hope613 wrote on 24 Sep 2012 10:33:


Dear hope613
I PMd you the therapist info in Jerusalem you asked me for, chaver.

Let me know what happens,

Dov

I wrote a few days ago that I think I'm getting too involved here and need to take a break. Well, I guess I'm sort of back pretty quickly. And sicker than ever. The past few weeks have shown me very clearly that the "Alex-style" simple powerlessness approach based on steps 1-2-3, although it works wonders and is helping me to grow a ton, it isn't enough to get me sober. I guess I'm too sick. I've been listneng to Joe and Charlie online, although they teach a lot, it hasn't gotten me sober. More that once I listened to them and immediatley after spent a half hour searching desperatly for one picture of a woman in a bathing suit (that's all I can find with my awsome filter, B"H), and then masturbating my brains out, maybe even 3 times in one hour. I'm completley powerless over this.

And it's hard for me to feel all and every day that my life has gone to insanity, because all of the above doesn't happen very often, and I know it's happening now mainly to lack of structure, so why not just continue. That's not true, cause eventually it'll kill me, but since I'm not porning for real or anything like that, it's hard to feel it always. Ant the avaira is soooo horribly נעשה לו כהיתר that it can't stop me for anything.

Basically, I'm hoplessly addicted to lust and cannot stop by myself. So I must join SA, I don't want to for ten million reasons, but I don't have a choice. I have to do much more real live things and changes if I want to get better. And theres nothing else I want more. Not for religios reasons so much, those won't last too long, but rather cause I don't enjoy being sick and getting sicker, much like all other sick people. You know why? Cause it hurts.

Gut Moed.

Hi Chaim,

The reason you are binging (3 times an hour) is because your powerless approach makes you even more vulnerable. You are not actually powerless, you just tell yourself that you are because you can't conceive of yourself as a deliberate sinner. But once you cross that bridge you can stop sinning.

Go ahead and try SA if you like, because sobriety is number one, but I am pretty sure you can use cognitive methods if you want.

Saying "I must join SA" is a nice thing to do. But action is the only thing that brings change. Deciding to marry somone carries no halachik meaning. Deciding to buy something does nothing. Only making a kinyan accomplishes anything. You are trying - now may you reach out and find all the friendship, understanding, and help you need.

Hatzlocha, man.

Maybe I should have been clearer. I found out when and where are the meetings, the next one is several days after Yom Tov - and I plan on being there.

You were 100% fine, CC - I was just being annoying, as usual. Hatzlocha with the meeting, and please - make sure to have a nice time there. If they do not laugh at all through the entire meeting let me know...I'll send the meeting a box of puffy red noses to wear the next time. 8)

Have a geshmakeh clean day!

Chaim,

Do you know the story of Rav Amram Chasida?

The one at the end of Kiddushin? What's the connection?

I just wanted to point out that although he was a chasid and rightly so there were probably other things he wanted to do with his life besides going down in history as the pro of sobriety and recovery.

An amazing man - though he was pretty obviously not an addict in any sense of the word, he saw himself in danger of being nichshol...and chose taking real action to stop - embarrassing action. Even though it would surely be a big chillul Hashem! A point many overlook in that story. He was the opposite extreme of 'R' Elozor ben Durdayoh, who was already known as a world-class philanderer and womanizer (and probably an addict). But both said to themselves that recovery depends 100% and only on me taking action, "ein hadovof tolui ella bee".

Yet how many guys say "I can't go to a meeting with my yarmulka on/using my real first Jewish name my friends, family or wife uses for me - for it would be such a chillul Hashem!" Disguise?

Rav Amram was the poster-man for the fact that the real [/b]chillul Hashem is doing an avero - not 'making a bad impression on the neighbors'. Gevalt, how we have fallen...the face we show is so much more precious to us than who we really are! Gevalt.

Sadly, as long as we disguise ourselves, we do not get better. It's like a jinx. For that's what we have been doing all along, isn't it? Disguise and pretend we were 'just fine' to everyone who really counted. Gevalt. The isolation was so painful.

But CC, you are letting go of that now and taking some real action - so hatzlocha, man!

Yasher Koach for making this important decision.
When I first started (here) on my journey to sobriety, I also didn't want to join SA for a bunch of reasons, one of which was time. So I came up with a way to get sober on my own, based on proven, mainstream recovery techniques. If you give me a proven system, generally I can work it.

But the agreement I had with myself was that I would do whatever it took to get sober. So if my way didn't work, I would go with SA. Fortunately for me, I have remained sober. Later on, I learned more about not just sobriety, but being in recovery. I share what worked for me here because it does work for some.

I'm in a little bit of a different boat. I was an active addict for over 30 years. I am married, and really do have a wonderful life. I just wasn't able to enjoy that life because the only thing I wanted, my only pleasure, was to lust.

In a way I'm a little jealous of the guys who attend SA meetings. They have a richness to their recovery which I don't have. Heck, I don't even know any other addicts except for the few guys I've spoken to from GYE, and we never met. I'm sure they're here in my home town....

Ah well. Hatzlocha. Wishing you real recovery.

Alex

Thanks, Alex. I have tremendous gratitude to you, starting almost a year ago with your reply to my first post here. Your'e sound advice really got me on the path to (I hope) recovery.

I'm not as self-controlled as you, and much younger and less hit-bottomed, perhaps that's why I need to do more things to get the ideas to sink in.

Chaim

Tonight's my first SA meeting. I'm a bit nervous, but I desperatly need to do way more for my recovery, maybe this will be a big step. I have been seriously trying to apply recovery concepts for over half a year, and although I have grown tremendously from it all - I have learned that I have a problem and am powerless over it and that Hashem really does help when I want Him to, I am still a long way from lasting sobriety.

This last month I have been very sick, not clean for more than one week (i.e. masturbated last around 2 hours ago), gotta do something about it. Big time.

It's normal to be nervous. I hope this is one of those meetings with other frum people, but even with goyim it's okay. Just be honest and by the end of the meeting you are going to feel like you can't wait to go back.

Thanks, Nederman. It truly was an experience. I plan to go back.

I'll be off the forum now for a while, so I wish everyone all things good.

Chaim