source of anxiety, depression or whatever, that is feeding it. If you can't figure it out by yourself, get help fast.

8) In the event that there is an outside cause, you need to know if it's just lack of fulfillment (or something similar) which you can tackle by yourself, or is it something deeper that you will need therapy for.

9) Make sure that any therapist that you go to, appreciates the gravity of the sin. It's not necessarily enough that he/she is "frum". (Webmaster's note: It's also not necessarily vital for the therapist to be "frum". Even a non-frum or non-Jewish sex addiction therapist can be made to understand that for "us", any form of sexual acting out or masturbation is a "no-no". They are generally trained to help you work with whatever guidelines you set, according to your standards of morality).

10) In any and every case, the main thing is to break the cycle and never give up.

11) Always beware that the vulgar, despicable, monstrous menuval will try every trick imaginable (and unimaginable)

12) If at all possible, add time and energy to davening and torah learning. Often, that can make the whole difference.

13) Make maximum use of the absolutely fantastic forum as well as the website, and subscribe to the email list.