Thank you Mr Skep for that heartwarming post. Have a gmar chasima tova!

Thank you Skep, you are a true pleasure to have on board! kol hakavod

Hi, everyone.

I haven't been on here for a while and I guess I owe an explanation.

My wife had a baby a couple of weeks ago. Things were kind of hectic and I didn't really get on. I'm not sure if things started before or after the baby, but while my wife was in the hospital and I was at home, a thought entered my mind and I acted on it, leading to some falling and some more falling.

Some people on here may be surprised by this post since I've been chatting with some of them and didn't let on that I was having trouble. I'm sorry if I misled any of you.

My wife has noticed, she noticed right away, and let me know that she knew. She doesn't have to see what I'm doing or catch me at it. She was able to see how I was behaving. Yet, I still kept at it.

I was able to feel the negative effects it had on me. Hours were flying by. I wasn't getting enough sleep. My relationship with my wife, which had improved drastically over the last several months, was going down the tubes. And yet, a big irrational part of me still wanted to continue.

This is the sickness of addiction. Once a thought is entertained, I am in danger of getting sucked right back in, and that is what happened to me this time around.

With this post, I am committing once again, to protecting myself by not allowing myself to entertain these harmful thoughts. They are really dangerous for me.

I need to stop acting like a little kid, closing my eyes and pretending that nobody else exists. I need to work on fixing my relationship with my wife and with Hashem, and He will help me.

Skeppy,

We love you dearly and have full faith in you.

-Eli

Most important thing first: Mazel Tov on the baby, may he/she be a huge source of nachas to you and all klal yisroel.

Thank you for sharing your struggle with us. Having a new baby is immensely stressful for you but even more for her. It is understandable that as an addict you feel the stress and acted on it. But you need to do your duty as a husband and father. The sleep is hard enough to come by without wasting hours on the computer or wherever.

But I know you can do it and, more importantly, you know you can do it. So remember one day at a time, and enjoy that new bundle of joy in your life.

Eli

Hey skeppy skep,

As they say in Yiddish "A patch mir a patch dir, a bee eech hub der letzteh patch"

Fell shmell, get back up, and KOT!!!

We're all together!!!

Skep,

Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing.

b'hatzlachah

skeptical wrote:


What a great post, sleppy! And Mazel Tov on the new person in your holy family! You are blessed with a good wife, too. OK, so here is a review of what you said and what I read between the lines. Feel free to use it, ignore it, comment on it, or not:

First, the hiding of our slipping/falling behaviors to our wives and to other guys we are 'trying to help with recovery work' feels natural in the moment. It is damaging to you and me in two ways:

1 - Lying is poison to us because it is the only way we can 'hope' to eventually come to even deny it to ourselves! And that would bring on the ultimate peace of mind, no? So it is tempting to hide and lie about our slips even just for that reason alone;

2- Lying and hiding are the one best protection we can use to enable us to keep doing the behaviors. The very fact that we are so uncomfortable with openly declaring exactly what we did and how we did it to the people that know us, is a 'Captain Kirk' moment.

Openly doing the 'suicidal-feeling thing' (to the right people) is the only way to stay clean. There is no easy way out, period. We can hide and keep trying to control/beat it ourselves...same old insanity.

Second, you are growing so much! See how clearly you felt your inner and outer changes. You have graduated from talking about 'yetzer hora' and religious mishegas'n - to realizing that this lusting problem affects you mostly in the Derech Eretz things: the way we interact with family and others, the way we "close our eyes and pretend no one else really exists, let hours fly by, lose sleep hygiene..."

Many people just can't let go of the glory and romance of pretending they are 'foot-soldiers in a great religious battle of Kedushas haBris' - it takes a lot of humility (or humiliation) to face the fact that our greatest issue is that we are just big babies.
"King Baby" AA calls it somewhere in the Big Book. Great figure of speech...and annoying.

OK. So you have grown trememdously, that's poshut. You see your issue will not be answered by 'more mikvah and tikkun klali', and that running to that would be running away from the truth. This is a thing to thank Hashem for expressly in Modim, I think.

And third, you also see that it is not just the Derech Eretz problems that are your issue. Using porn or taking liberties with Shmiras Einayim, holding onto lusting thoughts, laying in fantasy, and touching ourselves in a sexual way - these things themselves have a strange power to make us crazy. They bring on all our immaturity again! They make us nutty. No explanation of exactly how that works is needed. I avoid it at all costs.

Simple acceptance of that fact about me - emunah p'shutah - is precious to me.

I wish you that, and success working on staying open with the right people, and on repairing bridges broken by just connecting rightly with family and others from right now.

You are an inspiration to every one of us, I am sure! Alei v'hatzlach!!

Thanks Skep for sharing

A lot of things ring home here:

Lying and misleading while under the influence

A single thought pulling back into the hole, to a point that we become so irrational that we simply don't see how we waste time/hurt everyone around us ... totally blinding or "acting like a kid"

thanks again for sharing and lots of hatzlacha and nachas from your sun

Thank you Skep for your honesty. Mazel Tov!
after birth is a tough time. but it does get better.
i have you in mind by davening. keep on moving in the right direction.

p.s. say hi to you-know-who

MAZAL TOV Skep, both on the baby and on how far you have come! Thank you so much for your "share"!

I know you will pick yourself up and KOT!

ZemirosShabbos wrote:

You mean He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

Yeah Skep, say hi to him.

And give him a hug, and keep one or two hugs for yourself, you seem to need it...

We love you.

Care to explain?

thanks