If you are afraid of hirhurei niuf v'znus, you will have hirhurei niuf v'znus. Drop it in His hands and don;t pick it up. It can lay on the floor wherever you drop it just fine. No need to pick it up to put it in a box. It burns. I have no business touching it.
Those who nebach think of it all as aveiro and evil - gevalt, how do they make it? It's such a big stinking deal! Such a personal challenge! The yetzer hora throws them down the glove!
Better for me and others to see it as just plain stupid.
You want to see it from a "Kodesh" view? OK, then call this perspective living like Odom Kodem hacheit. Lefi the RMB"N Odom saw in terms of emess and sheker - not good and bad. That original way was the way Hashem made us to see things...but he took good and bad da'as into him with the fruit.
Addicts in recovery have no need to see good and bad about their drug of choice. It is just plain stupid. Who eats poison? Who touches fire? Idiots do.
And this is not a game you can outsmart - "Ooh, this is a terrible issur. So I will see it as fire and use this mindset!" It does not often work that way. It all depends on who says it is fire and poison. Is it "Hashem"? Is it "the talmud"? My Rebbe?
That will not work for an addict, at all.
It has to be the addict himself who says it is fire and poison.
And this is for a very simple reason. See, for years we have been saying to ourselves - not with words or conscious beliefs, but with out hearts and actions: "this naked woman is the true gold! This sex fantasy is the true s'choirah!" We repeat acting out over and over so much because we are machshiv it so much - it is so valuable and precious to us. That's why we treat it that way: we keep it secret (tzniyus), we do it over and over (tmidus), we spend money and take risks for it (mesiras nefesh), and we do not give it up. This is not our 'philosophy'. It is just a fact in us. It is yekarah mipninim to our bodies and hearts. And the sooner we get over the shame and the shock and admit that to ourselves to other safe people and to Hashem, the better. If one is truly an addict, he or she must quit blaming it on "the Yetzer Hora" (which is really just a way to blame it on Hashem) and start accpeting the truth about their broken hearts.
Then we can start to say to ourselves: "But now I see that it is poison for me. Now I see how it is ruining my life. It's fire for me. I see how using it burns me and catches on to other things and destroys my relationships and my sanity." To do this requires a 1st step. Writingout all the ways we act out our lust from the very first memory till the last time we used our drug of choice. All the variations of crazy behavior we do when we act out our lust. Then find a safe person to reveal all of that to. All of it. Afterward, admit it all to Hashem.
When we know it is fire because we say so, there is still no guarantee - but at least there is hope that we will let it go for now and do that again every time we are tempted to pick it back up. It may always remain right there on the floor where we left it...we do not have to touch or rearrange it. Respect it. It is a fire. I cannot afford to touch it, so I remain sober for today, be"H.
- Dov
