I came upon this site and it really has helped me but something has been bothering me and I want to get it clearified.

First off, all people affiliated with this site should have the highest level of Beracha and Sheffa'a into their lives so everything that they do will be done with Yira'at Shamayim and Bitachon in HaShem, because I believe that is the highest Beracha one could recieve.

Second is my question, How does one know if one is an addict? Now let me qualify my question. I have read through a couple of weeks of Chizuk emails and people are talking about how they're lives are not functional and they feel it getting in the way of their lives and ruining their marriages and so forth... Now I am not married yet, but in the right time Im Yirzeh HaShem, but for me now the biggest thing, and obviously this is enormous, is that it is an A'aveirah. If I weren't a G-d fearing Jew then I feel like it wouldn't even be an issue. For goyim and sadly secular Jews it is a normal part of growing up, and so I don't have it interfere with my general life (beyond the damage to my Neshamah), I have done it at its worst 1 time a day and when I have it better under control I have gone 2 months without looking at or doing anything. So what I would like to know is, obviously I need help in my struggle against my Yetzer, but I do not feel it is an abnormal Yetzer, like an addict would...now I am going to be honest I do have moments where it is unbearable and feels like it is abnormal, but they are fleeting times so for the most part I have it under control. Am I an addict?

Third, There was an email about marriage not being the solution for an addict, but could it be that it may be for me? I feel like if I have gone before for 2 months without anything then Niddah should be easier and I can definitely deal with that since the rest of the time I can have sex that is a mitzvah! I understand the fact that true sex is about connecting and giving to your wife but Tachlit you will be satisfying your own needs at the same time you can just make sure that you give her the same if not more pleasure than you are recieving.

I just wanted to get some answers and see if I am off track a little, or maybe i'm right on i just wanted some minds to bounce these ideas off of.

Thank you so much,

Bevracha

CheshbonHanefesh

cheshbonhanefesh wrote on 05 Nov 2009 01:29:


Welcome to the Community Heshbon,

First, I want to commend you for having the courage to write a post. The more you express your feelings here to people that care and want to listen to you, the more chizuk and healing you get. By joining this forum, you too recieve your blessing!

Regarding addiction, I think it was Rabbi Twerski that said, (I hope someone corrects me if Im wrong) an addict is one that wants to get rid of ones particular problem (lust, food obsession, gambling, alcohol etc) and cannot and so he/she then continues to act out. A person is not an addict if they are able to quit, those that try, fail and continue are addicts.

I see that you are acquainted with the chizuk lists. Do you have a copy of the 2 free e-book handbooks? These handbooks will help the process of recovery. Are you ready or willing to attempt the 90 day challenge to become free from lust? If so, join the chart. I think you will be doing great staying clean for the whole 90, since you lasted for 2 months.

RE Marriage: Im not the most qualified in that area, Im single too;) Thank Hashem each day for being single. We are truly lucky that He has given us a great opportunity to work on Yiras Shamayim on being shmirat Eynaim/shmirat Ha'Bris. I g
uess to get our zivug we need to thank Hashem many 1,000 times because our wives must "cost" alot of thanking and gratitude! The topic of being free from lust before marriage and whether lust addiction ruins marriages has been discussed in detail and I think it has its own thread. Maybe R' Guard or a moderator can provide you the location of where to get an answer to your question. Either way, the key is to be clean before marriage. Lust addiction is a life long struggle and marriage shouldn't be dissolved because of it. I began reading the book called The Mystery of Marriage by Rav/Kabbalist Yitzhak Ginsburgh. In it, he said one of the keys to a successful marriage and successfully finding a life-partner is to be selfless. I just wanted to share that our lust addiction is caused by being selfishness and haughtiness and if we are selfless and devote our lives and our nashamos to Hashem, we will be free.

Well, thats all the input I got for now.

Shalom,

Giant Leap

Thank you very much thats an amzing beracha




This is how I define an addiction (and so would many people here): If/when you get that urge to go watch that video or website etc., can you hold yourself back every time? Do you automatically give in? Addicts realize that they are powerless to Hashem in this aspect of life. Doesnt mean we are bad people just in this part of life we are COMPLETELY POWERLESS. I would say the fact that you say you are G-d fearing means one of two things: either thats not true because you M**te OR you are an addict and you are powerless. You might be a lower level addict than the rest of us but take that as a Beracha because alot of us are knee deep and would do anything to find someone at your level and shake them to wake them up. The MOST powerfull tool of the Yetzer Hara is rationalizaion. He tells us "cmon youre not addicted. So you act out once in a while that doesnt make you addicted! Everyone needs a break!" Please join the community and you find that your healing process is much more than recovery, its building a connection with Hashem. It cant hurt to try.




Wow you sound exactly like me a few months ago. I am pretty sure somewhere in posts I said something along those lines. "Hey if im going to act out I might as well do it in a kosher way". The problem is an addictred has these images in his head and if one is having relations with his wife while thinking other thoughts, it WILL ruin his sex life with his wife. I would also venture to say that as an addict in recovery, I know that we are never just satisfied with what we had yesterday. We need more and different. We need a new type of P***phy, a more extreme thing to get us on our "high". I think the same would apply for an addict whos married. He would look for other ways to satisfy his need for a new and more extreme high. This might result in a person committing adultery or doing other things behind his wife's back. For proof of this read Bill' Story in the AA book.

Hatzlocha Rabba

-INH

Dear CheshbonHanefesh,

I am the admin of this forum. Welcome to our community! Once you've arrived, there's no turning back. Everyone here will just grab a hold of you and pull you up, up, up!

As far as your question as to what constitutes an addiction, see this article where Rabbi Twerski explains how one can get addicted to this from a single use! Just because someone can go without it for a long time, he is still addicted if specific situations make him feel powerless to resist it even though it goes against his morals and inner desires. See also this page.

Scientific studies have shown that it takes 90 days to change a neural thought pattern that was ingrained in the brain through addictive behaviors. Did you join the 90 day chart on-line? Sign up over here...

As far as DATING goes, see this page and this page.

For more on "Lust in marriage", see Chizuk e-mail #620 on this page.

We get cries for help every day, by e-mail and on the forum. Tzuras Rabim Chatzi Nechama    And that is why we created the GYE handbooks (links below). If you read them well, from beginning to end, slowly, and try to implement what you read, you will find the answers within them to enable you to completely turn your life around. You're worth it.

Also, join the daily Chizuk e-mail lists to get fresh chizuk every day, and post away on this forum. You will get tons of daily Chizuk and support. This disease can't be beat alone. It works best when you get out of isolation!

GuardYourEyes also offers various free anonymous phone conferences, where you can join a group of other frum Yidden, along with an experienced sponsor. See this page for four different options. Our conferences are taking place daily, throughout the week... This would be a tremendous step in the right direction for you and help you learn freedom from this addiction. Not only will you learn the secret of the 12-Steps - which is known to be the world's most powerful program for beating addiction having helped millions world wide, but joining the group will be another way of GETTING OUT OF ISOLATION and connecting with others who are going through what you are.

Let me tell you a little about the two GuardYourEyes handbooks. They lay down the cornerstone and foundation of our work, and they make our network much more effective and helpful for people.

You see, until now, people would often get "lost" when coming to our website, not knowing what tips and techniques to try. For example, a beginner wouldn't jump straight into therapy or 12-Step groups, while on the other hand, someone whose addiction was more advanced wouldn't be helped by the standard tips of "making fences" putting in "filters" etc... So it was essential to develop a handbook which details all the techniques and tools to dealing with this addiction in progressive order. Now with these handbooks, anyone can read through and see what steps they've tried already, and if those steps haven't worked, they can continue on through the handbook where the steps become progressively more powerful and "addiction-oriented".

And the second handbook, called the "Attitude" handbook, can also help anyone, no matter what level of addiction they may have. Often people write in to us saying that had they only known the proper outlook & attitude that we try and share on the GuardYourEyes network when they were younger, they would have never fallen into an addiction in the first place! So we hope that through this handbook, many addictions will be prevented.

The handbooks are PDF files, set up as eBooks, and they have bookmarks and hyper-links in the Index, to make them easy to navigate.

Make sure to read them, they contain a wealth of information on beating this addiction! And I'd love to hear your feedback on them...

Note: You might want to print them out to read away from the computer. Keep in mind though, that if you do this, you won't be able to click on the many web links in the articles. But you can always come back to them later. The truth is, it's anyway good to go through the whole handbook once without clicking on links, just to get an overview of all the tools available. Once you did that, you can start again from tool #1 and read each tool through more carefully, click the links and study each technique and assess whether you have tried it fully yet or not...

Right click on the links below and select "Save Link/Target As" to download the handbooks to your computer.

1) The GuardYourEyes Handbook
This Handbook details 18 suggested tools and techniques, in progressive order, beginning with the most basic and fundamental approaches to dealing with this addiction, and continuing down through increasingly earnest and powerful methods. For the first time, we can gauge our level of addiction and find the appropriate tools for our particular situation. And no matter what level our addiction may have advanced to, we will be able to find the right tools to break free in this handbook!

2) The GuardYourEyes Attitude
The Attitude Handbook details 30 basic principles to help us maintain the proper attitude and perspective on this struggle. Here are some examples: Understanding what we are up against, what it is that Hashem wants from us, how we can use this struggle for tremendous growth, how we can deal with bad thoughts, discovering how to redirect the power of our souls, understanding that every little bit counts, learning how to bounce back up after a fall, and so on and so forth...

May Hashem be with you!

Am I an addict? is an interesting question.
Sort of like... Are we in a recession?
It is interesting that according to economists, one can't really know if there is a recession until it is just about over... so asking "are we in a recession" doesn't really mean much, except if your doing a gov't funded study or writing a paper for school.

My point is... don't worry if you are technically an addict.
As long as you are a warm blooded male homonoid, this area of life needs work!

Later, you can kler, was I an addict, was I not an addict...  :D

kutan

Thank you very much guys, Kutan your succinct definition really clarified it for me, thank you. All your resposes helped me I am on the 90 day chart and getting the chizuk trying to work through the handbooks so with Hashems help I can beat the Yetzer Harah to a pulp. It is extremely tough especially going to University, it makes matters far worse when you are in classes of 500 ppl half being almost naked women. But I guess no matter where I am it is not really an excuse, I have to beat it.

Someone who can go to Uni and still be Shomer Bris is on the level of Yosef Hatzadik!

May Hashem give you strength, my holy Jew!

guardureyes wrote on 08 Nov 2009 11:07:


Ditto and Amen!

Warmest Welcome sweet holy Jew,

Chazak Chazak V'Nischazeik!!

Your Vote for Kedusha encourages and strengthens us all!!

With tremendous respect to a fellow warrior

Noorah