dear olam,
after 6 1/2 months i slipped and fell.i WILL move on from here.i have a lot of good training behind me that has become part of me.i will not slide back to the old ways - they are too tumultuous. jack

You'll pull through Jack. You've gone through harder things. I've seen many come and go in my work with people, but you are one guy I don't see ever giving up. I know you'll stick it through until the end. You won't ever leave us, we've become a family.

I want to ask something Jack, and I don't think you ever gave me a straight answer on this in the past. Why don't you look into joining a 12-Step SA group in your area? You trust Rabbi Twerski. And you trust statistics, don't you? The strong, conservative 12-Steps groups have a 75% success rate! The only people who don't succeed there are those who can't be rigorously honest with themselves - through some genetic fault in their minds. But if anyone I know can be rigorously honest, it's you. I guarantee you will come out a different person. The 12-Steps help a person have a spiritual experience. Not a Jewish experience, not a Christian experience, not any religion. It's something that is Shave Lechol Nefesh. It helps you learn how to bring Hashem into your life and turn it around. And by the way, staying clean is not even the goal of the "true 12-Step" groups. Staying clean is an automatic by-product of the life-change you will under-go in these groups.

Please read what I wrote to Ben today, to congratulate him on reaching 90 days. You can see it here. Read the excerpt from the article I posted there. It is very important for all of us to understand.

I think you need this now more than ever Jack. Trust me, you couldn't do anything better for yourself. Please look into this seriously.

Jack,

The Tzadik that falls seven times and gets up....

...remember him?

Well, that Tzadik is YOU!!!

Yup, that's you!

I deal with many people on this site Jack, male and female, strong and weak, depressed and upbeat, chasidish and Litvish, etc. etc.

But, nobody I have ever dealt with is as strong as YOU!

Don't you dare let this incident make you fall off the wagon.

YOU are the wagon driver my dear brother!

If you Chas V'Shalom fall off, the wagon stops!

It simply isn't an option.

Like I told you on Erev Shabbos, turn on "Jack's Niggun" and dance! dance! dance!

Dance your way right into Hashem's embrace.

Jack's Niggun! It's awesome. it's powerful. it's amazing. it's YOU!

Chazak V'Ematz brother Jack!

Dear Jack,[

  I promise you when I say that I B'clal didn't even look at the "fall".  I only saw the "ACCOMPLISHMENT"

Now please read this very carefully.....

In the L'kutei Halachos, hilchos Basar V'chalav, we learn something very important from this halacha.

Basar and Chalav are 2 very different types of foods. Cholov is very light, (easy to digest), i.e. the food of babies. And Basar, is much more difficult to digest, and being flesh, it has alot of the animal's chius in this flesh. However, we are able to eat them, and on a ruchnius level, do the birur required...to separate the good from the bad. However, when we mix the 2 together, we have made a combination that absolutely cannot be fixed. The birur on the chalev, and the basar can only be done alone, BUT, when we mix them, we cannot do the birur. And it is this that gives the "chitzonim", the koach to attach themselves to this combination.

We find in the Torah, where we learn about Basar and Cholov, there is smichus with the possuk teaching us about the Bikorim, the first fruits. What is the first fruits, the bikurim?  It is Chadash, something totally new. Just like a chidush is chadash, and the new month is called Chodesh, because it completely renews itself, so too here, we learn about HISCHADSHUS....to become renewed.

Rabbi Nachman teaches us that we learn from this smichus of the 2 posukim, that no matter what we have done, no matter what kind of improper combination we have put together, (as in the basar V'cholov), no matter what we have created, we have HISCHADSHUS.

This means that in absolutely one moment, I make myself completely NEW. What was....was. I am no longer connected to this improper combination for I have made myself into a totally new creation through the Hischadshus.

We learn from the smichus of these 2 posukim, that no matter what was, what was created, I have the ability to COMPLETELY remove, and separate myself from it. This is what we learn from the smichus of Bikurim to Basar V'Cholov.

(and when the y'h comes to say, look what you did etc...) tell him to go and learn some Torah. Because what you DID, is no longer. It is just that, a DId, a Was, a historical happening that no longer has any connection to you what so ever.

HISCHADSHUS TZADIK.